Photo by Carl Barcelo
Many years ago, one October day, I decided to do something a little different, I was going to teach myself a little about Yoga. I picked up a quality book on Yoga and a DVD at my local library to familiarize myself with Yoga and Yoga poses, positions. I also re-read the exclusive Yoga articles wriiten by professionals that have been published on my website over the many years.
My experience and knowledge is with weight training and sports in general, but I feel that cross training Yoga with any exercise activity can be very beneficial and a good change of pace for any athlete or beginner no matter what ability.
To see how I did, I filmed several poses and positions that I performed. It's actually a good idea to film oneself when beginning any new exercise activity. By having it all on video, you can see your form and technique. You get a much better idea of what you are doing well and any mistakes that you are making. From my video I can see the mistakes in form and technique that I have made and subsequently I am now able to correct them. For this reason, I have decided to include this video on this website as a teaching tool instead of a polished and perfect video. Also, I have only included a few random Yoga poses from the many that I tried. These are the ones that I like to do and that I feel are excellent either as stretches or strengthening exercises.
Although I have done a little Yoga in the past, it’s still very new to me and quite a learning experience. I also feel that by doing Yoga, it can complement any sport and is ideal for any age group and gender.
Here are some of the poses and movements that I have included in the video. They range from very basic to more advanced poses and included in no particular order.
The video begins with the Cat's Pose. It's a great warm-up exercise that stretches your back muscles.
With Rihanna's Umbrella song playing in the background, I begin the Cat's pose by getting on my hands and knees with arms, palms under my shoulders and at shoulder width.
Next, inhale, contract your abs and round your back while bringing your head up. In the video I did this pose well but I should have rounded my back a little more.
For the next movement, exhale, release your abs, arch your back and raise your head. From the video, I see that I should have arched my back a lot more.
The next Yoga exercise is the Warrior Pose which is great for strengthening your legs and back and stretching your groins.
The Warrior Pose is then followed by a group of 3 different poses including the popular Plank Pose, the much tougher and challenging pose called the Chaturanga Pose and a modified and much easier version of the Chaturanga Pose where you keep your knees on the floor.
The Warrior, Plank and Chaturanga poses are also explained in the Toning Up With Yoga positions article.
The final series of poses is the Side Lateral Stretch and the Full-length Stretch.
I created this learn Yoga webpage on my website to show you how I went about teaching myself a little about Yoga. Of course it's preferable and much easier and better to be instructed by a qualified Yoga instructor but if you wish to teach yourself Yoga and do it from your home or office, it's not difficult to do, it just takes time. There are many quality DVDs and books on Yoga to choose from with complete Yoga workouts. Just remember that with any exercise, it is important to pay attention to form and technique and it will take practice and several workouts to master.
This is just an amateur's attempt at Yoga, but I also have a number of excellent and conicse Yoga articles written exclusively for my website by professionals:
