Your Home Practice
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007I’ve been mulling this over in my head for awhile, so its time to spill out into an email so my poor brain has room for other things!
A home Yoga practice is an important part of your commitment to better health, especially if you are working through some issues such as headaches, back or neck pain, knee or hip pain, high stress levels in your life, inability to focus, etc. etc. Those of us who have been practicing Yoga for awhile know how Yoga has helped us feel better in many aspects of our lives.
What does happen in our home practice, though, is we tend to practice those asanas we are comfortable with. Even if it is a challenging asana or vinyasa it is still something we are familiar with. We seldom branch out and try something new. Our practice becomes stale and routine.
When we no longer challenge ourselves, we practice our Yoga just like we walk on a treadmill — thinking of all we are going to do or have done during the day, planning dinner etc. barely focusing on what we are feeling or on a long slow breath.
And although props are a wonderful help when we are learning the poses, or when we have to be gentle with ourselves, we can become dependent on them, or just use them out of habit.
So what can you do?
Well, as to props: every once in awhile try the pose w/o the prop to see if your body/mind has evolved to the point where the prop is not longer necessary.
As to new challenges: You might borrow a DVD or Yoga book from the library (Rogers’ library has some) or buy a new DVD or book. Just remember that DVDs often don’t have a lot of details as to alignment or form, so you should know the basics of the poses shown (which is why a good book is helpful) — but DVDs can motivate you to try new things.
And books may have too much detail — and can be overwhelming. So focus on the important details of poses (knees, backs, etc.) until it seems you are becoming comfortable with the pose and have the basic details pretty well integrated, then add a few more details to go a little further into the pose.
I have found over and over again that in a mixed class, where some students are more experienced, I’ll give some more advanced detail instructions or options for a pose, and months later when I give those same details a few of the students who were beginners at the time will say “why didn’t you say that before — it sure makes a difference” even though they were there when I did say it before. They just couldn’t process it or add it to all the other details they were trying to focus on.
So don’t try to remember everything — start with the basics details that will prevent you from doing something that may strain your knees or back (etc.) and then you can add details or variations of poses when you are comfortable with the basics.
And don’t let your Yoga practice un-evolve into a “routine” that you do mind-lessly. But at the same time, don’t go too far into a asana too quickly.
Oh, and one more thing — you will find many times over the course of your Yoga life-time you will feel you have reached a plateau and you aren’t becoming any more flexible or strong and you can still only inhale 6 second, exhale 9 (for example).
Here’s the thing — you may have been very tight or weak when you first started practicing — you may have struggled with inhale 4 exhale 6 — but as you continued to practice, the tighter parts of your body relaxed and stretched, and your muscles became stronger — but you also learned how to ”relax” into the pose and use your body more efficiently. Now the changes are smaller — and maybe deeper — so they are less noticeable. But I think these small “internal” changes are the bigger changes ultimately.
I have often been surprised when I try an asana that I haven’t done for months and months. ”Suddenly” I can do it more comfortably and to a further edge than I ever could before — because the little changes occurring in other asanas have released a tightness ( in mind and body) that was limiting me in the asana that I had been avoiding.
And, of course, just as our physical bodies will change, our emotions can change too. We can feel more relaxed, respond in a calmer way to things that used to “freak us out” — and just generally enjoy life more.
And, ultimately, THAT’s what its all about anyway.
Namaste,
Pamela