Yoga poses for beginners: twelve shapes to learn first
The best yoga poses for beginners are simple standing, kneeling, seated and lying shapes such as Mountain Pose, Cat-Cow, Child's Pose, Bridge and Savasana, learned in their easiest version first. Twelve of them, held for a few slow breaths each, are enough to build a short home practice you can do in about fifteen minutes.
You do not need many poses to start yoga. You need a handful of simple shapes, learned slowly, in the version that suits your body today. These twelve are the ones I would teach first; each links to its own page.
If you would rather learn them with someone watching your alignment, private beginner lessons start with exactly this kind of short list. For the bigger picture of how to begin, read how to start yoga as a complete beginner.
Before you start: what you need and how long to hold
A mat or a rug that does not slide, a cushion and a folded blanket are enough. Practise barefoot, a while after eating.
Hold each shape for three to five slow breaths through the nose, then come out gently. The resting shapes can stay longer. Nothing here should cause sharp pain; if it does, stop. If you are pregnant or recovering from surgery, the pregnancy and postpartum guides are a better place to start, and the health disclaimer explains what these pages can and cannot do.
Standing poses to learn first
- Mountain Pose, Tadasana. Feet hip-width apart, weight even. Every standing shape starts here.
- Tree Pose, Vrksasana. One foot on the opposite ankle, toes on the floor, a hand on a wall. Balance without the risk of falling.
- Warrior II, from the Warrior family. Step wide, turn one foot out, bend that knee over the ankle. Keep the stance short at first.
- Triangle Pose, Trikonasana. Same stance, legs straight, reach sideways and rest the lower hand on your shin or a block.
- Chair Pose, Utkatasana. Sit back as if into a chair, only a little. It warms you up quickly.
Once those five feel familiar, two more grow out of the same wide stance: Extended Side Angle, the bent-knee cousin of the triangle shape, and Half Moon, which lifts the back leg into a balance. Every standing shape, with two lines on each, is gathered on one page.
On hands and knees
- Cat-Cow, Marjaryasana Bitilasana. Round the back as you breathe out, soften the belly down as you breathe in. The gentlest way to move the spine.
- Downward-Facing Dog, Adho Mukha Svanasana. Lift the hips from all fours, knees bent as much as you like.
- Child’s Pose, Balasana. Sit back towards your heels, forehead down. Your place to rest at any point.
Seated and lying poses
- Easy Pose, Sukhasana. Sit cross-legged on a cushion high enough for the knees to drop below the hips. The shape for breathing.
- Butterfly Pose, Baddha Konasana. Soles of the feet together, knees falling open onto cushions. A quiet stretch for the inner thighs.
- Bridge Pose, Setu Bandha Sarvangasana. On your back, feet flat, lift the hips a little. A block under the sacrum turns it into a rest.
- Corpse Pose, Savasana. Lie flat and let everything go. It looks like nothing and is the hardest to do well.
How do you put them together? A 15-minute sequence
Start in Easy Pose for a minute of slow breathing. Six rounds of Cat-Cow, five breaths in Downward-Facing Dog, then rest in Child’s Pose.
Come up to Mountain Pose. Take Chair Pose, then Warrior II and Triangle on each side, then Tree Pose by the wall.
On the floor, Butterfly and a gentle seated twist to each side, then two or three slow lifts into Bridge. Finish with five minutes of Savasana. Once it feels familiar, the Sun Salutation, Surya Namaskar, is a natural next step, and yoga for flexibility explains how stiffness changes with practice. If you would rather stretch than learn a sequence, the full body stretch in thirteen steps uses several of these poses, and all the stretching routines are listed by body part.
Which poses should a beginner leave for later?
Headstand, Sirsasana, puts weight through the neck, so learn it with a teacher, later. Crow Pose, Bakasana, asks for wrist and arm strength most beginners are still building. Lotus Pose, Padmasana, can strain the knees if the hips are not open enough, and Easy Pose does the same job. Every one of these can wait. So can Wheel Pose, a full backbend pressed up from the floor, and Handstand, which is learned in stages at a wall: worth learning one day, with a teacher beside you. The poses library lists the rest by family.
Learning the poses with a teacher
A teacher sees what you cannot: a knee drifting inward, shoulders creeping up, a held breath. In a private lesson we find the version of each shape that suits you and repeat it until it feels familiar.
I teach beginners at home across the city, from a condo living room in Quezon City to a quiet corner at home in Mandaluyong. I bring the mats and props, so you only need a clear patch of floor.