Expanding Your Yoga Pose Inventory
Have you ever found yourself going through the same 20 or so yoga poses over and over again during your yoga practice?
It’s very easy to let happen, and while there is nothing wrong with sticking to what you know, learning new yoga poses keeps your practice fresh and inspiring. With so much information floating around the interwebz on yoga and yoga asanas, the poses from which to pick from can be a bit intimidating.
Because of that, we’ve composed this list of the best books, social media channels, and websites that cover new and interesting yoga poses that you can add to your own personal yoga pose inventory list.
Books
When you’re practicing yoga at home and are not sure if you’re doing a pose right, having a book handy to look up poses and their instructions is particularly helpful. These are the two that I find most helpful when trying to learn new poses:
2,100 Asanas: The Complete Yoga Poses
I have this one on my kindle and find myself referencing it constantly when I’m practicing at home. I may understand the “basic” pose that I’m working on, but this book helps me to find and learn unique and interesting variations on each pose that challenge me even further.
150+ of the most common yoga poses, including beginner-friendly poses as well as more advanced asanas. What’s helpful about this book is it heavy on pose-specific tips and includes information on how to get into certain poses.
Blogs & Websites
There are so many different websites based around yoga. The one you’re one right now is one of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of the yoga-specific websites available to internet goers and browsers. When it comes to websites that specifically cover poses and asanas very well, these two sites are the first to pop into my mind.
Their list of 92 yoga poses is full of information. Each pose has step-by-step instruction, an associated skill level, its sanskrit name, things you should watch out for if you have certain conditions, variations, modifications, prop additions, ways to deepen the pose, prep and follow-up poses, beginner tips, and what the pose is best for. Bonus: you can sort by anatomy, types of poses, benefits, and contraindications.
265 poses – all explained in short form videos that are easily consumable. Each page also includes an anatomy & physiology graphic about what muscles are being used in the pose.
Social Media
Social media is a great place to keep up with current trends in yoga. While there are too many channels to list (twitter, facebook, instagram, pinterest, youtube, snapchat, and the list goes on, we’re going to stick with mostly visual mediums here, as we find that they’re the easiest to digest and the most likely to get you inspired to roll out your mat and get to work.
In case you haven’t noticed, Instagram has gotten huge. If you live under a rock, it’s a social network based solely around image (and some video) sharing. Since it is visual, it is a great way to see new poses and to get inspired to continue working on your own practice.
Yoga Girl – she has a pet goat – ’nuff said
Yoga Daily – new yoga poses posted every day – and they’re very pretty pics
Pinterest is a great way to learn new poses, as well as discover new yoga and yoga related blogs and websites. While there are thousands of different yoga inspired boards on pinterest, these are the behemoths of yoga boards – with each of these boards having over 3,000 different yoga inspired pins. That’s a lot of pins to scroll though. Something here should surely strike your interest or fancy.
Yoga Pose Weekly – Pinterest board pinning new poses weekly with over 3,000 poses
Yoga Poses – Pinterest board with over 10,000 pins on yoga poses
Yoga Poses Around the World – Pinterest board with close to 4,000 pins of poses from users around the world
YouTube
What would a learning resource list be without youtube? From quick ten second walk-throughs to full hour-long workout videos, you can find virtually any kind of yoga instruction you are looking for or are in the mood for. Here are two that will expand your inventory of poses.
Yoga Poses Explained Playlist by Your Terms Yoga
Yoga with Adriene – you can’t go wrong with any of her videos or playlists – just pick one and get started
Conclusion
This is only a brief list to get you started on increasing the amount of poses you know and can practice. We encourage you to go out and find the ones you like best, or the ones you want to try, or the ones that you aspire to one day be able to do. If you have any more channels/accounts/playlists you think would be great to add to the list – go ahead and shoot us an email at info@noobyoga.com. We’d be happy to hear from you!