A Beginner's Guide To Yoga: Benefits, Poses & More

Over the past few decades, interest in modern versions of the ancient practice of yoga has skyrocketed. Studios have popped up everywhere, and form-fitting "yoga pants" or leggings have become as popular as jeans. But even so, many Americans haven't tried the practice yet. If you're one of them, here's what you need to know to get started. 

Most American yoga schools today place most emphasis on just the physical component of the practice rather than other areas that focus on mind, breath, and inner self. Susanna Barkataki, the founder of Ignite Yoga and Wellness Institute who runs Honor Yoga Trainings, says she believes that this incomplete version of yoga waters down its power. "A practice that is meant to be liberating is reduced in its capacity to be so," she says.

Dianne Bondy, yoga teacher and author of Yoga for Everyone: 50 Poses for Every Type of Body, has seen yoga's positive impact firsthand. Thanks to the practice, her students are able to excel under pressure. Yoga teaches that "when there's chaos going on around us, we can focus on something singular and bring a sense of peace to ourselves," Bondy says. "The practice of concentration helps students to be more successful at whatever they do." 

Whereas Emily Harding, founder of The Yoga Yeh Co., recommends hatha yoga because it allows newcomers to "learn the basics of the postures, take it slow, and move carefully." Another way to test the waters is trying out the best yoga apps.

Going to your first yoga class can be intimidating. One way to feel more prepared is to get familiar with a few of the main poses beforehand. Here are the essentials:

These two poses are usually combined as part of a warm-up. To do them, start off on hands and knees. For cow pose, arch your back, articulating through your spine as you do so, and look up. To do cat pose, move your back in the opposite direction, round it, and look down. 

The starting point for yoga sun salutations is tadasana, mountain pose. To do it, stand tall with your feet together, arms by your sides, abdominal muscles engaged, and gaze straight ahead. 

Adho mukha svanasana, downward-facing dog, is common in many yoga sequences. To get into it, start off on hands and knees, and then pull your hips and knees up, so your body forms an upside-down "V" shape, similar to the one that dogs make when they're stretching. Harding advises not to worry about "mastering" this posture before your first class, as it's one "teachers should help their students with."

What do you do if you get to your first yoga class and you're exhausted during the flow? There's a pose for that. Child's pose, balasana, is a resting posture that you can take at any point during class if you need it. To do it, start on hands and knees, then pull your seat back toward your heels, stretch your arms forward or along your sides, and allow your head to rest on the ground. 

Deep breathing isn't a pose, but it's crucial to executing any posture. "Learning how to breathe would be the first place to start," Bondy says. Many yoga styles use ujjayi, a deep, slow, audible breathing through the nose. 

Harding says that two cork yoga blocks, like these from Manduka, can be helpful to find more stability and proper alignment. But if you don't have blocks, no worries, you can always use books as a stand-in. 

In fact, the whole point of the physical practice was to "make the body supple enough to be able to sit upright in a meditation seat for hours on end," Harding says.

The combination of breathwork, meditation, and movement can improve yogis' physical and mental health. No matter our limitations, all of us can use these practices in one form or another. According to Harding, "If you can breathe, you can do yoga."