I love practicing yoga at my home. But if I say honestly, staying focused on the practice at home is quite difficult. While practicing at home I often realize that I'm not focusing properly on my practice as I do in my studio class.
In fact, my home practice goes something like this: I unroll the yoga mat, do a few quick Sun Salutes and my dog comes running for showering my feet with kisses. I talk to her for a while and then my mind goes to my mailbox - do I have any new emails? I either walk towards my computer or take my smartphone for checking the email. If any of them seems to be urgent, I answer it at the moment. And then I remember that I would've been practicing yoga at this time - so I go back and start again.
Sometimes it also happens that I feel very tired to practice yoga-so I start watching TV instead. Or I get involved in a quick Savasana session, which counts into the yoga practice. But I've felt that even Savasana isn't as satisfying as it should be without a few challenging poses before it.
Fortunately, since last few weeks I have found several ways to challenge myself for my yoga home practice because I absolutely love it.
Here are 5 methods that I use for challenging myself during my home practice so I don't get bored and keep exploring the things that happen in my body while practicing yoga:
Learn the principles of sequencing. Whether you've taken a yoga teacher training or not, you might have noticed that there are some patterns and sequences to a yoga class. It starts with a bit of slower and gentler stretching, warming up and then from mild to moderate to deep backbends (or other harder poses). In the end, it again starts to wind down. Testing out a few different sequences and then evaluating that how I'm feeling seems quite fun to me. I often do a particular sequence three times during the practice and then just switch a few poses to notice any changes. It doesn't matter if it makes me sound like a yoga geek. What matters is the fact that it helps me in staying engaged during the practice.
Try a challenge pose. Challenge yourself by holding into the poses in which you should hold a little bit longer. Breathe deeply into such poses.
Take the help of someone else. Nearly half of my home practice sessions include plenty of streaming videos on my tablet or laptop. It gives me that yoga studio feeling while practicing at home. You too can try this, but don't get tempted to check your email otherwise there's no benefit.
Determine to practice a certain sequence for a certain number of days. Pick a certain sequence that seems quite beneficial yet enough challenging to you and determine in your mind that you've to practice it for x days. When you complete the challenge, you'll be able to do more than that you thought.
Be a bit flexible. I'm asking you to be flexible in your schedule, not in your body (I know you've enough flexible body due to yoga) so you can take a sigh of relief! Understand the fact that beauty of home practice lies in the flexibility of your schedule. Some days may come when unrolling your yoga mat may seem like a victory to you while on some days you may be looking for a complete 90 minutes long session. It depends on the nature of your schedule. Try to be gentler with your body and adjust your challenges accordingly.
This article was written by John Drewry for increasing awareness in people about the importance of Yoga.
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