How to choose your first yoga class
You’ve probably heard a lot about yoga from friends, colleagues, social media, or even your doctor—but with so many different styles available, choosing your first class can feel confusing.
The best place to begin depends on your body, health, personality, experience with movement, and what you are looking for from practice.
At Hot Yoga Eindhoven, we view the body as a gateway to the mind. Yoga uses movement, breathing, awareness, and relaxation practices to help support physical and mental well-being.
Below is a simple introduction to some of the classes we offer.
Hatha Yoga
Hatha Yoga is often the most accessible place for beginners to start. Postures are practiced with more space between them, allowing time to breathe, feel, and understand each pose.
Traditionally, Hatha Yoga includes both posture practice (āsana) and breathwork (prāṇāyāma). In modern yoga, it is often associated with slower and more stabilizing forms of practice.
Hot Yoga
Hot Yoga uses Hatha Yoga-based postures practiced in a heated room (approximately 37–39°C). These stabilizing and wrist-friendly classes are suitable for beginners and can help improve balance, focus, mobility, and strength.
If you are completely new to practicing in the heat, a 60-minute class can be a great place to start. The Original Hot Yoga 90-minute class is also beginner friendly — each posture is practiced twice, helping the body and mind learn gradually through repetition.
Doing yoga in a heated room has many benefits for both body and mind including improved mood, flexibility, and focus. With practice you will learn how to move in the heat and fully experience the benefits of hot yoga.
Flow Yoga / Vinyasa Flow
Flow Yoga links movement and breathing together through more dynamic sequences and transitions between poses.
Flow classes often place more demand on the wrists, shoulders, coordination, and cardiovascular system, so beginners may benefit from starting with Warm Flow 60 before progressing to stronger Flow classes.
Warm Flow
Warm Flow classes are practiced in a gently heated room (approximately 30–35°C). Because flowing movement naturally generates heat in the body, the room temperature is lower than in Hot Yoga classes.
Warm Flow can help improve mobility, coordination, concentration, strength, and flexibility while creating an energizing and meditative state.
Strength & Pilates classes
Pilates and strength-based classes help build stability, coordination, core strength, endurance, and body awareness.
If you are newer to movement practice, Gentle Pilates or Hot Strength 60 are often the best starting points. Classes such as Hot Pilates or Double Strength 75 may be better once you feel comfortable moving in the heat and following longer sequences.
Yin Yoga
Yin Yoga is a slower, meditative style of practice involving longer-held supported poses that target connective tissues and joint mobility.
Yin combines mindfulness, breathing, and deep release practices and can complement more active yoga styles beautifully. Students with hypermobility may benefit from balancing Yin practice with strengthening-based classes such as Hatha or Flow Yoga.
Yin Yang/ Yin Yang Flow
A balanced and accessible class offering an all-round practice. Here the ‘yang’ aspect is Hatha or Flow Yoga to strengthen and stabilize the body, combined with Yin Yoga to improve flexibility and release tension. This creates a nourishing and grounding practice, ideal for any time of day or week, though it works especially well at the end of a busy week.
Growing through practice
Yoga is not simply about becoming flexible or achieving advanced postures. Over time, practice can help us develop greater awareness, resilience, steadiness, and connection with ourselves and others.
There is no final “arrival” in yoga — only an ongoing process of learning, observing, adapting, and growing.
Three main principles of yoga practice
If you remember these three principles, you are already off to a good start.
- Create awareness.
- Focus on your breathing.
- Balance engagement with relaxation.
Most modern yoga classes focus primarily on posture practice (āsana) and breathing (prāṇāyāma), though these are only two aspects of the broader traditional yoga system.
By Natasha Gunn, Programme leader at Hot Yoga Eindhoven and Awake Yoga
You can also visit First Time to see what to bring with you and how to manage your first Hot Hatha class – Yes, the Original Hot Yoga is great for beginners!
