Beginner yoga classes help you build strength and flexibility. If you practice regularly, it can improve your overall health and well-being.
When choosing a beginner yoga class, check the teacher and class description. Beginner-friendly classes will often offer props like bolsters, straps, or pillows to help you get into poses comfortably.
Slow Flow
Often less physically demanding than other yoga styles, slow flow can be a great choice for beginner yogis who want to focus on their alignment and breath. Poses are held for longer durations than in more energetic flows, giving students time to connect with their bodies and explore their physical and emotional states.
This gentle style can be a fantastic way to reduce the stress hormone cortisol in the body. Taking more time in each posture and creating space to move mindfully can bring the mind back into balance, reducing jitteriness and allowing for a calm, balanced experience.
Hatha
Yoga is becoming increasingly popular worldwide and for good reason – it’s a great way to boost your fitness and get an effective full body workout, whilst also improving your mental health. There are many different styles of yoga out there, though, and it can be difficult to know which one is right for you.
The most common form of yoga practised in the West is Hatha yoga. It’s a slow and calm style that offers a great place to start for beginners and helps build your strength, flexibility, and balance.
Once you’ve warmed up, the instructor will lead you through a series of poses that can vary in difficulty. If you have any issues with a particular pose, your instructor should be able to offer you a modification that suits your abilities. One of the most important aspects of yoga is breath control, known as pranayama. This is emphasised throughout a Hatha class and is a great way to help you relax and focus your mind.
Vinyasa
The flowing postures of Vinyasa yoga link movement with the breath, boosting both strength and flexibility. This dynamic style of yoga also requires balance, which can be built through a variety of poses and movements.
Vinyasa can feel challenging at first, but the synchronizing of movement with the breath provides a steady focus. An inhalation expands the belly and ribs, while an exhale contracts them. This builds strength throughout the body, as well as increasing lung capacity and creating internal heat.
Vinyasa yoga can also help reduce stress and anxiety. It can help you connect with your body and quiet the mind, bringing you back to the present moment. The repetition of postures and the calming breath can create a sense of peacefulness that extends beyond your mat into daily life.
Yin
Yin yoga is a slower-paced style of yoga where postures are held for longer periods of time—as long as five minutes or more. This creates the opportunity to allow any emotions, thoughts or feelings that are suppressed to come up and release into the body. It takes practice to remain still with them and observe them, rather than getting caught up in them. It costs the body energy to keep things suppressed, and it gives the body an opportunity to release them, which can be a powerful experience.
Each pose in a yin yoga class will bring tension or compression to a different area of the body, for example caterpillar pose (similar to Paschimottanasana in an active class) lengthens and strengthens the back muscles while butterfly pose shortens the hip flexors. A yin yoga class is great for beginners because you don’t need to push yourself past your limits. You may feel discomfort, but this will subside if you can remain still and relax into the pose.