Since the explosion of yoga in the west, many new types of yoga have been created and are continuing to emerge.  We hear about Gentle, Vinyasa, Hatha, Kundalini, Ashtanga, Yoga Nidra, Yin, Anusara, , and many more.  With all of the different styles, it’s easy for a new yogi to feel a little lost and confused.  Your yoga practice will hopefully compliment and supplement your life, providing a well-rounded experience.  If your daily life tends to be hectic, busy, stressful and physically demanding, a yoga practice which provides the opposite is suggested.  A quiet, relaxing yin style yoga is a nice compliment to a very active lifestyle.  In contrast, a sedentary lifestyle would benefit from a more active, heat building, calorie burning yoga, such as vinyasa.  If you are attending several classes each week, try combining different types to create a balance of strength and vigor with rest and rejuvenation.  Over time, you might find that your needs and desires change, and what once worked well for you no longer suits you or your lifestyle.  Be open, pay attention, and honor yourself.  Also, be open to trying something more than once.  Occasionally, when someone tries yoga for the first time or tries a new type of yoga, he or she finds the practice to be agitating, disturbing or aggravating.  Yoga can cause deep-seated emotions to rise to the surface and release.  Feeling inexplicably angry, sad, or even overwhelmed during yoga is not uncommon…and not necessarily a negative experience.  It might be an indication that you have found the exact place you need to be to release something you’ve been holding onto.  You might be directing those emotions at something specific at the moment, the music, the sound of traffic outside, a pain in your leg, etc. that you feel is annoying you and causing those emotions.  More likely, the emotions are arising from within and releasing out of you.  Try the practice one or two more times, and you might grow to absolutely love it!  Very often, the style or pose you hate the most is the one you need the most…and the one you grow to love the most!

Namaste’

Stephanie