Modern Movement

Yoga in Northern beaches NSW is associated with a lot of things. Some people do yoga to achieve body balance, some do it to get good sleep and others to be physically fit. It is, therefore, necessary to make sure you are getting what you wanted from yoga. Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself about your yoga practice.

Does your yoga practice balance the rest of your life?

You may be doing activities of high intensity such as cycling, running, and swimming. If this is the case with you, you should choose yoga poses that are less intense in nature such as restorative practice and Iyengar. This way, you can get yoga benefits and avoid overusing your muscles, tendons and joints. On the other hand, if you lead a sedentary life, you should do a vinyasa practice to bring your body into balance.

Are you practising too much?

As you get serious about asanas, you may feel the need to do an intense practice of more than 90 minutes 5 to 7 days a week. A lot of yoga students try to keep up with this expectation. They believe that is what a true yoga student should do. Unfortunately, most people cannot withstand too much practice because they can end up overusing their joints and stressing their muscle fibres and tendons. Experts don’t recommend doing high-intensity yoga practices for a long time.

What motivates you to practice?

Your yoga instructor in Northern Beaches, your ego, your body or social media? Some people want to master complex yoga poses to win praise and favour from their fellow practitioners, teachers or social media followers. The need for recognition and approval can be exacerbated when yoga coaches encourage students to push deeper into their poses or even praise students with the ability to get into difficult yoga poses rather than applauding yoga students with mastery of stability and alignment. If you always want to make a pose more advanced, you need to understand where the motivation comes from.

Does it hurt?

Don’t do anything that hurts you in yoga. Regardless of whether your yoga coach is pushing you to do it, or you see other students going deeper. Some people have mastered the culture of no pain no gain. They use the saying to push their bodies past their limits. Sacrifice, hard work and going an extra step can get us promotions, good grades and wins in sports. While these motivations can help us advance, they can also lead to imbalance. Your drive may be high but your physical body may not be able to take so much. You don’t want to develop tears in joints, muscles and tendons by pushing too much. Try to honour your limitations.

Are you protecting your hips?

When doing yoga Northern Beaches in NSW, try very hard to listen to your body. In yoga poses where you rotate your legs internally into deep hip flexion, try to observe how far your body wants to go without straining. Consider balancing your hip flexibility with adduction, abduction and gluteal strength training.