Home Practice

Practicing yoga in class with other people is great. The energy, the direction and adjustments from a qualified teacher is all really helpful in progressing our yoga practice.

However, the best way to deepen the practice is to get on your mat every day, or almost every day, and start including a home practice. Even just getting in a regular habit of 10 minutes can be really beneficial.

Now, I know this might be easier said than done. There's nothing pets, particularly cats, enjoy more that joining in with home yoga. Then there's children needing attention or the doorbell/ phone might ring. In other words, there will always be distractions, but it is possible to carve out space and time for practice.

It might be getting up a bit earlier to go through your Sun Salutations to get you set up for the day. Alternatively, it might be doing some deeper stretches before going to bed at night. Allocating the time making a conscious effort to roll out your mat, will help form the habit.

If you're not sure what to do, then set sequences, like the Ashtanga Primary Series or the Sivananda Sequence can be a great place to start. Repetition of the same postures allows you to deepen these and see progress with your yoga. It also means that you don't have to hum and haw on your mat thinking about what to do!

Another option is to follow a YouTube video. I'm a big fan of Yin yoga and find it quite easy to sequence - for other people. In my own practice, it's much easier to put on a video, then I can concentrate on being "in the moment" rather than thinking about what's coming next. I'll put a couple of my favourite videos/ channels at the end of this post.

Being of a certain age, I actually learned Ashtanga yoga from a book. If I'm working on something and I want to get into the detail of it, or more often than not find an easier variation, I'll go to a book. There are many amazing yoga books out there so it's worthwhile going old-school.

On my Facebook page, I've posted some links to great content over the past couple of years, so you may find something that that resonates with you on a particular day.

Home practice is a habit that's easy to get into and stick to if you have the discipline. I've been busy with other projects for the past few weeks and this has fallen by the wayside a bit. That's ok, I've recognised this and will start back now. The truth is, sometimes life gets in the way of our yoga practice. However the good news is, yoga is always there for us when we need it.

Yin Yoga: https://www.youtube.com/c/yogawithkassandra

Sivananda Yoga (and others): https://www.youtube.com/c/skyhawk

Ashtanga Primary Sequence (with options!): https://youtu.be/9tWnDWz5A0Q

Enjoy.

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