Tips on Creating a Home Yoga Practice| self discipline

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Tips on Creating a Home Yoga Practice

Creating a Home Yoga Practice
Tips from Linda Smith

There are many ways to practice. Your practice is personal. Set your intention, and then approach each practice with empty curiosity. Allow space for the unknown to arise.

I. Create a time and space for practice:
 Work toward consistency in time (first thing in the morning; right before bed)
 Have a special “practice area” in your home with your props and meaningful adornments (flowers, pictures, a favorite rock, candle, etc.)
 Unplug your phone; put up a “do not disturb” sign.
 Consider using a timer.
 Keep a journal of your practice experience.
 Show up!


II. Right before practice:
 Determine how much time you have for that particular day/practice.
 Set your intention for that practice (to stay present; to open the hips; to calm; to energize, etc.) Use your intention to create balance in your life.
 Center. Empty the mind of plans and lists and focus on your intention and then….Let it go and don’t become attached to any particular outcomes.


III. Warm up with slow, gentle movements:
 Six movements of the spine (can be done on back, sitting, hands and knees, standing)
 Big movements for shoulders, arms, hips, joints


IV. For a general practice:
 Build intensity with standing postures. These will bring heat and energy into the body.
 Inversions (legs to wall, modified shoulder stand, shoulder stand)
 Abdominal and/or arm-strengthening work
 Backbends
 Twists
 Forward bends
 Finish with a “cool down”. Gentle, easy back/hip stretches.
 Finally, don’t forget the relaxation (corpse pose) at the end. This helps to integrate the practice.


V. Embed stretches throughout day (at kitchen counter, back porch steps, while weeding lawn, as you walk). Think of as many ways to include yoga moves into your daily routine/schedule as possible.

L.Smith, Orbis Yoga Studio
January, 2009

Linda Smith and Orbis Yoga Studio are located in Louisville, KY. She has formulated this one-page list of suggestions for practitioners to take yoga along with them when they leave the studio and right into their lives at home. Here are some comments Linda wrote to her KinYoga colleagues:

"... practice can take many forms and one can focus on one particular thing (i.e. posture, part of the body, devotion) and that in itself can be the practice for that time/day."

"This just sort of bubbled up and I am excited that they (my students) are excited about practicing."

You can find out more from Linda at www.orbisyoga.com.

Yoga is more than what happens on the mat in the yoga studio. Yoga is also the way you live your life off the mat.

BREATHE ..... JUST BREATHE!

So much of who we are each day is determined by how we decide to show up. Will we enter the day with a sense of calm purpose, or frazzled mania? A regular yoga practice can make that difference.

If you don't make time to take care of yourself, who will? If you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anyone else. Take 5 ~ 5 minutes for yourself to just be still and answer the question, "What do I need?" The answer might surprise you.