A yoga class may offer a fun sense of community and guidance, but it's just as important to develop a personal practice within the comfort of your own home. For inspiration, choose one or more beginner yoga DVDs and watch completely to become familiar with the material -- and enjoy the exotic locales. While some beginners may find the workouts a bit challenging, the key is to honor your own pace.
Element: Yoga for Beginners
Elena Brower, a certified anusara yoga teacher and co-owner of Virayoga in New York City, takes you through a slow, steady practice with an emphasis on breathing. Brower begins with centering and warm-ups and progresses through sun salutations, standing poses, hip openers, back bends, forward bends and relaxation for a 50-minute workout amid a soothing Pacific Ocean background. Her best advice? "Give preference to deeper breathing over deeper postures." For every four of these DVDs sold, the Arbor Day Foundation will plant a tree in a national forest.
Flow Yoga for Beginners
Practicing on a rocky ledge surrounded by Hawaiian waterfalls, Shiva Rea, a California-based flow yoga teacher, matches breath and movement through a warm-up practice. The scenery changes along with the focus: 20 minutes of a beginner's back bend flow and 10 minutes of a relaxing flexibility flow next to a lily pond; and about 20 minutes of a standing pose flow and a very quick savasana -- or final resting pose -- on the beach. Her soothing voice invites you to relax, and she offers options for more difficult poses.
Yoga for Beginners
Barbara Benagh, who teaches in the Boston area, originally studied Iyengar yoga, which focuses on alignment, and with Angela Farmer, who encouraged her to follow her own voice. In her own voice, Benagh teaches eight routines -- filmed at Half-Moon Bay in Antigua -- which give you the basic instructions for standing pose, back bends, core strengtheners, hip openers, sun salutations and relaxation. You can also adapt the sequences to suit your own time schedule and the areas where you most wish to focus.
AM/PM Yoga
Rodney Yee and Patricia Walden teach two time-appropriate practices for beginners: "Start Your Day Energized" and "End Your Day Restored." The 20-minute morning practice, starring Yee at a Maui beach sunrise, begins with a focus on breath, follows with a relaxing and energizing sequence of poses and ends with a guided meditation. Walden, in Death Valley, California, National Park, leads the 20-minute p.m. winding-down and balancing practice of gentle stretches, standing poses, forward bends and a final restorative sequence.
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