Getting Back Into Yoga After a Break: Finding My Motivation for Yoga by Beginning Ashtanga (Again)
The last time you set foot on your yoga mat was years ago and you now feel like a total yoga beginner? Do not worry, while getting back into yoga after a long break can seem hard, it also has incredible benefits!
Ashtanga Yoga Teacher Ellen McQueen is sharing how she found her motivation for yoga after a pause in her practice and how she reconnected with the feeling of beginning Ashtanga Yoga again. Keep reading and check out Ellen’s free yoga and meditation videos on her site and follow her on Instagram.
Table of Contents
I was in the best shape of my life before I totally stopped practicing yoga: I was teaching up to 10 yoga classes a week and taking a class for my personal practice every day.
And then quarantine hit.
We all handled the situation differently. Some dedicated yogis conquered Zoom, held Instagram Live group meditations and turned their living room into a shala. Some promised online classes, attempted one or two half-hearted posts about being present and then disappeared from social media feeds. I was pretty much in camp two.
Maybe others in camp two wisely used their two months to deepen their personal yoga practice, to study Ayurveda and Pranayama and the Yoga Sutras, to meditate for hours a day and learn to be kind to their quarantine buddy. Maybe they experimented with new workout techniques, ordered essential oils from the Internet and achieved perfection in an advanced asana.
I did not.
I’m going to be honest with you, I wanted to be in camp one. I wanted to be a voice of zen during that tumultuous time, I wanted to appear grounded and healthy and inspiring.
Instead I snapped at my quarantine buddy as the dishes in the sink piled higher. I ordered the four cheese pizza from Eataly more often than I care to admit. I drank wine, I called my friends crying, I went on a run then vowed to never do that again.
I tell you this not as a confession for my “bad” yogi ways, but to share the consequences that re-enlightened my deep belief in the benefits of yoga.
The story is this. As soon as France, where I was quarantining, allowed its citizens to travel one hundred kilometers from their residence, my quarantine buddy and I escaped the confines of our apartment to go to the countryside.
Stretching our limbs after two horizontal months of yet another episode of Breaking Bad or the third round of Planet Earth, we discovered a new hobby: tennis.
Taking a break from yoga as a yoga teacher
Let me be clear: I had never played tennis in any context outside of carrying rackets to the park with a friend and lobbing a ball at each other. My quarantine buddy had taken a few lessons thirty years ago.
We went to the sports shop. We could feel our quarantine fifteen shedding just walking the aisles of sports equipment, our muscles rebuilding as we purchased sneakers, shorts with pockets, tennis balls.
Every day for a week we played.
And then my muscles rebelled.
Probably I made a very poor physical decision lunging for a ball that would’ve been out anyway. But suddenly my entire back seized. I could barely walk, let alone play tennis.
Finding my yoga motivation back
I went to the chiropractor and she asked me why I was so tense, which I found to be a slightly insulting question, for had we not all been on the verge of breakdown these past few months?
Perhaps not the members of camp one.
I explained to her that I was a yoga teacher. That I could do three or more hours of yoga a day. That, before quarantine, I was teaching meditation, god damnit.
But then, after two months during which my most intense physical activity was getting up to answer the door for another Amazon package I didn’t need, I’d assumed I’d be in the same physical shape as before. I entered the tennis war against my quarantine buddy prepared to use my incredible strength and flexibility to win.
Strength and flexibility that had been slowly but steadily waning since February as my fifteen hours of yoga a week steadily declined to twelve, six, two.
She nodded kindly as I admitted to the poor decisions I’d made for my aching body. She explained how tense my hips were, how much tension was riding along my spine.
I believe that if I had continued my regular yoga practice through the months of March, April and May, I would not have had this problem. Had I worked a little each day to strengthen and to stretch, to move my body consciously and effectively, my muscles wouldn’t have gone into shock after five days of tennis. I would have prevented building up that amount of tension.
The experience has rejuvenated my love for yoga like never before. Being back in a regular practice, I notice that each time I’m on the mat I can release the tension in my hips. I develop more strength every day along my spine. It is the full body experience that feels incomparably healthy.
The goal of this article is not to freak you out about starting yoga if you’ve never worked out a day in your life or about coming back to it if you haven’t practiced in years. There’s a safe way to start or restart any practice, and my goal is to reiterate that, personally, I find yoga to be an incredible way of releasing tension, building strength and maintaining the body’s overall health
Yoga Motivation: 6 easy ways to come back to your mat
How to start Ashtanga Yoga when you’re a (new) beginner:
What is Ashtanga yoga? What is the primary series?
It is a type of dynamic yoga practice, often called Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. Created by Patthabi Jois, it is based on the eight limbs of yoga, that are steps to live a meaningful life. Ashtanga has inspired a lot of different flowing yoga practices like some styles of Power Yoga.
It is divided in series: The Ashtanga primary series, the first of six, follows a strict sequence of Ashtanga Yoga poses. A full class takes about ninety minutes. It begins with ten sun salutations and then generally each subsequent posture is held for five breaths.
How is Ashtanga yoga different from other styles?
Comparatively, in a Vinyasa class we move fluidly between postures with the rhythm of the breath. A Hatha class is slower paced, postures are held for a longer period of time than Vinyasa, but it does not follow a strict series of postures.
Is Ashtanga yoga for beginners?
An Ashtanga Yoga class for beginners, one that would follow the series but take out many of the poses and allow more time for explanation, is a wonderful place to begin, or begin again a yoga practice.
It is very focused on asana, meaning posture in Sanskrit. In Vinyasa you might speed through many poses for just a breath or two, but in Ashtanga, we have the opportunity to focus intensely on each pose.
