Yoga secrets revealed

Some Tips
• Visualize yourself in the posture before moving into it. Some of
our resistance is just a conditioned mental idea that we cannot
do the posture. Change the mental idea.
• Never force it. Allow the breath to move you gradually deeper
into the posture.
• Focus on the breath to bring lightness, ease, and fluidity into the
movement. This is not about contorting your body into some
frozen posture, there is always movement in the stillness.
• Be patient with yourself, notice that the more even your breath,
the slower the breath, the easier the movement.
• Let the thoughts go by, notice them as just thoughts, and then
let them go.
• Notice how persistent the mind can be.
• Feel the breath as an extension of the bandhas.
• What happens to your spine if you connect breath and bandhas
as you move into a posture? And if you don’t?
• As you flex the front of your thigh (quadriceps), notice the
extended stretch on the opposite side (hamstrings).

Helpful Hints
1. Listen to your body. Only through your own internal awareness
will you come to understand when to work harder or deeper
and when to move more slowly.
2. The breath should always be louder than your internal
dialogue.
3. Never force yourself into a pose, no posture is worth injury.
4. Take the ambition out of it. You are competing with no one.
5. Less is more with yoga. Take your time and build your practice
slowly, there is nowhere to “get” to.
6. Set up a regular practice for yourself. Practice is the key to the
entire science of yoga.
7. Enjoy your practice. Acknowledge and receive the gift you are
giving yourself.
baddha