types of yoga

In My Humble Opinion
1

I hope this is the correct forum, my apologies if not.

My doctor wants me to take up yoga. I am almost 60 years old, way overweight and really not graceful or flexible, not to mention I don’t like to sweat a lot. I see there a lot of classes in my area but I don’t know where to start other than I don’t want the hot. Hatha, Flow, Hot, Therapeutic, Iyengar are some of the options.

Can someone tell me where I should start looking?

I may see about taking some private lessons so it can be geared to my particular set of issues unless I see a class of “beginning yoga for fat chicks”.

2

Do you have a YMCA near you? They usually offer good intro classes that are basic general “this is what yoga is like” format. Take a few of those and branch out from there. You may find, after doing it for a while, that what you end up liking is not what you expected to like. A ton of people think they are going to hate hot yoga but most people change their minds after practicing for a while and hot yoga ends up being their favorite.

Stay away from anything that isn’t explicitly labeled for beginners for now, and you should be ok.

3

You will not want to start out with Bikram yoga, I can assure you.

Look to see if any of the gyms near you offer Les Mills classes. One of their classes is Body Flow, which is a yoga-based class.

4

Beyond classes that are clearly identified as beginner, look for breathe or restorative yoga classes. IMHO they are lower intensity classes that are fairly calming, about slow flowing movements, and calming. I’m not as old s you but not a spring chicken either. I’m overweight and not very flexible. I find the types of classes I’ve suggested to be very enjoyable experiences.

Keep in mind yoga is a practice. It is all internal to you and you can go at your pace to your ability and benefit from it. It doesn’t matter if the people around you are more flexible, have better balance, etc. At least that is my very non-Yogi understanding. Haha

5

Either “gentle” or “restorative” should be a good start for you. Iyengar might be too depending on the approach of the teacher.

You might want to avoid classes with hot, power, flow, and/or vinyassa in the name for now.

6

There are yoga classes specifically for older people. Are you interested in classes at a gym, or something at home? If you look on Amazon for “gentle yoga” you’ll get a ton of hits for at home yoga for beginners.

7

I want to have an instructor to start because from what I understand practising incorrectly can be damaging.

8

There’s a practice called “yin yoga” that is slow stretching without the sweaty weird contortions that some others have.

9

This is a good call.

Look for a studio that has a range of styles and class types and check some of them out. You can often get a good deal as a new student–like a two-week unlimited pass for 20-30 bucks.