 Respect the limitations of your body. If you want to enjoy Yoga don't push too hard or try to go beyond your body’s natural capacity. This will help you to avoid injury. There is no need to compete with anyone, not even yourself. Approach Yoga very gently to begin with, you can always go to deeper into a stretch with more practice and experience.
Try to do Yoga in a relaxed manner, don't move abruptly, or you may pull a muscle .Yoga is not a competitive sport; the purpose is to keep you as fit, flexible, and relaxed as possible.
Always wear loose, comfortable clothing and remember to remove glasses, contact lenses and jewellery before you begin.
During the Yoga session breathe through your nose rather than your mouth and try to keep your mind focused on your breath.
Each body has its good points and limitations. Most of us are strong in some ways and supple in others. Factors such as the time of day also make a difference; your muscles are always stiff in the morning, as they are hardly used while you sleep.
The number of repetitions or the time spent on the postures should be increased very slowly and gradually.
Please remember that progress is faster when you take it slowly. This may seem like a contradiction, but it is absolutely true. Never force any movement - Yoga is intended to 'un knot' you, not to tie you up in knots.
To get the most out of anything we undertake, we need to understand fully why we are doing it and how it can help us.
Yoga postures are based on the three basic human postures of standing, sitting, or lying down. But they are not a series of movements to be followed mechanically. They have a logic which must be internalized if the pose is to be practised correctly.
If you have heart disease, high blood pressure, detached retina , weak eye capillaries, problems with your ears that could be exacerbated by extra pressure or are pregnant or menstruating , don't do the inverted postures such as the Headstand and Shoulderstand, but you can lie with your feet up against the wall.
If you have arthritis, be gentle with yourself until you find out what works best for you, you may need to adapt a posture, use cushions or hold on to something to support you
If your back is vulnerable, be careful when you do the backbends. Starting gently you will fill find that, along with other postures, they will aid the recovery of your back by improving the tone and flexibility of surrounding muscle tissues.
During menstruation avoid inverted postures and pulling the abdominal muscles in and out.
If you have high blood pressure you need to be careful with breath retention. Only retain the breath for a very short period
The practice of Yoga aims at overcoming the limitations of the body. Yoga teaches us that the goal of every individual’s life is to take the inner journey to the soul. Yoga offers both the goal and the means to reach it.
Before beginning Yoga please understand that the various postures are designed to open and release the various tight areas of your body gradually. It may take you a while before you can do them all with ease. Be patient. Take your time. Enjoy the process. Keep in mind that the poses are not destinations, nor are they strange contortions to force yourself into for some esoteric purpose. They are part of an ongoing process of self-exploration and self-healing. Each individual pose is a map into a specific area of yourself, and where you are in the pose is the pose for you. Immersing yourself in the process is the important thing. That's what's interesting, not the achievement of elaborate postures, involvement in the process will yield the results you desire
Yoga is a matter of doing what you can at any movement, of being aware of what you are doing, of building strength and endurance, and of gently working out the tight spots. But whether you are more flexible than you were yesterday is not the point. Where you are in the pose will vary each time you practice. The idea is to start calmly wherever you are and progressively work toward deeper movements by practicing the intermediary steps that lead you to the final pose.
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