yoga - Swim Sky Breathe

I started practising yoga around four years ago.

At first, it was purely a form of physical exercise for me. I absolutely hate gyms and machines and the pounding, sweaty vibe you find there, which I’m not dissing at all – it just isn’t me. I wanted something that would make me strong and toned and flexible, but that could also be slow and gentle and thoughtful.

Since then, yoga has evolved into a much more holistic practice for me, and has become more than a form of exercise. Here I thought I’d share eight things about yoga I’ve learned along the way.

It’s more or less free, though a good yoga mat helps. Yoga is a very inclusive activity. And although you can splurge a fortune on Lululemon leggings – which are admittedly fab – and expensive clothing, it can just as easily be done in a pair of leggings and t shirt. My main tips for clothing are to have clothes that fit, which means leggings that don’t slide down and need yanked up every minute during your practice, a top that isn’t too tight or so loose that your head disappears inside it when you go into down dog, and a decent mat. I started off with a very cheap £9.99 mat and it just got slippy and uncomfortable after a few months. A slightly more expensive one – which was £30 – was made of better quality material and doesn’t have me sliding all over the place, as well as having lasted two years and counting.
You can see results so quickly if you practice. I don’t just mean results in terms of the appearance of your body and increased strength, but in how quickly you can go from being absolutely hopeless at a pose to nailing it. When I started out, bakasana pose, or crow, was something that I watched other people in my class do, open mouthed. I couldn’t even fathom how anyone could lift themselves off the floor even for a second like that without face planting. But I was determined to try. A month, daily practice, and several face plants later, I managed to lift myself a couple of centimetres off the ground for maybe one second. And that was it! I kept practising, and now I can bakasana with confidence for a good thirty seconds. Headstand was the same – the sheer exhilaration I felt after two years of practise and finally kicking off into a perfect straight headstand was unbeatable.
The physical poses are only one part of yoga. Yoga, meaning ‘yoking’ or ‘union’ in Sanskrit, has eight limbs, that represent its central practices from the outer world to the inner. Asana – the postures practised in yoga – represent the third limb – and yoga is as much about spirtuality as it is about the physical practice. It’s fine if you want to focus just on that part of yoga – there’s no right or wrong approach. But it’s respectful to be aware of the bigger picture in yoga, and it will enrich your practice if you commit to learning more about the other limbs of it.
You never regret taking time out to do yoga. Sometimes you’re tired, or grumpy, and you just want to stay in bed and scroll through Instagram. But yoga, like outdoor swimming for me, is rarely something you come out of feeling worse (see point 5 for the exception here!). If you set aside time for yourself to practice yoga – even ten minutes if there’s too much going on – your body and mind will always feel better for it. So when you can’t be bothered, or you’re feeling low, remember to tell yourself that. Your future self will thank you for taking the time out to do a little yoga.
But, following on from 5, don’t set yourself up for disappointment by doing it when there’s too much else going on. There are exceptions to four. If your kids are being noisy, or you’re stressed because the guy downstairs has been blasting out his music since 6am, or next door are having a kitchen put in and the banging is driving you mad, there’s a good chance that’s going to come in to your yoga practice unless you’ve truly mastered the art of focusing solely on the moment and what’s going on with you, your mind and your body. And if you can’t focus, or you’re being interrupted by your five year old every two minutes, it’s likely you’re just going to end up more stressed than before. Set aside time for yoga – but only if you know you’re able to do it without noise and interruption.
We should respect yoga’s roots and its cultural heritage. This might be the most important point of all. Cultural appropriation is something that’s been talked about a lot in the yoga community in recent years, and rightly so. It’s important to acknowledge that there’s far more to yoga than Instagram headstands and expensive designer leggings. Yoga is estimated to be at least 2500 years old, having originated in India, and has deep spiritual and cultural roots. Many of the items that you see in yoga studios as decoration have important religious and cultural significance – so it’s inappropriate to wear a pair of leggings with Ganesh on them, or for your yoga studio to use items with spiritual significance as a decoration in the bathroom. Yoga has a rich history which it’s important to honour.
You can do yoga anywhere – well, mostly anywhere! I’ve stood on my head on the tops of mountains, planked on beaches and enjoyed the feeling of Shavasana (corpose pose) in quiet green spaces. Whenever you find a quiet, flat space, where you feel safe to do a little yoga, and you’re not bothering anyone else, go for it! But just to repeat – make sure it’s safe!
Yoga is a gentle activity but you can injure yourself if you don’t do it right. I ended up injuring my rotator cuff in January of last year with a poorly positioned side plank that I held for far too long even when my arm was screaming for me to stop. I’ve heard of people seriously injuring their necks doing headstands. Learn how to do the poses properly, either with an instructor or using online teaching, and if it hurts, STOP.

Tag: yoga

Eight things I’ve learned about yoga