So can you hurt yourself practicing asana?  Sure, you could hurt yourself, but you could also hurt yourself going down a flight of stairs.  What separates yoga from other physical activity is that yoga is practiced with awareness.  For example, if your teacher instructs you to pretzel-twist your legs into seated lotus pose and you feel discomfort in your knee, listen to your body and don't practice the pose.  You may not hurt yourself on your first attempt at lotus, but if you push up against this discomfort time after time, you are likely to eventually cause a more serious problem.  This may sound simple, but it's natural to want to fit in and do what the rest of the class is doing.

 

Practice Yoga

To practice yoga safely, I recommend practitioners first find an experienced, well-trained and knowledgeable teacher.  How to do this is a topic for another article.  After finding a teacher they can trust, practitioners should direct their awareness inwardly to feel the sensations in their bodies, notice how their breathing patterns change, and observe the fluctuations of thoughts that arise.  Namaste!
 

Dana Melillo, RYT 500
danamelillo.com
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