Yoga poses are the breath of life. We all start somewhere as beginners. And it’s usually on a mat. And if we’re lucky, in a class with others and a teacher where we get instruction.
Yoga poses for beginners are also for those who have been doing yoga for decades. Because we all have aching joints from time to time. And the basic poses are just what we need.
Coming up with your own yoga pose routine can help restore specific muscles, joints, and balance to your day. It’s a reset.
Evolving into new yoga poses can be a powerful way to discover how to cure your own body aches and pains.
And, I didn’t particularly like yoga when I first started. It was intimidating and there was a learning curve to keep looking at specific body parts, making sure that it matched with what the yoga instructor was saying and doing.
Somehow I got myself to go back to class. And I started to learn and get into certain poses that became familiar. Child’s pose and other resting yoga poses were my respite in the beginning.
Gradually with added stamina and skill, I added new poses as my body helped to intuitively remember. The body cells have distinct memory.
Being at home means you still can do yoga poses at home or anywhere, even if you usually relied on attending in-person classes for form and instruction. If you didn’t learn yoga foundations, you can take the extra step and watch YouTube videos or take virtual classes.
Here’s a good way to begin:
Sit on your yoga mat or on a brick with your sit bones (the yoga language for your bottom), and stretch your legs out into a “V.” Reach down on each side of your legs to your feet, or as far down on your legs as you can.
We sit down, lay down, and stand too much in our daily lives. Just by sitting in this unique pose and doing seat yoga poses, allows your legs, back and arms to stretch in a different position than it normally is in.
That’s the name of the game. Our bodies want us to stay limber and stretch other muscles and parts of our body.
I have a kneeling pose that I particularly like that feels good, where I crouch down almost to the floor. I prefer this over bending down. If you like roller skating as I did back in the day, then you know this pose from the game called “shoot the duck” where you crouched down with bent knees as far as you could and extended one leg straight out.
That takes some balancing and flexibility. Usually, one leg was better or stronger than the other on any day. Then you rolled yourself forward using the law of motion and force and tried to make it under the limbo bar without knocking it over.
This can be a metaphor for life in finding balance, as on your yoga mat or floor, you can go from balancing your body from feet on the ground to your tippy toes in this similar duck pose.
In this yoga duck pose (I made up the name so won’t find it researching!), I like to flip through books and recipes, look inside the oven when a bake is completing, or clean floor spots in this familiar pose.
I don’t know why, but it’s a comfortable position for me. It’s a balancing pose that stretches the back, and rounds out the spine. Similarly, you can find the comfortable positions that give yoga a new name (and some of these poses can even cure you of aches and pains).
You may like this crouch (not couch) pose, or make up your own. The point is to try new bends as often as you can remember.
Without weight and while standing, you can observe when you touch your toes, and then try to reach your ankles. You can prefer to bend down with your knees bent or bend at your torso (not everyone can do this). Try attempting both and seeing how that feels.
This torso stretching is particularly good for your back and hamstrings that can get really tight if not used often. Remember in school gym class, how they started out with stretches so you wouldn’t hurt yourself?
Besides our backs and back of legs, another area that often gets ignored is the arms. As much as you can throughout the day, move them back behind you. That also stretches your shoulder muscles that can get sore. If you work on a computer all day, you can find ways to counteract hunching forward with your typing keyboard hands, and arms.
One season I went to physical therapy because I had a daily right arm and shoulder pain that wouldn’t go away. It was nagging for relief from daily right-handed motion overuse, and typing contracts all day.
That’s how voice technology can help our future aging and aching bodies.
Anyway, from my own testing, I figured out which arm stretch would make a difference and correct the pain problem after months and years. That was by self-discovery because no one can pinpoint where your pain actually is, but You, and you alone.
Especially if you didn’t get in an accident or the pain point doesn’t show up as an injury on a scan. Having had multiple x-ray scans reviewed by an orthopedic physician and chiropractor, I felt I went round and round with the same issue and was left to come up with my own solutions.
In hindsight, that’s where I should have started… but when you don’t know, you don’t know.
I found that if I took my right arm out and raised it to shoulder level like an airplane wing, and then I bent my wrist straight down, then that caused tightness and sometimes slight pain that went up to my entire arm through the main radial nerve, and that corrected the problem. ...So simple! All I needed to do was stretch in the right way. I call this Airplane Wing Pose… just kidding!
And then when I took the airplane arm wing back about 45 degrees and bent my wrist straight down, that gave another tight stretch that is what I needed to provide pain relief. Hallelujah!
So my suggestion is if you have any slight aches or pains and there’s no known injury, start with questioning how that could have come about.
If nothing concrete emerges searching your thoughts, then try light and gentle stretches. Moving your body is healing for daily wear and tear symptoms and maybe just what the doctor ordered!
Not moving your body can be just as hurtful to your body, as moving is to an injury.
If you did possibly hurt yourself, that can come from something as simple as bumping a table corner or carrying a bag of groceries too heavy without bending your knees, then that can be a deeper injury like a sprain to the body. Your resilient body will heal over time, but needs rest instead of movement.
An example of this is when you have a swelling inflammation. You could apply ice in a ziplock plastic bag (not a bag of frozen vegetables that isn’t cold enough).
If a body area is sore or has tired muscles, then a heating pad and stretching can help, but that’s if you have determined there’s no inflammation. If you’re not sure, you’re better off trying ice and seeing if it improves over a few days.
Then when you’re getting better, start gradual, light yoga poses and stretching again.
Sensitively figuring out in discernment what your body needs is the healing balance. When or if you should explore medical help over self-diagnosis is an individual question.
Implementing yoga, stretching, and movement is almost always beneficial, as that’s what they have you do in rehabilitation.
With the comfortable yoga poses and stretches you come up with, you can use those as starting points to create other poses that your body will be thankful you did to take care of yourself.
As you become aware, you get to know other parts of your body and that helps you to become more flexible.
If you’re someone who believes you’re not flexible, change that to you are getting flexible every time you stretch. Your body and mind (and mind-body balance) are your most powerful tools and assets to invest in, so you can keep doing all that you do daily.
Wake up, Sunshine! Rise and shine. In the morning when you get out of bed with groggy morning thoughts.
