WARM UP POSES

1. Take your right foot forward and hold your left foot up towards back(don’t need to be 90'. Initially you can keep up for 1' from the ground. When you get more balance, you can try to stretch out more)
2. Stand straight and lock your knees. Look back by dropping your head back and bending your spinal cord back.
3. Since the spinal cord was bent back in the previous poses, its better to do a forward bent to make it more flexible . Bend Forward by spreading your hands. Lock your knees and loosen your hands down to touch the floor. Remain in this pose for few seconds. Keeping your brain down will relax your mind and soothing. 
4. Hold a belt on both hands and spread your hands up. Make a letter “n” by moving your hands from front to back up with the belt. You would feel the stretch when your hands start to move down. For more stretch, bring your hands closer.
5. Loop your strap in right ankle and lift your right leg up on your back. Hold it on this pose for 30seconds – 1 min
6. Stand straight and cross hands back. Touch your right elbow with left and left with right hand.
7. Hold hands in prayer position but on your back.

STANDING POSES

1. Eagle Pose (Garudasana)

 Meaning -  Garuda = the mythic "king of the birds," the vehicle  of  Vishnu     

Duration - 15-30secs

Eagle Pose

Steps

1.  Stand straight and balance your weight on both feet. This is very important to gain stability
2. Cross your right hand under your left in front of your torso and your right leg over your left. Twist it as much as you can.
3. Focus on your drisiti in the front and hold on for 15-30 seconds. 
4. Repeat for the same length of time with reversing the hand/leg 

Triangle Pose (without block)

2. Triangle Pose(Trikonasana)

Meaning - (utthita = extended, trikona = three angle or triangle)
Duration - 30secs – 1 min

Steps

1. Spread your feet and turn your right feet 90’ facing sideways
2. Hold a block on your right hand and bend slowly on the sideways till the block touches the floor(the block should be placed on the back of your feet)
3. Look up and stretch your left hand up. Feel the stretch and repeat the same with turning the left feet 90 deg

3.Tree Pose(Vrksasana)

Meaning - vrksa = tree

Duration - 30secs – 1 min

Steps

1. Lock your left knee straight      
2. Hold your right feet up and balance with left thigh. Bend the right feet as much as you can    
3. Stretch your arms up and hold on to this pose for few seconds. Make sure to focus on dristi in front of you. The surprising fact is you will not be able to close your eyes with this pose. If you can, then you can be officially called as 'yogi'
4. Repeat the same with other leg.




Tree Pose

SURYA NAMASKAR(SUN SALUTATION)

Its best to start Yoga with Surya Namaskar(called Sun Salutation) which consists of 10 gentle flowing movments synchronized with the breath. This is an excellent warm up excercise to gain flexibility and it regulates breath and focuses the mind.  Below poses are part of sun salutation.

1. Down Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana)

Meaning - (adho = downward, mukha = face, svana = dog)

Duration - 1- 3 minutes

DownDog Pose

Steps

1. Stand Straight balancing your weight on both feet.
2. Stretch your arms up and move your hip back to chair position.
3. Bent down slowly with your arms stretched up towards feet/floor. Hold down on this pose for a few seconds. This would give you a nice stretch and relax your muscles/mind. 
4. Hop back with your feet and stretch as much as you can.
5. Bent your knee to get your torso down and pulled backwards and lock your knees
6. Try to touch the floor with your heel and feel the full body stretch

Additional Pose :

1. Lift one leg back up straight and stay here for few secs and repeat the same for the other leg.
2. Lift right leg back up and bend towards left and stay here for few secs. Repeat the same for other leg.

2. Plank Pose

Plank Pose

Duration - 30sec - 1 min

Steps

1.  From down dog pose, draw your torso forward till your hands are perpendicular to the floor.
2.  Lock the knees and balance your weight with your both arms/toes
3.  Hold your back up like a plank.

3. Side Plank Pose(Vasisthasana)

Meaning - Vasistha means richest, excellent  

Duration - 15-30 secs 

Steps

      From Plank pose, turn sideways and raise one hand. Initially you can you have your knees touching the floor. Improve by locking the knees and turn sideways with one hand up and other hand balancing the weight on the floor

4. Sun Salutation Pose 

1. Come down when you can not carry your weight and raise your head up for sun salutation pose.
2. Bend  your head back and balance your weight on your feet (with feet down and heel up)

  

INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO YOGA

As you know, Yoga is the art of living. It is not a tool for weight loss. The essence of yoga is to make you understand your body better, enhance your focus and make you to listen to your body. It would improve your body stability and keep your body symmetry. Many call it as medical science as it has proven cure for common disorders like diabetes, high blood pressure etc. It can also improve peace in your life and remove the stress...So try to do slowly and in a quieter place where you can concentrate on your body more..Take it easy. The more you do slowly, the more you can improve your focus and concentration.. I'm taking yoga classes and they are more refreshing and renjuvenating to the mind and soul. I'm enjoying this journey and I hope you also join with me on this enjoyment. I'm sharing all the poses that I learnt. . For many of the poses where you need to balance with one foot, have a point(dristhi) in front of you and try to focus on the same point to improve your balance

Before we start, lets understand some common terms in yoga

1. Namaste - Friendly Greeting 
2. Pelvis - the structure of the vertebrate skeleton supporting the lower limbs in humans and the hind limbs or corresponding parts in other vertebrates 
3. Torso - The human body excluding the head and limbs; trunk.. Abdomen and Chest 
4. Spinal Cord - The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain (the medulla oblongata specifically). The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system (CNS). 
5. Perenium - the nearly diamond-shaped surface of the human trunk between the thighs 
6. Reflection - Change in direction and returns back into medium from which its orginated
7. Compression - Subjection of a material or structure to compressive stress, which results in reduction of volume as compared to an uncompressed but otherwise identical state