Practice for Beginners with Patricia Walden Practice for Beginners with Patricia Walden

Yoga Journal's Yoga for Beginners is 62 minutes long and takes you through seated poses, standing poses, forward bends, and inverted poses, for a total of 23 poses (I think). The tape also comes with a beginners guide that has pictures of many of the poses demonstrated on the tape in case you wanted to practice some poses without popping the tape in the VCR.

I highly recommend getting a non-slip mat if you don't have a non-slip surface to work on. I only have carpeted floors and felt myself sliding around a lot (the instructor didn't wear shoes, so I didn't either; they'd get in the way anyway).

The tape starts with sitting poses and gets you to really relax and concentrate on sitting on your "sitting bones". Posture is a big focus throughout the entire workout. You move into standing poses and learn the Mountain Pose which seems to be the pose that you come back to and start with for all of the standing poses as a posture check. It's basically standing straight with everything in alignment with hands at your sides. To go into the various standing poses like Triangle Pose , or Proud Warrior you jump from Mountain Pose to a wider stance. If this is hard on your knees you can just walk your legs apart. Forward bends and inversions come next and they are easy to do with the cueing and you really feel your muscles working. I never knew the workout AND raleaxation that I could get from yoga. (It is recommended in the guide that inverted poses not be done if you are menstruating.)

Patricia Walden does a good job of cuing while also remaining soothing. Her flexibility is encouraging and motivating.

The following is a list of all of the poses demostrated in this tape (for those that are familiar with yoga terminology):

Simple Sitting Pose, Child's Pose, Downward Facing Dog Pose #1, Mount Pose #1, Triangle Pose #1, Mountain Pose #2, Triangle Pose #2, Side Stretch #1,Side Stretch #2, Standing Forward Bend #1, Proud Warrior #1, Standing Forward Bend #2, Proud Warrioir #2, Extended Leg Pose #1/#2, Standing Forward Bend #3, Downward Facing Dog Pose #2/#3, Staff Pose, Sitting Forward Bend, Cobbler's Pose, Supported Shoulderstand (not standing on your shoulders, you lie on your back and put feet up against the wall with your hips elevated on a towel or blanket, Relaxation Pose.

I definitely recommend including this tape into your workout plan - It's great for beginners. I had never done yoga before this and feel that after a few times I could move on to a more advanced tape. My muscles were warmer than I expected them to be while doing it but it was very calming. Sometimes I do this on active rest days, when I want to do something but not anything very strenuous like (FIRM or Cathe)

Tool that I found useful: towel, thick phonebook or dictionary (they have yoga blocks that you can purchase but these work well to for some of the poses if you are less flexible - like in the beginning)\ non slip surface).

Grade: A

Lisa Herzog