As a new student of yoga, I loved going to class and soaking in everything I was learning about yoga and my body. My teacher really encouraged home practice and I found this quite intimidating at first, not knowing where to start and how to be safe. I am eternally grateful for her support and encouragement. You really start to learn the benefits of yoga through your own practice. I thought I might share a few thoughts on home yoga practice, whether you have one or would like to start one.
-Give yourself time, however much time you can spare. It doesn’t have to be 2 hours, 10 or 20 minutes to explore a few poses, your body will thank you.
-A morning practice is easier to keep the mind still and get into some of the more meditative aspects of yoga, be gentle with yourself in the morning and give your body time to wake up.
-In an evening yoga practice, your body will be warm from your natural movement of the day so you can explore more difficult and challenging poses, but it may be more difficult to still the mind. Bringing awareness to the breath will help focus the mind.
-Take notes from your classes and from your own practice on poses you try and how you feel after.
If you haven’t tried a home practice before, start simple and slow with something you feel comfortable with. A sun salutation, or legs up the wall or even a few moments of savasana! If you have a home yoga practice and have any questions or thoughts I would love to hear from you.
I enjoyed your post, and certainly identify with your point regarding the different feel to morning v evening practice. I’ve had a regular, almost daily, practice for nearly 2 years now, having slowly built up the length of time set aside for this as the months have passed. I think it is important to set an intention for the practice each day, as this helps me to keep mindful about what I am doing. A few months ago I was in a bit of a rut with it, sometimes feeling that I was just going through the motions at a purely physical level and refocusing with an intention helped. I also started to do a longer practice (in addition to the weekly lesson) once a week in the evening or daytime, and am really feeling the benefits in a refreshed approach to the morning practice. I feel under less pressure to keep the practice at a certain level and can attend more to how I’m actually feeling, e.g. “What does my body or mind need right now?”; I’d just got a bit lost with it I suppose. Have you found that sometimes you get stuck with a familiar routine? How do you refresh your practice? I guess as a student teacher currently this may not be an issue for you!
Thanks for your comment and question Joe! The course does definitely give me lots to think about and try. It’s great that you have such a regular practice. And asking yourself what your body needs is always a great place to start. I know what you mean about getting stuck in a routine, we tend to do the poses we are good at and that we feel comfortable with. It’s important to feel comfortable and steady in a posture as we talked about last week, but also to keep our practice fresh and interesting is a challenge! This year I have been experimenting with doing poses I dislike tell most. To give myself a challenge and also because I think they are probably what my body needs even of my mind doesn’t like it. Boat pose has been one I avoided for 8 years now! Hence why we are doing it every class 😉 I am actually starting to enjoy it now and have been finding benefits off mat as well. Hope this makes sense.