Yoga For Beginners – Am I Doing This Right??!!
Amy Yapp, March 2025
Having had the joy and pleasure of working with beginner yoga students for many years now, I have noticed some trends around what tends to bring first-timers to this ancient healing practice for the first time.
It usually goes something like this…
- My spouse made me come.
- I want to be more flexible.
- I’m a couch potato.
- I’m an athlete.
- I know I should stretch more but I don’t.
- My doctor keeps saying yoga would be good for me.
- I’ve tried everything else so I guess I’ll give it a chance .
(Full Disclosure: That last one was me in 2001.)
The truth is, the reason we begin a yoga practice doesn’t matter all that much at the end of the day because what brings us to the mat in the first place is usually not the thing that keeps us coming back for more.
We may begin a yoga practice to strengthen our bodies but keep coming back to strengthen our spirits. In fact, if we stay with it for a while, we begin to realize that yoga is not stretching after all.
The question I hear the most from students new to yoga is, “Am I doing this right??”
It’s a great question.
As beginners, we all want to get it “right”. It’s how we learn the ropes of any new endeavor whether it’s riding a bike or walking into a yoga studio for the first time.
We want to learn how to practice yoga safely and effectively. In the beginning, it’s all about remembering that your body already knows a whole lot about itself. Breath by breath, pose by pose, we learn to get out of our own way one step at a time. After all, it’s called “yoga practice”, not “yoga perfect”.
But we still want to get it right. We are human beings after all. Not to mention we have to learn where to put our shoes and why these yoga people keep talking about mountains and cats and cows. And breathing…ohhh the breathing…
The thing is we may never get it “right” (whatever “right” is) but we can learn to stay curious and feel our hand on the mat or sense the tightness in our jaw. We can gently and compassionately explore where our bodies are already at peace, suggesting a place that feels familiar and safe and a bit like coming home to ourselves. And this can feel very, well…right.
Whether it’s learning to ride a bike or stepping onto a yoga mat for the first time, as we begin something new, we discover that we have in fact brought our thoughts, beliefs, feelings and habits along for the ride. You could call it awareness. I call it courage.
If we stick around for long enough, yoga becomes less about doing a series of poses and more about navigating life both on and off the mat with a little more ease. In fact, for those of us who have been at this for a while, we find ourselves “beginning” again every time we step on to the mat. Our bodies don’t lie but they can sure as heck teach if we are willing to meet our old selves anew each time we make the decision to practice.
I recently heard Harvard-trained sociologist and author, Martha Beck, PhD, say “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
Huh? So does this mean that multitasking superpower of mine (which allows me to make dinner, change the lightbulbs, call the doctor back and talk to my stressed out teen all at the same time) translates to how I get myself into and out of Child’s Pose?
Probably.
Yoga has the capacity to be a compassionate, honest friend who knows exactly when you may need (yet another) gentle nudge towards healing.
Teaching yoga to beginners is a gift that allows me to experience falling in love with yoga over and over again through the eyes of a fresh start. There is something sort of magical that happens. Together, we learn to approach this amazing practice less from a perspective of “right vs. wrong” and more from the lens of “helpful vs. unhelpful”.
And boy oh boy does that feel right.
What keeps my students coming back to yoga again and again seems to be less of a “reason” and more of a “knowing”.
They know they are onto something. They have begun.
Amy Yapp is a yoga therapist with a specialty in helping people with sensitive bodies to heal and thrive. She has been teaching yoga to beginners with care and love for over 20 years.
To learn more about the beginners workshops she offers at RCY along with her dear friend and colleague, Jen Mast, please visit: https://yogaacton.com/yoga-for-beginners-workshop-acton-massachusetts/
