Easy Basic Yoga Exercises for Beginners

For a lot of people when they hear Yoga, the image that pops in their minds are those of the advance Yoga students that are already well into near levitation poses, posing like exotic birds with bodies contorted every which way in their pictures and almost floating. Those images are what scared them to try Yoga even if they very much want to get the benefits that Yoga brings. Don’t be like them, read and be enlightened, for that is the very main purpose of Yoga-enlightenment.

All of the stretching poses you do every day as you go about doing your tasks are all yoga poses. Standing, stretching your arm to reach the ingredients in the cupboard, bending to wipe the spilt milk from the floor and sitting while doing some things that make you stretch your hands away from your body are all Yoga poses. What is lacking with the actions you do as you go about living your daily life is the awareness of your mind about the actions. You stand and you know you are standing, but are you aware of the sensations that standing does to other parts of your body’s anatomy? Is the numbness on your ankle as you stand for way too long on one position gets you to notice and grab your attention away from what you are presently busy with? Sometimes yes, but most of the time no. And there’s where Yoga poses advances, from the simply common place every day routine to dramatically great holistic exercise.

Before you put yourself wholly into those exotic stretching’s and contortions here are a few simple basic Yoga poses to help prepare your body and mind for the more advance poses. These simple poses open the mind’s awareness of physical actions, connecting mind and body, honing the subconscious to become responsive with the physical positions, thereby aligning body and mind.

Beginners Basic Yoga Poses

• Standing Poses – Number 1 on the lists of every Yoga class is the Downward Facing Dog – Adho Mukha Svanasana. When seen by the inexperienced it is an easy pose. Don’t be fooled, standing pose is the most tiring of all the poses that were set by Yoga standards for beginners to learn first. Standing poses are usually performed at the start of every yoga class for warm ups.
• Core Strength Poses – normally called balancing poses, tree pose Vrksasana are important in beginners’ routine for this build up their core strength in preparation for the more advanced poses. Difficult? Yes, but constant practice will improve your chance of making this pose perfect.
• Back Bends – gently introduced through soft flex and extend stretches of the spine, the bridge pose Setu Bandha Sarvangasana may looked hard to do at first but this pose is great for increasing fitness of the spinal column and endurance. Constant and regular practice will always make anything perfect, including Yoga back bends.
• Staff Poses – is one of the poses performed while seated to stretch hamstrings and hips. These poses are normally done with an additional support under your bottom like a block or a blanket folded to provide bulk. These poses usually are done to wrap up a Yoga class. Staff pose Dandasana is one fine example of Yoga seated poses.
• Rest Poses – are necessary for cooling down during a Yoga class break. This continues the winding down started by the seated poses especially the hamstring and hips stretches and the soft spine backbends and flexes. Child’s Pose is the easiest of these poses.

Performing the first pose:

Downward Facing Dog is a standing, transition and resting pose all rolled into one. This stretches the whole body and is performed in frequent intervals in almost all Yoga routines.

• Crouch down on the floor with knees under the hips and the hands outstretched as support of the upper body, position wrists under the shoulders.
• Raise your hips by pushing back and unbending the legs, then open your hands and splay the fingers then gently let your weight rest on your forearms and into your fingertips.
• Bring your arms to face forward with elbows pointing backwards spreading your collarbones. Shoulders pulled backwards by moving the shoulder blades more to the direction of your hips and not to your head pointing to your ears allowing your head to hang.
• Now transfer the weight from your arms to your quadriceps, allow your body to adopt this stage as your standing resting pose.
• Drop your heels to the floor and bring your thighs in, by keeping your bottom high, and distance from feet and hands has to be checked. You can check the distance from your feet to your hands by dropping down into plank pose. The correct distance between the two supports need to be the exact distance to avoid accidents and allow your weight to rest comfortably on your supporting limb.

The rest of the poses are progressions from standing pose, continuing stretching and flexing into another slightly complicated poses. Equipping your body for the more advance and the more complex poses. The most important thing is that you learn to become conscious of the pulling and the stretching, slowly reshaping your body and mind into a connection and making you generally aware of the alignment of your body’s posture whenever a position engage your body.