How to follow a yoga course with Svayam Yoga
Enrol on a course and complete its first session in the guided player.
When this is useful
When you keep practising but not progressing, because every session starts from scratch. A course decides the order for you so you can spend the attention on the practice.
Before you start
- Finish onboarding first. What you said about your experience and your physical limits shapes what you are offered.
- A rough idea of how many sessions a week you can genuinely do. Courses suggest a pace but nothing expires.
- Your mat and whatever props the course lists.
Steps
Step 1
Open the Course Catalogue
My Courses in the sidebar opens a screen headed Course Catalogue - the sidebar names your courses, the page names the whole library. Anything you have already started sits at the top under Continue learning.
Step 2
Choose a course
Search and filter to something that matches what you want and how long you have. Each course shows its length in weeks, a suggested number of sessions per week, and how long a session usually takes. Self-paced courses you run alone; teacher-led courses involve a teacher and need Full Access.
Step 3
Read the course page and enrol
The course page lists what it covers, the props it recommends and anything it excludes. Enrolling shows a short safety acknowledgement first - read it rather than clicking through, particularly the part about practising without a teacher present.
Step 4
Start the first session
Enrolling puts a Continue button on the course page pointing at your next session. It always points at the next one you have not done, so you never have to remember where you were.
Step 5
Work through the session in the player
The player takes one step at a time - centering, preparation, the main practice, then rest - with a timer, the instruction for that step, and audio you can mute. If a step is not right for you today, skip it; that is recorded honestly rather than counted as done.
Step 6
Finish with the reflection
At the end you are asked how it went and how confident you felt. It takes fifteen seconds and it is the part that makes your progress page mean something later. Then you get a summary of what you completed and what you skipped.
What happens next
Your position advances to the next session, and the course page picks up there whenever you come back. Complete every session and a print-ready certificate becomes available on the course page.
An example
You have practised on and off for two years and never got past the same three poses. You enrol on an eight-week course at three sessions a week, do two some weeks, and finish it in eleven weeks instead of eight. Nothing penalised you for that, and you finished.
Tips
- Pick the pace you will actually keep, not the one you admire. A course you finish slowly beats one you abandon on schedule.
- Some courses are built entirely from breathing practice, with no standing poses at all - a real option on a week when your body is not up for much.
- Skipping is better than forcing. A skipped step tells your teacher something; an injury tells them more, later, worse.
Safety and limitations
- Self-paced sessions are designed to be practised without a teacher present. If you have doubts about your physical readiness, choose a teacher-led course or book a live class instead.
- Warm up before standing or intensive work, and never hold something that causes sharp or radiating pain.
- A course cannot see you. It does not know that today is the day your knee is complaining - only you do.
Svayam supports a general wellbeing practice. It does not diagnose, treat or cure anything, and it is not a substitute for medical advice, physiotherapy, or an in-person assessment by a qualified yoga teacher.
Related how-to guides
How to start a guided breathing practice with Svayam Yoga
Choose a breathing practice, set how you want to be guided, and complete one guided round.
How to build your own practice session with Svayam Yoga
Assemble a session from drills aimed at the areas you choose, save it, and run it.
How to ask a yoga teacher a question with Svayam Yoga
Write a question, send it to a teacher of your choice, and find their answer when it arrives.