Three Ways to Improve Your Hatha Yoga Practice

Whether you are a Yoga teacher, or just started practicing today, the following tips will useful. There is a common belief that natural flexibility is the primary exceptional quality among Hatha Yoga practitioners. In the struggle to become more flexible than the person next to us, we may become frustrated enough to push and pull our bodies beyond their limits.

Yoga instructors often tell new students not to force, leave competition at the door, and breathe into a given posture (asana). The average student listens, but some students are driven by competition. How can a competitive person "turn the switch off?" It's not easy to stop a lifelong habit. However, making progress in the study of Yoga is not a race.

1. Continuity in Yoga practice is the first key to improving. The student, who spends part of each day practicing Yoga, will advance and become well-rounded in knowledge. Physical mastery is part of Hatha Yoga, but it is not everything. Older students and seasoned teachers know Hatha Yoga requires knowledge. This is much more than walking into a class with God-given flexibility.

2. Look for guidance in your studies. The student / teacher relationship, with a Yoga teacher, Guru, or Swami is sometimes taken for granted. There is nothing like a bond with a person who has been where you are. On the other hand, finding a competent teacher can be a quest within itself.

One qualification that people overlook in teachers is their passion for passing on knowledge. There are many good Yoga teachers who are not famous. If a teacher takes the time to "pass the torch" to his or her students, that is the first measurement. A self-absorbed teacher will not guide you - no matter how famous he or she may be.

3. Independent study is time spent discovering the many facets of Yoga. If a person studied every technique, the subtle body, the physical body, various forms of meditation, pranayama, history, and philosophy - one lifetime is not enough time to learn it all. This is something we must accept, but we can design a weekly schedule, which will help us improve our knowledge.

If you study Yoga for one hour per day - at the end of one year, you have 365 hours of Yogic studies. After four years of study, at that pace, you would have 1460 hours of study. Do you think your Yoga practice would improve with nearly 1500 hours of study? Of course, but how many people really persist in their practice? The secret to independent study is to "stay the course." The pursuit of knowledge is a healthy addiction, which benefits you and those who learn from you.

© Copyright 2009 - Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

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