Practice Point #11 - Yoga Warm Up

I received a question from Debra in England. Her question is...

What do you recommend doing as warm ups before your practice?

I think this question is fascinating.

I have heard people talk about warming up before going for a run, but the idea of warming up before doing yoga is new to me.I have run about 6 times in my life when I was a teenager when I thought I was getting fat and thought going for a run would be the quickest way to burn the fat...

I hope you too are smiling at my innocence and ignorance.

So from my limited experience of running, I can see why we need to warm up because we go from being static to moving quickly and it is not easy for the body to go from static to moving quickly, hence if we warm-up, the transition will be smoother.

However, with a yoga practice, it is a 'whole' experience with a beginning, middle and end and each leads to the other so that the practice is seamless and transition is the practice.

If you recently did my 5 Day Sequence Creation Challenge this will be familiar to you.

Rather than thinking about a warm-up, think about a start to your practice that is gentle and there you have your warm-up.

My Sequence Arc might also shed some light on how we don't need to warm up before a yoga practice, rather the warm-up is part of the practice.

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