How to build a home yoga practice

By Kara-Leah Grant at http://pranaflownz.com

As a yoga teacher, my goal is to inspire my students to practice yoga at home. It’s great when people get themselves to classes three times a week, but the true benefits of yoga really start to unfold when you commit to just showing up on your mat by yourself and seeing what happens. In a class, your focus is both internal and external. You’re listening to the teacher and watching the demonstrations while also paying attention to what’s going on inside of you. When you practice at home, there is no need to focus on anything external, so 100% of your attention is on how your body feels, what your breath is doing and how your mind is reacting. You can read more about this in my post How to start a home yoga practice. And hopefully you have started - now it’s time to build that practice further. When I talk about building a home practice, I’m not talking about using a DVD either. DVDs can be useful and it might be how you begin to get into the habit of practicing at home, but in essence, it’s exactly the same as going to class because your focus is still largely external. But making that shift can be extremely intimidating. How will you know what to do? What if you get it wrong? Trust me on this one - you will amaze yourself with how much understanding you’ve absorbed from going to class. And you will also amaze yourself with how much innate wisdom there is within you. This is one of the major benefits of practicing at home - it strengthens your connection to your internal Guru. We ALL have a yoga teacher living inside of us. Problem is, until we start listening to the voice of that teacher, it’s hard to distinguish them from all the other voices inside of us. Like those voices that say,” “You don’t know what you’re doing.” or “This is so silly, it’s just not the same.” Or, “I’m bored, let’s go watch TV.” These are the many voices of the mind, and hopefully through going to classes you’ve already begun the discipline of ignoring these voices, and you’ve begun to practice simply being the witness to them. The inner voice of your Guru comes from a different place and has a different tone. He or she is encouraging, welcoming, kind and compassionate. This guru will suggest things in a whisper that come from your heart. Things like, “Remember that triangle pose we did last week, let’s play around with that. If we just start with the feet position, I’m sure we can remember it.” Every time you ignore the doubts, criticisms and distractions of the mind, and instead listen to the gentle whisperings of your heart, you make a tiny shift toward a different way of living. Building your home yoga practice will greatly enhance and strengthen this shift. The easiest way to get started is to note that you don’t have to remember all the different postures exactly. All you have to remember are the principles of practice.