youtube
A great youtube channel for beginners is Yoga with Adriene. Adriene did a series on her channel 5 years ago called 30 Days of Yoga. She's since made more 30 day series with different focuses. This is great to start off with because it's a different routine every day so you won't get bored and you can learn a whole range of poses. Plus, I think the idea of just 30 days makes you more likely to want to challenge yourself and stick it out. Then, by the end of the 30 days, you'll be in the routine of doing it every day anyway and can start the next 30 day series! An unbelievably cute dog also features on the channel so it's definitely worth it.
Sarah Beth Yoga is a great channel if you're starting yoga with a particular focus in mind. She has lots of videos titled "yoga for..." and creates playlists so that it's easy to find all the videos that help that particular thing. The other great thing about her playlists is that she has ones for video length. So you can start out on the 10 minute videos and work your way up!
tiktok
You know we're obsessed with tiktok - who isn't right now!? Btw if you haven't checkout out our tiktok page you deffo should... Anyway, tiktok is also a great place to learn pretty much anything - yoga included. Obviously, because of the fast paced nature of tiktok, it's very different to watching on youtube. You can't follow along with tiktok videos because majority of them last 15 seconds, but it's a great place to learn poses or flows that you can then do by yourself whenever you want. Both @Yogabeforecoffee and @cathymadeoyoga show yoga flows in double speed and videos of some quickfire poses. They both also have a more fitness/strength focus compared to Sarah Beth or Adriene. So you can get a mix of both!
Apps
I'll be honest, I'd much rather use a youtube video than an app, partly because it feels more personal/realistic, but mostly because nothing gets on my nerves more than when an app is free but then wants £20 for a pro account that is literally all of the content. I have a real love hate relationship with headspace... But we're not all me so I'll give some suggestions.
Pocket Yoga is actually decent in terms of content you can get without signing up for their pro account. They've got so many videos that you won't be doing the same 2 routines over and over. The other great thing about the app is you can easily filter all of their content to find exactly what you want. free or pro? Level 1 difficulty or level 5? 10 minutes or an hour? They give you a ton of options. You can also see all the poses that are going to be in the session before you start as well to help you even more.
Down Dog is another yoga app but is laid out very different. You don't get a huge list to choose from but you can specify whether you are a beginner or not. It's a good app but it's only free for your first month I think. Yoga for Beginners is a partner app of Down Dog. This version is fully free as it just gives the intro sessions to three different types of Yoga. It's perfect if you're not sure which one you'll like! You get three sessions for each Vinyasa, Hatha and Restorative yoga. I'll be honest though, the main reason I put this one in here was because of the fact that you can choose the voice that speaks the yoga sessions as well as the type of music that plays in the background - who wouldn't want a crackling woodfire while they do their daily yoga?
So what's stopping you?! You might as well have a try at it!
Which one will you use?
Bethan ROR XX
