Why You Should Start a Home Yoga Practice

by Nina

Houses At Unterach On The Attersee by Gustav Klimt

I just loved our post yesterday Accepting Your Body by Anna Guest-Jelley! It even made me a bit teary, as I think body acceptance—and self acceptance in general—are so important for all of us. I thought the first question she recommended was especially powerful:  

1. What does my body need in this moment, and how can I meet that need with the resources I have on hand?  

This is the question I ask myself every single time I practice yoga at home. (I typically only take one class per week, maximum) That's how I use yoga to take care of myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. But these benefits only come for those who are willing to go out on a limb and start doing yoga by themselves and on their own. After all, the class you go to on a given day might be turn out to be exactly the wrong thing for you that day!

So, are you someone who always thinks about starting a home practice but never quite gets around to it? Or did you once have a regular practice but have fallen off the wagon? If so, I’d like to encourage you to start—or return—so you can begin reaping some of the benefits that Anna mentioned in her post. In his post Home Practice: The Best Way to Improve Your Health Dr. Timothy McCall says that practicing at home is the best way to improve your health. 

"If you are taking yoga classes but not practicing at home, you may be missing the best—and potentially most therapeutic—part of yoga. Your personal practice is where the deepest work happens, when you go inward and go at your own pace” 

And practicing at home will also allow you to use yoga to self regulate (see Self Regulation and Yoga), which means that you can learn to “monitor and manage your internal states.”

Have I inspired you to get started (or start again)? If you do embark on a new adventure of practicing at home, let me know how it goes! Here are some posts from our archives may help you with your new home practice.

Motivating Yourself to Practice  

Energizing Yourself  

Pet More Dowwnward-Facing Dogs
Got 20 Minutes?  

Decide Each Day What to Do

Sequencing and Ideas for What to Practice 

We have lots of sequences on the blog, but being able to get what you need from your practice means learning to modify existing practices or develop them on your own.  

Practice As Many As You Can 

Mixing It Up  

Customizing Your Practice 

Stuck in a Rut? 

Creatiing a Mini Yoga Practice

Sequencing: An Essential Skill for Home Practice 

Sequencing in the Style of Krishnamacharya, Part 1 

Sequencing in the Style of Krishnamacharya, Part 2 

Iyengar-Style Sequencing, Part 1  

Iyengar-Style Sequencing, Part 2 

6 Ways to Take Care of Yourself with Yoga 

Yoga for Real Life
 

Staying Safe  

How to Stay Safe While Practicing Yoga 

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Cautions for Bone Strength Practice

by Nina

On Tuesday we posted a sequence designed by Baxter Featured Sequence: Bone Strength Practice. Since then we've had a couple of questions from people about whether the sequence is safe for people who have osteoporosis or osteopenia. We've added a warning to the original post, but for those of you who have already read that post, we're posting the warning here as well. 

Cautions: The Bone Strength Sequence was designed for those with no evidence of osteoporosis or osteopenia. If you have either of those conditions, be mindful to avoid the forward folding action of Cat/Cow pose (the Cat position), although the hands and knees position will lessen the potentially negative force on your thoracic vertebrae quite a bit. Otherwise, the sequence should be safe.

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Featured Sequence Challenging Balance Practice

by Baxter

Last May I offered up an Easy Balance Practice for you to play with in your home practice. Since then, I have continued to study the subject of balance and have come across a recurring theme in non-yoga fields, such as sports medicine and biomechanics, which is the importance of variability. It seems that it is very important for maintaining and improving balance to change up the way you do balance activities as a way to keep your brain and body in sync. Changing up the way you do balance activities can come in the form of extending the time you hold a balance pose or in changing your body position a bit from the typical way you might do a pose. I was so intrigued by the concept of variability, I decided to try and invent a new balance pose each week of 2015: so far, 3 new balance poses! I will share those with you in a future post!

However, for today, I’d like to simply take a step forward from Easy Balance Sequence. In this Challenging Balance Practice, I will stick to some tried and true yoga asana, but I will occasionally suggest slight variations that will increase the challenge of the pose. So let’s dive in.

Challenging Balance Practice

1. Mountain Pose (Tadasana) to Arms Overhead Pose (Urdva Hastasana), with heels lifted

Start in Mountain Pose with a block between your thighs, on its narrow or middle width, depending on which one allows your feet to be about hips-distance apart. Squeeze the block with your inner leg muscles and become more aware of the soles of your feet on the floor, getting the right amount of squeeze to bring a sense of evenness to the inner and outer edges of your feet. Maintain the pose for about 16 breaths.

