Developing a Home Yoga Practice

Developing A Home Practice.

“Practice makes perfect.” Ten minutes of yoga a day is better than one hour of yoga a week.

But, while practicing yoga at home sounds easy enough; in practice it’s a lot tougher. Life can often get in the way. And all too soon a week has gone by and you have not practiced at all. If you don’t practice, how are you going to take what you have learned in your lesson and work on the things you have learnt and improve on them? Essentially, if you don’t practice your progress will be slower.

This term in our yoga classes, here at Body Soul Yoga, we have been trying to establish a home practice. Particularly so, this summer, as we break for a few weeks; and we don’t want you to lose the strength and flexibility you have gained.

Tips on How to Start A Home Practice

  • Put your yoga mat out and start by just standing on your mat each day One day you may just stand. The next day you may add a forward bend and eventually you will just be doing yoga…
  • Practice yoga at the same place and time each day. Even if you just have a couple of minutes, just breathe and bring yourself into the present moment. It’s all about establishing a habit.
  • Take guidance from your teacher. Even experienced yoga students can be uncertain about which poses to choose and how to put them together. Your teacher should be able to offer you some lesson plans or podcasts to practice in between classes.
  • Sequencing, which poses you practice and what comes next, is one of the most difficult skills to master, but you can learn some basic sequences / a framework that you can build upon. The more you practice, the more you will just feel what is the right posture to flow and follow on from the first. See our suggested sequence below.
  • Your practice may consist of the following: Opening poses/warm up, Sun Salutations, standing poses, balances, back bends and forward bends, twists, seated postures, inversions and closing postures/warming down postures, ending with Savasana. Each pose prepares your body and mind for the next, so that your practice feels like it has a beginning, middle, and an end, that flow together, ending in a relaxation.
  • Don’t skip the relaxation/Savasana, it’s key to assimilating the benefits of your practice.
  • Remember there is no right or wrong way to do yoga and you can make any shape with your body that feels right. It is all about exploring our body and listening to it.

“No one is really taught by another, each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion, which arouses the internal teacher, who helps us to understand things.”
— Swami Vivekananda.

“You are your own inner teacher. Listen to your body.”

You can find the podcast that supports this lesson plan on our Resources page.

Posted 24 June 2016