Would you like to take up yoga?
Does it sometimes seem like everyone but you is doing yoga? Perhaps it is time to dip your toes into the world of yoga, and see what it is about.
Yoga has many benefits, some clinically proven, some anecdotal. But no less real. Yoga has been shown to reduce back pain in many cases, yoga can help with rehabilitation of shoulders, hips, knees and more. Yoga can reduce stress, ease anxiety, reduce the symptoms of depression, and boost metabolism. And the list goes on!
So perhaps it is time to join your first yoga class…
Temple Bar Yoga specialises in beginners yoga classes and yoga for beginners courses. We have skilful and well trained teachers, who are also kind and patient. We remember what it is like to be a beginner.
What to expect when you take up yoga:
- You may be sore the next day
- You may sleep really well after it
- You may feel your breath for the first time in a long time
Everyone knows that Yoga is about flexibility, but you may not realise that yoga also improves strength and stability. Yoga is an ancient tradition, its origins are clouded in the mists of time. However it is said that yoga postures were originally designed to give a strong stable supple body, so the practitioner could sit upright for long periods of meditation. That actually takes a lot of work, sitting upright without a chair or support put a lot of demands on the body. You need a strong back, strong and stable core, and hips and shoulders which are free from tension. Yoga can give you all of these.
Styles of Yoga
You may have heard of hatha yoga. Strictly speaking, all yoga classes in Temple Bar Yoga in Dublin are hatha yoga. This does not mean that we only teach one style. All postural yoga is actually hatha yoga. Hatha means strong yoga or forceful yoga. Hatha is sometimes translated as Sun/moon, or union of opposites. Every good hatha yoga class is a union of stretch and strength, with a constant focus on the action involved in the pose, the stretch involved, and the breath.
In Temple Bar Yoga we specialise in two different types of Hatha Yoga, static and dynamic yoga.
Static yoga is alignment based and breath based. Greg’s classes are static alignment based yoga classes, and all of our Iyengar Yoga classes are static and alignment based. We call theses classes ALIGN.
Dynamic yoga is movement based and breath based. Styles of yoga which are dynamic would be Ashtanga yoga, Jivamukti yoga and Vinyasa yoga. We call these classes FLOW or STRENGTH.
And just to confuse things further, a mellow style of yoga with both static stretching, alignment cues and some flow, is called Hatha Yoga! We call our Hatha classes BALANCE.
These days yoga is recommended for mood, anxiety, all-round mental health and sleep. Yoga is full of surprises, it will also help with all of the above. Yoga has a soothing effect on the nervous system, which can ease anxiety and even depression.
You may be wondering, will I be able to do yoga? Perhaps you are working around an injury, or you are no longer 25! Yoga is an inner practice and adaptive practice. We adapt the yoga practice to suit our own bodies, rather than adapt our bodies for yoga. When you are attending one of our classes you may see your Temple Bar Yoga teacher doing a pose, and feel that you should be able to get do each pose like us. But your body is not our body, and your challenge is not to get to where we are, but to move from where you are. Every body has its own needs, and every body has a unique story. Every day is a step in yoga. It is a long journey, and if you rush it you will not enjoy it. Savour every moment of the yoga journey. The thing I have realised over the years is that the yoga journey does actually not take you anywhere. It brings you back to yourself. With added stillness. And stretchier hamstrings...
See our Beginner level yoga classes here:
