If you’re keen to improve your yoga poses, but don’t know how or have found that your yoga progress has plateaued, then keep reading.
In this article, I’m going to share my top tips to help you improve your yoga posture (yoga asana) practice.
1. Use A Mirror Or Record Yourself Doing Yoga
I don’t recommend practising yoga in front of a mirror, unless it’s specifically to check your alignment. Mirrors often cause a lot of visual distractions, which can easily take you out of your moving meditation.
However, for the purpose of checking your yoga pose alignment, mirrors are really handy. Every now and again, practice in front of a mirror so you can see if you’re doing what you think you’re doing.
Recording yourself achieves the same result. You can follow your yoga asana progress over the years, double-check your alignment and any spot areas which might need improvement.
Mirrors and recordings help you to fine-tune proprioception and your mind-body connection.
2. Cross-Train To Support Your Yoga Asana Practice
Cross-training is a great way to improve your yoga practice. Callisthenics and pilates are great forms of bodyweight movement which help to improve strength, endurance and mobility.
Doing these alongside yoga helps build the strength required for more complicated and demanding or ‘advanced’ yoga postures.
From experience, weight training also helps to improve strength, but the issue with weight training is that it can often affect mobility and flexibility within yoga postures, too. I would personally opt for bodyweight movements such as callisthenics and pilates first and foremost.
Dance is another form of movement that is helpful for yoga asana as it teaches you to move intentionally, with precision and fluidity.
3. Study The Yoga Postures And Their Variations
Take your yoga practice into your own hands: you don’t have to just rely on your teacher.
Take the time to study the yoga postures, learn their Sanskrit and English names and their proper alignment and variations so you can provide yourself with ways to deepen into and ease out of the postures as you wish.
You know your body and preferences better than anyone. Yoga posture (yoga asana) study will help you to understand the yoga poses better, combined with providing you with options to deepen your practice.
If you’re not sure of anything, you can simply double-check with your yoga teacher.
4. Start With Foundational Yoga Postures
Start with the basics and move on from there. There are some core foundational yoga poses and vinyasas which will help you build strength and flexibility. Learning these then helps you to move on to other, more demanding, postures.
In general, I recommend starting with things like:
- The classical sun salutations (surya namaskar)
- Warrior 1 and 2 (virabhadrasana eka and dve)
- Extended side angle (utthita parsvakonasana)
- Some of the more accessible balancing postures, such as standing knee to chest pose (tadasana pavanamuktasana) and tree pose (vrikshasana)
- Standing and/or seated forward folds
- The boat pose (navasana)
- The plank (kumbhakasana) and side plank (vasisthasana)
- Some of the more accessible inversions, such as bridge pose (setu bandhasana) and legs up the wall (viparita karani), or shoulderstand (sarvangasana)
- And some seated and/or reclined twists, such as half Lord of the fishes pose (ardha matsyendrasana) and reclined fish pose (supta matsyendrasana)
There are plenty of other foundational yoga poses and vinyasas that you can do too, but these are a good start. Focus on mastering the basics before moving on to other, more complicated postures.
If you want to learn more about the foundational principles of yoga practice, then be sure to check out my article here.
5. Choose A Peak Yoga Posture
If you’re looking to work towards something in particular, it’s helpful to pick a ‘peak yoga pose’ that you’d like to focus on. This allows you to mindfully train, do specific drills and preparatory poses to achieve your goal posture.
For example, if you want to work towards arm balances, then you need to train your core and upper body strength to hold yourself, along with working on balance in inversions.
If you want to work towards the splits, then you need to work towards flexibility and mobility in the legs as opposed to strength in the upper body and arms.
Each pose has a journey and a path towards it. If you’re not training for your specific goal, you will take a lot longer to get there. Good physical performance is based on intentional training programs to reach certain goals.
You can ask your yoga teacher to create a sequence for you that builds towards your peak yoga posture.
6. Take A Targeted Yoga Course
Dedicated yoga courses and programs help achieve specific goals. There are lots of in-person and online yoga courses and programs that will help you focus on certain skills, yogic techniques, and yoga poses.
These courses ensure that you’re properly preparing your body and mind for your peak yoga pose.
7. Invest In 1-2-1 Private Yoga Lessons
Other than targeted yoga courses and yoga retreats, private 1-2-1 yoga sessions are a great way to build a yoga training program that will help you achieve your yoga pose goals.
Look for a yoga instructor who specialises in what you want to learn so they can build a targeted yoga practice for you.
You can find more details about my private 1-2-1 yoga and holistic wellness coaching sessions here.
8. Warm Up Properly For Yoga
Warming up properly makes a huge difference in yoga poses. Warming up the correct muscles that you’re working with ensures that you have access to optimal strength and flexibility for your peak poses.
9. Start A Home Yoga Practice
It’s so vital to have a home yoga practice when you’re trying to improve your yoga poses. There is often very little time in group classes to do targeted preparation and practice for your individual goals, because you’re being led by a yoga instructor who has to cater for the needs of multiple people.
They may or may not include your peak pose and its preparatory poses.
Topping up your group yoga class practice by playing on the yoga mat at home helps. It can take time to build towards certain postures and yogic skills.
With a home yoga practice, you can spend time working on your bespoke yoga program so that you meet your yoga goals much quicker.
You can read my top tips on how to create the perfect space to practice yoga at home here.
10. Learn Proper Yoga Alignment
Take the time to learn the proper alignment for your body within each yoga pose.
Take it step by step, focus on nailing the alignment of individual postures, before moving into fine-tuning the transitions and vinyasa sequences.
Break it down by thinking of the four different stages of the posture: the starting position, the entry into the posture, holding the posture itself, and the exit of the posture.
Think of your yoga asana practice like the cosmic dance of the universe. The cosmic dance is the cycle between creation, preservation and destruction.
The same goes for your yoga poses, as you move into and create a posture, you must then hold and experience the posture, before dissolving it to create a new one.
Focus on moving gracefully when getting both in and out of each yoga pose. It requires mental and physical control and strength to move elegantly throughout your practice.
11. Take It Slow And Hold The Yoga Poses For Longer
It’s tempting to move through the yoga poses quickly, especially when some are challenging; there is a temptation to rush.
However, it’s important to take your time, not only so you can breathe properly whilst you flow from pose to pose, but so you can deepen into each yoga posture.
When you take time in yoga postures, you either build more mental and physical strength and endurance, such as during hatha yoga poses, or alternatively, you can access more depth, patience and flexibility, such as during yin yoga.
Savour each pose, as the longer you’re in it, different depths and nuances of your practice will be unlocked.
12. Use The Breath To Improve Your Yoga Poses
Yoga is not acrobatics, callisthenics or gymnastics. Using the breath to flow throughout the practice in conjunction with mindfulness and meditation techniques is partly what turns yoga asana from simply a movement into a moving meditation and sacred prayer.
Pay attention to and improve your breathwork (pranayama), and coordinate your movements with the breath.
The general guideline is to inhale when expanding or stretching the torso, and exhale when contracting or folding the torso. If you’re unsure or something doesn’t feel right, double-check that you’re doing it correctly with your yoga teacher.
You can learn more about the basic principles of breathwork within yoga asana in my article here.
13. Practice Yoga With Your Eyes Closed
One of my favourite tips is to close your eyes whenever you can.
Practising yoga with your eyes closed allows you to experience the practice with your mind’s eye. It prevents you from getting distracted or comparing yourself and allows you to engage in pratyahara, sense withdrawal, which often makes meditation (dhyana) more accessible.
Sense withdrawal allows you to merge into the posture and become one with it. Combining sense withdrawal (pratyahara) with releasing as much effort as possible allows you to become one with Infinite Awareness (Universal Consciousness) during the yoga pose.
14. Think About The Intention For The Yoga Pose
Be intentional in each pose and consider its purpose. Some yoga poses will focus on strengthening the body, some may focus on flexibility, and others might focus on full relaxation.
Consider the purpose of the posture and, therefore, what you should be doing with the body.
If you’re focusing on strengthening, which muscles need to be contracted and engaged? If you’re focusing on flexibility, which muscles need to be softened and relaxed? And if you’re focusing on relaxation, which areas need to be released of tension?
Depending on the type of yoga, you can do the same posture but have totally different intentions for it in terms of the physical body.
For example, you can hold a very active child’s pose (balasana) by consciously stretching down through the tailbone and reaching forwards with the hands, actively creating length through the body. Or you can fully let go and melt into it, using it as a resting posture and relaxation phase.
The same posture, but two different intentions, sensations, and outcomes.
15. Treat Your Asana Practice Like The Cosmic Dance
Treat your yoga asana practice like a cosmic dance where the forces of the body and breath move in rhythmic unison.
Everything in your yoga posture practice is connected and works together in a cyclical nature, much like the cosmic dance cycle of creation, preservation, and destruction.
Your asana practice is like an offering or a prayer. It is a way to honour the Divine beauty of life and your body.
Focus on fluid transitions and smoothing out your movement and breath. Like a dance, be precise with your alignment, intentional with each movement, and smooth in your transitions.
In terms of cross-training, dance is a helpful art form that can help support your yoga practice by fine-tuning these skills.
16. Listen To Your Body
Listen to your body so that you can tap into when you should push yourself, and when you need to ease off.
Once you have gained stability in a pose, it’s important to find the balance between comfort and challenge so that you can let go of as much effort as possible. This means using the muscles you need to in order to maintain the posture, but relaxing into the rest of the body.
In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (Chapter 2, Verse 46), he states that the ideal yoga posture is steady, stable, and comfortable: “sthira sukham asanam”.
To reach this level of effortlessness within many postures, there will be a period during which you’ll need to push yourself and move outside of your comfort zone to build strength, flexibility, and endurance.
However, once you attain a level of stability within the posture, you need to ‘let go’ so you can enter a state of effortlessness, which allows your state of meditation (dhyana) to deepen.
Listening to the body throughout the practice is key, because there will be periods that you’ll need to step outside of your comfort zone to advance your physical practice, and there will be times when you need to ease off either to focus on meditation, or because you’re pushing yourself too far physically.
Overly forcing yourself into yoga postures can cause injuries, so you need to develop discernment. Yoga is not about torturing yourself and experiencing excruciating pain in order to achieve a physical shape. Don’t over-strive.
At times, you will experience some level of discomfort whilst learning new shapes and yoga postures, but you shouldn’t ever be wincing in pain.
17. Use Yoga Props
Yoga props are your best friend. They will help you to deepen and improve your yoga poses. Learn how to use them properly, and don’t ever think that using them makes you less capable.
When used properly, yoga props, such as yoga blocks, yoga straps, and yoga bolsters, will help you access more depth, flexibility, stability, strength, and comfort.
You can learn about some of the best yoga props in my article here.
18. Practice Yoga Asana Regularly
This goes without saying, really, but the more you practice yoga asana, the quicker you’ll improve.
Create a regular yoga routine, and be consistent. Try to get on the yoga mat daily if possible, even if this is only for 10-15 minutes a day.
Also, be patient. Depending on how much you practice, your body, and your starting point, it can take months and even years to learn certain yogic techniques and yoga poses properly.
Bear in mind that you’ll need to find a good balance between variety and consistency to progress.
You’ll need some level of variety in your yoga asana practice to keep yourself engaged, as opposed to bored.
But you’ll need to balance this with consistency in yoga asana poses, so that you can progress in them. Progress comes with repetition.
19. Surrender Into The Posture
In the long run, you want to focus on building strength and flexibility so that you can minimise your effort within the yoga poses.
Aim to relax the muscles you don’t need to use.
Yoga asana is a moving meditation, so relax and surrender into your poses wherever you can.
When you’re learning a new posture, it will require a higher level of effort, but as you get stronger, more flexible, and more mentally resilient, you’ll find that you can always find new ways to minimise your effort and relax into the posture.
These moments of surrender whilst in the yoga asana will provide access points to deeper states of concentration (dharana) and meditation (dhyana).
20. Don’t Compare Your Yoga Asana Practice To Others
During your yoga journey, try to refrain from comparing yourself to others. More often than not, it’s not helpful.
Remember that in reality, yoga asanas and your ability to get into all different types of impressive shapes are not actually that important in the grand scope of yoga.
The focus is not really the body, the aim is to use the yoga postures to go beyond the body.
You can practice many different paths of yoga, and be a yogi, and never even step onto the mat.
Yoga asana is just a very small part of the practice of yoga. If you want to learn how to improve your holistic yoga practice, then check out my article here.
Conclusion
What did you think of these tips to help you improve your yoga asana practice? Did any of them surprise you? And what tips would you add to this list? Let me know in the comment section below.
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