Yoga at Home

Photo taken by Andrea Lynn Taylor at the Key Bridge in Washington, DC. 

One of the most important things I took from my Level One Teacher Training at Tranquil Space was the structure of a Vinyasa Yoga class.  This structure gave me a foundation to fill in for both classes I teach and my home practice.

Wake up the spine, lunge back and forth to down dog, surya namaskar A, warriors and their variations, peak pose (such as an arm balance or intense twist), hips, floor poses, inversion, rest.

When I practice at home, this structure guides me into my next pose or sequence. I listen to my body, feel if it's not warm enough in some part, or if there's a muscle crying out to be stretched. That feeling guides the poses I do, or sometimes I just follow a whim. The best part is, there's no one watching me mess up. That means I don't have to keep track of which poses I've done on which side, how to most gracefully transition from one pose to another or whether I'm ignoring a key area of the body. I just do what comes.

Today I worked on my side crow, a pose I've been sorta able to do for the last few months and forearm stand, the inversion I am challenging myself to master. To warm up for side crow, I did a lot of twists in my warmup and sequence after surya A.  I spent most of actual side crow time with my face in my mat and most of the forearm stand with my feet on the wall (relying on support I should not use). But there was no one there to see me looking like a doofus, so I plated my face on the mat, then pushed my head up to a few inches above my mat for full-on side crow (I lasted about 10 seconds). I slowly eased my feet off of the wall in forearm stand, building my confidence. Sure, they fell in a not-so-quiet plop after a breath of free-balancing, but I was able to get some inversion time!  In short, I made progress with two difficult (at least for me!) poses.

There's something very humbling about practicing alone. Sure, I gravitate towards poses that I enjoy (i.e. poses I'm good at, if I'm being honest), but there's no one around to compare myself to. I can't twist deeper, sink lower or jump quieter than anyone else, because there isn't anyone else. It's just me and my mat. Which means that the image I have in my head of the perfect expression of each pose is my comparison point, and I am very far from perfect in my practice.

All in all, I much prefer practicing with others at my yoga home, Tranquil Space. But every once in awhile, putting aside 45 minutes to an hour to practice on my own at home is a great way to check in on my body without the distraction of yoga buddies or fantastic instructors. I also find it very useful when planning sequences, as it allows me to feel what makes sense as natural pose-to-pose transitions (and what doesn't).

Give it a shot sometime! Unroll your mat in your house and give yourself time and space to explore what comes.

XO,
KCZ