The chair is your friend for yoga.

When I first began learning how to teach yoga about a decade ago, I was amazed at the number of things we can use to help us learn how to get into yoga poses.

“Yoga doesn’t mean lean bodies contorted in amazing shapes on the mat,” I had thought. Helping out at Manasa Yoga’s special classes for older people, and people living with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and dementia really was an eye-opening experiencing.

Reasons to use a chair for yoga.

Before we move into how to use chairs for yoga, and chair yoga sequences, here are a few reasons to use the chair for your yoga practice.

• Chairs are great props – chairs can be sat on, you can use it for balance, you can put your foot on its seat or backrest, you can use it to place your hands or head as you fold forward, you can bend backwards over them; the possibilities are endless. The point is to be steady and to find ease in yoga poses, and chairs help us on this journey.
• Chairs help with posture – sit midway on the sit or until your feet are flat on the ground and sit this way as you work through the day. Your posture will improve.
• Chairs are accessible – as far as yoga props go.
• Chairs don’t use as much space as a yoga mat.

You can find more reasons at this link.

How to use chairs for yoga.

Watch the video below to learn how to use chairs for your yoga practice:

Chair yoga sequences.

Here are two yoga sequences you can use for your chair yoga practice:

Yoga teachers use chairs for help too!

Vasisthasana, or yoga side plank with leg extended laterally, is a pose that I have had difficulty with for a long time. Not with the chair though, watch below!