This allows beginners to safely learn about the technicalities of each asana. Which muscles are working, the shape of the spine, where you allow your gaze to settle.
Ashtanga yoga breathing
It’s also a great place for Ashtanga beginners to learn about Ujjayi breath, “victorious” breath. In our Ujjayi breath:
You inhale through the nose
You exhale through the nose
As you exhale, you create a slight constriction in the back of the throat, as if you were trying to fog up a mirror but with your mouth closed.
We use this breath because:
It maintains heat in the body
It keeps the mind focused on the present moment
It helps to guide our movements (think inhale to lengthen, exhale to settle more deeply).
Should you do Ashtanga yoga daily?
Traditionally, it is practiced six days a week. I wouldn’t recommend this to a beginner. Like anything, tennis, running, yoga, we don’t want to shock the body. I suggest that beginners start with three days a week, and observe how the body reacts.
My Ashtanga yoga teacher training:
I’d been to all of one Ashtanga yoga class before I did my teacher training. Before that I was vinyasa-obsessed, I loved the New York power yoga scene and attending classes where the teacher gave monologues about different spiritual aspects of the practice. (Still do.)
So thirty straight days of Ashtanga was… eye-opening. Every morning, six days a week, we’d wake up for a primary Ashtanga series class. We learned that after two weeks, the practice that was led by an instructor would become self-led, Mysore style yoga.
What is Mysore yoga?
Mysore Ashtanga Yoga is a whole other ball game. In a Mysore practice, you show up to your mat and do the primary series entirely on your own. Meaning: there is no teacher leading you, telling you when to breathe, telling you which ashtanga yoga posture is next.
Concretely: you have to spend 90 minutes in silence with your own head. I was terrified. I considered leaving. Throwing a tantrum. Instead on the first Mysore day, I reluctantly dragged my mat to the shala and started to breathe deeply.
Turns out: I love Mysore. The experience of focusing one hundred percent on your own body, on your own breath, on your own practice, is unparalleled. Sure, the mind will wander to that time you said that stupid thing to that person who won’t speak to you anymore. But instead of being snapped back to attention by the sound of an instructor’s voice, you learn to use your breath to bring you back. It’s the most important muscle I developed during my training.
After four weeks I still didn’t have the series entirely memorized (luckily we had a cheat sheet), but if you’re dedicated to an Ashtanga yoga practice, eventually the series becomes second nature.
Benefits of Ashtanga Yoga
You learn to activate your muscles intensely, and then they grow, and then you learn how to stretch them safely, and they become more flexible. You learn how to maintain focus on your breath. While I absolutely love a good vinyasa playlist, Ashtanga’s meditative focus on the breath and physical body is a wonderful practice for the mind.
There is an in-depth spiritual practice to the style as well. For example, we open each class by chanting the opening mantra, an expression of gratitude for our teachers, and end with the closing mantra, sealing in the work and acknowledging the efforts of the practice.
Chanting shifts the energy of the room, allowing our attention to be fully present and joining in a peaceful vibration.
What is a good ashtanga Yoga routine for beginners?
So, to my dear beginners, what would be an effective way to practice a little Ashtanga each day?
I’d recommend 3-5 rounds of Surya Namaskar, sun salutations, to warm up the body and guide the attention onto the breath. It is a complete Ashtanga yoga sequence for beginners in itself. Here’s what one round of Sun Salutation A looks like:
Begin in Mountain Pose. Standing at the top of your mat, big toes together and heels slightly apart or feet hip-width distance, core and legs engaged, shoulders relaxed, arms active by the sides of the body.
An inhale brings the arms overhead, the gaze following the fingertips
An exhale brings the upper body into a forward fold. The knees can be as bent as needed, the hands touch the floor, the neck is totally relaxed, and the spine as straight as possible.
Next inhale is a halfway lift, bringing the upper body parallel to the floor. The fingertips can be on the thighs, the shins, or the floor.
Exhale to plant the hands and step the feet to the back of the mat. The knees, chest, and chin gently connect to the floor, the elbows stay close to the ribcage.
Inhale to find a baby cobra. The legs straighten, the shoulders roll back as you gently press into the hands to lift the upper body, using the strength of the lower back.
Exhale to arrive to downward facing dog. The hips lift as high as possible towards the sky, keeping the back completely straight. Hands are shoulder-width distance and feet are hip width distance. The heels press towards the floor, but they do not have to touch.
Inhale to bring the feet forward between the hands, another halfway lift.
Exhale to release the upper body into a forward fold.
Inhale the arms up towards the sky.
Exhale back to mountain pose.
If you’re brand new to the practice, don’t obsess over what this “should” look like. The word “yoga” derives from the Sanskrit “yuj,” to yoke or to unite. This means Yoga is about union. Union with your body, union with your breath, union with yourself.
It doesn’t matter if you haven’t practiced in years, or if you’ve never practiced. Grant yourself the opportunity to cultivate this union on the mat, whether that means an entire self-led Mysore practice, a few rounds of sun salutations or simply sitting there, eyes closed, watching your breath, finding stillness, experiencing peace.
I don’t regret my break from yoga and feeling like a beginner again. Maybe a part of me realized I’d been pushing things too hard, expecting too much, and was glad for the opportunity to have a break.
I lost some flexibility. My muscles went haywire. But I got to relive the experience of discovering yoga for the first time. I had the opportunity to fall in love with it again.
I highly recommend giving it a try.
About the author, Ellen McQueen: After graduating from NYU with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing, Ellen moved to Paris where she works as a freelance writer and yoga instructor. Besides yoga and writing Ellen loves travelling, art and enjoying a glass of wine.