They are energizing – If you wake up groggy or tired, practicing sun salutations will help raise your energy and lift your mood.Sun salutations have many benefits for the body and mind, which is why you will find them in most dynamic yoga classes. Because the postures are strengthening and energizing, the sun salutations make an ideal quick morning yoga routine. You can also practice sun salutations as a short yoga practice. Nowadays, they form the warm-up part of many styles of yoga practice, including Ashtanga, Vinyasa, and Hatha. In the 21st century western world, sun salutations are practiced with a different purpose than saluting the sun. This is where the name comes from (the Sanskrit name is Surya Namaskar which translates to “salute the sun.” The sun salutations date back to an ancient Indian transition where Hindi practitioners would perform similar movements in a morning ritual to express gratitude to the sun.

The poses are performed in a set sequence, each linked to a breath (either an inhale or exhale). The sun salutations are a sequence of yoga postures performed dynamically to build heat in the body and increase prana. However, our PlayPauseYoga course features specific in-depth lessons on sun salutations if you want to perfect these flows. In this article, we provide step-by-step instructions on mastering this iconic yoga sequence. The sun salutations are an excellent place to start. If you’re new to yoga, one way to reduce “asana overwhelm” is to focus on a small number of postures before attempting the entire selection. They are present in Ashtanga, Hatha, or Vinyasa classes, so if you’ve done a few sessions of these yoga styles, you’ve probably already practiced the sun salutations. The sun salutations are a sequence consisting of some of these fundamental asanas. There are specific foundational postures that every beginner yoga practitioner should seek to learn.

Hatha yoga sun salutation sequence