What is the difference between yoga and exercise? What do beginners need to know when practicing yoga at home? You can read about it here: https://www.julianalucky.com/post/peppa-pig-lovers-how-tall-is-peppa-pig.
The practice of yoga has its own peculiarities. There are a number of nuances that distinguish yoga from other types of exercise.
Awareness. A yoga class usually begins with five minutes of meditation. Sit with a straight back as you feel comfortable, you can do it in Turkish, lotus or heel position.
Close your eyes. Tune in to the practice, decide for the next half hour to devote your attention to your development without any distractions. When thoughts of problems and everyday life come to you during the yoga practice, calmly promise yourself that you will pay attention to them in half an hour, but right now your attention belongs to the practice. To practice mindfulness, yoga classes are usually combined with meditation. Read also an in-depth article on what meditation is and how to learn to meditate from scratch.
Breathwork. The foundation of yoga is breath control. When you become aware of your breath and begin to control it, an ordinary physical workout becomes yoga. The breath has to be deep and calm. The basis of yogic breathing: a full inhale and full exhale. Breath cycles are measured and equal to each other in time. You can use a metronome when you begin practicing yoga. Download any app with a metronome on your smartphone, set the frequency to 1 second. Choose a suitable frequency of breaths and exhalations. For example, inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 6 counts. The exhalation is usually longer than the inhalation, or the exhalation is equal to the inhalation. Choose a breathing pattern that suits you, so that there is no discomfort or shortness of breath during the performance of asanas. Try not to stray from the initially set rhythm during the practice. Breath control is an essential part of yoga. Without conscious breathing, the asanas will be an ordinary exercise without much effect. Even stretching won’t improve much.
But working with the breath in the asanas is a full psychophysical workout. Regardless of whether you want to lose weight, gain weight, improve stretching – learn to control your mind and body through the breath, and the effectiveness of conventional exercise will increase markedly.
Relaxation or lack of unnecessary stress. Classical hatha yoga is the practice of alternating in different unusual poses called asanas. Each asana lasts 2 to 3 minutes. From the outside it may seem that the practitioner just holds the pose and that’s it. But in fact, the outside work is only a small part of the yoga practice. You already know that a yoga practitioner doesn’t just stand, sit or lie in an asana. At the very least he’s trying to keep his attention on the workout, not letting his mind drift into thoughts of problems and daily activities. And plus, the practitioner controls his breathing by taking equal deep breaths and exhalations.
Now let’s add another element to the practice without which yoga is not yoga. When we do asana, we look very carefully at the way our body feels. What’s the purpose of that? Our job is to learn how to control the tension and relaxation in the body. We have to keep our muscles tight enough to keep the position of the body in asana. You have to get rid of all the extra tension, you have to get rid of all the parts of the body that can relax in asana. The fact is that we very often hold unnecessary tension because of stress, fears, unpleasant emotions. Over time, this tension becomes chronic and leads to illness and bad posture. When we do yoga, we gradually find these unnecessary tensions in the body and release the tension. As a result, mental clamps, phobias, insecurities and depression go away. Thus, yoga improves not only the body but also the psyche, improves mental well-being and emotional background.
By combining these four elements of inner work, you will turn ordinary physical postures into yoga asanas and achieve your goals much faster, whether it’s to lose weight or just improve your physical shape and health.