Ashtanga Yoga is a type of yoga focused on exercising, and it was made popular by K Pattabhi Jois around the early 20th century. He studied it along with his teacher, T. Krishnamacharya, but he is the one who refined it and created the Ashtanga Yoga sequence we know today.
It originates from hatha yoga, but it focuses a lot more on exercising and memorizing a specific set of movements that link together different poses. When you study Ashtanga Yoga for beginners, your primary focus is on understanding and mastering the yoga poses, along with their order.
What makes Ashtanga Yoga different?
Before you delve into Ashtanga Yoga Singapore classes, it’s very important to understand its key principles. There are 5 main principles you have to focus on when you start doing Ashtanga Yoga for beginners.
- Ujjayi pranayama is a very specific breathing technique that’s unique to Ashtanga Yoga. You have the victorious breath that’s slow, audible breathing. It can help you energize and warm up but also increase your concentration levels. As you become more advanced in Ashtanga Yoga, you will have access to more complex breathing techniques like Dirga pranayama, Bhramari pranayama, or Bahya Pranayama.
- Bandha, also known as body locks, is very important because you want to be engaged and seal your energy to maintain very good core stability.
- You should also learn Vinyasa, a practice that helps you synchronize your breath with the current exercise. Adjusting the breath to match the current pose is one of the core ideas when it comes to learning the Ashtanga Yoga sequence as a beginner.
- Dristhi are focal points and these are used for every asana. You can focus more on meditation and enhance its power, something that will help you boost your Ashtanga Yoga benefits.
- When you learn Ashtanga Yoga for beginners, you want to make sure that you establish a daily practice routine. You will need to perform Ashtanga Yoga on a daily basis while taking Sunday as a rest day.
What are the benefits of Ashtanga Yoga?
Ashtanga Yoga is very good if you want to perform an intense, healthy workout. It focuses on meditation, poses, and breathing. Thanks to that, it can help boost your balance and enhance your breathing, but it will also make you more flexible.
On top of that, the benefits of Ashtanga Yoga also include mental clarity, stress relief and lowering your blood pressure. Due to its intensity, it can help you keep your weight under control, and it might even boost your stamina levels. The fact that you can be calmer, alleviate stress, and prevent anxiety is also something to consider as well.
Ashtanga Yoga sequence of poses
When you attend yoga classes in Singapore and focus on Ashtanga Yoga, it’s very important to check out the Ashtanga primary series. The primary series is comprised of 75 postures.
- The opening sequence is mostly focused on salutations, and it features Surya Namaskara A, along with poses like Padangusthasana or Padahastasana.
- After that, we delve into the primary series main sequence. Here, you have more than a dozen poses, including Dandasana, Paschimottanasana, Purvottanasana, Bhujapidasana, Supta Kurmasana, and many others. The role of these poses is to help work on specific body parts. Some will focus on your back, others on your legs, but many of them will focus on targeting the entire body.
- You then have the finishing sequence, which includes poses like Urdhva Dandasana, Pincha Mayurasana, Karandavasana, etc.
- The closing sequence has simpler poses like Balasana, Padmasana, or Uttpluthih. These are designed to be a lower-impact finish to the Ashtanga Yoga primary series.
Ashtanga Yoga: tips for beginners
As you get started with Ashtanga Yoga Singapore classes, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- You should start with shorter holds when you have classes like Ashtanga Yoga for beginners. Then, you can follow the Ashtanga Yoga sequence and gradually increase the difficulty of these holds.
- Use props; they can help you with the alignment. These props can also help you deepen the pose as you become more advanced.
- Try to breathe smoothly and hold that breathing technique for as much as you can.
- Listening to the body is essential when you perform Ashtanga Yoga. All Ashtanga Yoga classes in Singapore are meant to be healthy and fun. That means you shouldn’t force yourself to go through pain or discomfort. If you reach such a point, that means it’s crucial to dial back the intensity of these exercises.
Conclusion
Ashtanga Yoga is an exceptional, intense type of yoga that can help you stay in shape while boosting your strength. It can also help you become more flexible as you increase your mental focus and acuity. If you want to stay healthy and take care of your mental health, then it’s a good idea to embark on Ashtanga Yoga for beginners. Not only will it help you create a habit of exercising daily, but it will also help you remove pressure, stress, and anxiety as well!