What Actually Happens When You Start Doing Yoga Every Week?
You can absolutely feel better after one yoga class. Your body might feel looser, your mind a little quieter, and you may walk out feeling lighter than you did when you walked in. You might even have that moment I still have sometimes where you think, “Why don’t I do this more often?”
But there’s a difference between taking a yoga class every once in a while and actually developing a yoga practice. One class can make you feel good for an evening. Consistency gives you enough time to start noticing what yoga might actually be doing for your body, your mind, and even the way you move through your everyday life.
And consistency doesn’t mean you suddenly need to become the person who does yoga every single day. I’m talking about something much more realistic. What happens when you simply start showing up every week?
You Stop Starting Over Every Time
If you come to yoga once every few months, there’s a good chance it’s going to feel hard every time you come back. Your body hasn’t had enough repetition to become familiar with the movements, and your brain may still be trying to figure out what I mean when I start calling out pose names. 😂 That doesn’t mean you’re “bad” at yoga. You just haven’t given yourself enough opportunities to practice yet.
When you start coming consistently, things slowly become more familiar. You recognize poses you’ve done before, transitions start making more sense, and you begin spending less time wondering whether your foot is supposed to be over here or over there. You can actually start experiencing the practice instead of spending the entire class trying to figure it out.
That’s one of the reasons I encourage people not to judge yoga after one class. Imagine going to the gym once, lifting weights for an hour, and deciding strength training doesn’t work because you didn’t get stronger. We understand that strength takes repetition, but sometimes we forget that yoga is a practice for exactly the same reason.
Your Body Starts Adapting
And yes, if flexibility is something you want, consistency matters. I hear people say they’re too inflexible for yoga all the time, and I always think, “That’s literally one of the reasons to come.” 😂 You don’t have to become flexible before starting yoga any more than you need to become strong before you start lifting weights.
But yoga isn’t only about becoming more flexible. With consistent practice, you’re also working on strength, stability, balance, mobility, coordination, body awareness, and breath. Those are all things I care about in my classes because I want yoga to help you feel capable in your body, not simply help you touch your toes.
Some weeks you may suddenly realize you can do something that you couldn’t do before. Other weeks there may be absolutely no dramatic breakthrough, and that’s okay too. Sometimes progress looks like feeling steadier in a pose, using your breath instead of immediately giving up, or realizing that your body simply feels better than it used to.
You Start Learning Your Own Body
This might actually be one of my favorite parts of yoga. The more consistently you practice, the more you start noticing what your body is telling you. You begin learning the difference between discomfort because something is challenging and discomfort because your body is telling you, “Nope, not today.”
That’s also why I will forever tell you to use the damn blocks. 😂 Blocks, straps, modifications, and rest are not signs that you’re failing at yoga. Learning when to challenge yourself and when to back off is part of developing a relationship with your body instead of constantly fighting against it.
Some days your body will feel strong and capable, and you may surprise yourself with what you can do. Another day, the exact same pose might feel completely different. Consistency gives you enough experiences to realize that neither version of you is “better” at yoga. You’re learning how to meet yourself where you are that day.
The Mental Practice Starts Coming With You
This is where I think yoga becomes much bigger than exercise. If all you wanted was to burn calories, there are plenty of ways to do that. I used to look at exercise almost entirely through that lens myself, and honestly, it was one of the reasons I didn’t appreciate yoga when I first discovered it.
As I got older, what I wanted from movement changed. I still want to feel strong and healthy physically, but I also want energy. I want mental clarity, balance, confidence, awareness, and the ability to actually feel good in the body and life I’m living.
When you practice yoga consistently, you repeatedly practice slowing down enough to notice your breath, your thoughts, your reactions, and what’s happening inside your body. Eventually, some of that awareness may start following you outside the studio. Maybe you notice when you’re holding your breath, recognize tension sooner, or catch yourself getting overwhelmed and remember that you have tools to help regulate yourself.
And That’s Why We Don’t Just Move Our Bodies in My Classes
If you’ve taken one of my classes, you already know I care about the mental side of this practice just as much as the physical. Every class I teach includes a specially themed guided visualization, and I customize it based on the people who are actually in the room. The visualization you experience one week may be completely different from what we explore the next.
I do that intentionally because I don’t want you to simply exercise for an hour and leave. We move, strengthen, stretch, breathe, slow down, and then create space to work with the mind before finishing with crystal singing bowls. I want you to have an opportunity to leave feeling different mentally as well as physically.
When you come consistently, you get to experience those different themes over time. Maybe one week something I say resonates deeply with you and another week it doesn’t, but the practice continues giving you opportunities to reflect, reconnect, and become more aware of yourself. To me, that’s part of what makes yoga a practice of the body, mind, and something deeper.
Stop Waiting Until You Desperately Need Yoga
I catch myself doing this too. Sometimes I’ll go several days without really practicing yoga and start thinking, “Eh, I’m fine. I don’t really need it.” Then I finally do a session, even a short one, and afterward I feel amazing and wonder why I waited so long.
I think we do this with our health all the time. We wait until we’re incredibly tight before we stretch, overwhelmed before we slow down, exhausted before we rest, or stressed out before we finally do something about our stress. Then we use yoga like an emergency reset button instead of something that may help us take care of ourselves before we reach that point.
What if you didn’t wait until you desperately needed a reset to give yourself one? What if taking care of yourself became something proactive instead of something you only do once you feel bad enough? That’s a completely different relationship with your health.
Consistency Does NOT Mean Perfection
I don’t want you reading this and thinking I’m telling you that you need to come to yoga five days a week. I’m not. Your life has responsibilities, work, family, unexpected things that happen, days when you’re tired, and weeks when everything seems to get thrown off.
Consistency can simply mean deciding that yoga is something you do regularly. If you currently come once every couple of months, maybe once a week becomes your practice. If you’re already consistently coming once a week and want more, maybe twice a week feels good for you.
Missing a week doesn’t erase everything you’ve done either. The goal isn’t to create another thing in your life that makes you feel guilty when you don’t do it perfectly. The goal is to build a relationship with taking care of yourself that you actually want to return to.
Give Yourself Enough Time to Find Out
This is one of the reasons I created my 1 Week Intro for $29. If you’ve never really practiced yoga consistently, I don’t necessarily want you to come to one class and immediately decide whether yoga is “for you.” I’d rather you give yourself enough opportunities to experience different classes, different movements, different visualization themes, and different versions of yourself walking into the room.
For $29, you can take unlimited classes with me for one week through September 30. Maybe you come once. But maybe you decide to come Tuesday and then notice how you feel afterward, come back Wednesday, and begin experiencing what it’s like when yoga isn’t just something you occasionally do.
Because one class can absolutely make you feel better.
But give yourself a practice, and you may start discovering just how much more yoga has to offer.
Come exactly as you are. You don’t need to become stronger, calmer, more flexible, more confident, or more “yoga-ish” before you start. Those might be some of the things you discover along the way.
Your guide and forever a student,April 💛
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