Then, grab a second block and place that between your hands, leaving the first block to use between your thighs. Now, with the first block between your thighs and a second block between your hands, come back into a strong Mountain pose. Then, on an inhalation, take your arms overhead into Arms Overhead pose with the block firmly held between your hands. Now the fun begins. Keeping your weight evenly across the balls of both feet, lift your heels 2-3 inches off the floor and maintain that position while breathing appropriately. Keep your gaze forward and slight ly down, fixing it on something that will not move. See how long you can stay up before you lose your balance, fatigue your legs muscles, or feel too wobbly in your ankles. Then come down, bringing your arms down as well. Repeat one more time, seeing if you can match the amount of time you achieved the first time. Over the course of several weeks, try to hold the pose a bit longer each practice.

2. Tree Pose (Vrksasana)

In the Easy Balance Practice, I had you practice with a wall just behind your back so you could lean back against it if you started to lose your balance. Today, I want you to start working further away from the wall or in the center of the room. When you do come up into the Tree pose, start with your arms out to your sides, as in Warrior 2 pose. Once you get steady there, take your arms directly overhead. See how long you can remain relatively steady before coming down with a sense of control. Repeat on the second side.

To add a challenge, try Tree pose with a block between your hands and take your arms up and overhead. Also, gradually advance the amount of time you spend in the pose as you get better at it.

3. Extended Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)

In the Easy Balance Practice, I had you do Triangle pose. The standing poses have a definite balancing component to them, even though both feet are on the ground. Today, let’s try a version of the Extended Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana) where you are depending on just two limbs, your legs, to keep you balanced, instead of there. For the basic instructions on Extended Side Angle pose, see Featured Pose: Extended Side Angle Pose.

For this practice, instead of bringing your bottom hand to a block or the floor, place your bottom elbow on the top of your front leg thigh near the knee. Press down lightly with that arm into the leg, and let your legs do most of the work keeping you in the pose. See how long you can stay before your muscles begin to fatigue or your balance becomes wobbly and then exit as smoothly as you can. Repeat to the second side, noticing if one side is easy on your balance than the other. Do a short Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) after the second side, maybe 30 seconds, as a counter pose to side angle.  

4. Warrior 3 (Virabradrasana 3)

As a quick review, in our last sequence, I had you working on Warrior 3 at the Wall . To take it to the next step, I’d like you to work towards Warrior 3 away from the wall, starting with arms by yours sides reaching towards your lifted foot.

Once that version gets easy, advance to taking your arms out to your sides.

Finally, you can work toward the full pose, reaching forward with your arms.

Usually each variation becomes a bit more challenging for the balance. For all the details, see (Featured Pose: Warrior 3 ).

After you have tried this pose on each side, take a short Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana) as a nice counter-pose. Then, from the forward bend, bend your knees, drop your hips into a brief squat, and then sit down on your mat.  

5. Full Boat Pose (Navasana)

Start by sitting with your legs extended straight in front of you. Then, as you did in the Easy Balance Sequence, move into Full Boat Pose by quickly cycling through variations 1, 2, and 3 to the place where you are balancing on your lower sacrum and buttocks muscles, your arms are reaching forward and your legs floating with the shins parallel with the floor.

To take it to the next level, begin to straighten your legs, with your big toes lined up in front of or just higher than the level of your eyes.

Maintain the full pose for 6-10 breaths or longer. Then come out of the pose, rest for a moment, and repeat one more time. To challenge yourself, vary the position of your arms, gradually bringing them up overhead as in Warrior 1 pose.

6. Side Plank Pose (Vasisthasana)

We have written a bit about the use of Side Angle Pose recently as it pertains to scoliosis (see Side Plank Pose (Vasithasana) ) So, follow Nina’s fine instructions on getting into Side Plank Plank pose by starting in Downward Facing Dog, swinging forward into High Plank pose, and then shifting into Side Plank pose.

However, for this sequence, instead of lifting or lowering your ribs or hips, make your body one long line from your feet to the crown of your head. Try it initially with your feet one in front of the other, and work towards the more challenging variation where your feet are stacked one on top of the other. Because this requires a lot of upper body strength in addition to balance, initially stay for shorter periods of time, maybe just a few breaths, and gradually work your way to longer holds. Try it on each side twice. 

7. Child’s Pose (Balasana)

Take a well-deserved rest in Child’s Pose for up to 2 minutes, and move your fingers and wrists around to release any excess tension there.

8. Relaxation Pose (Savasana)

As you rest in Savasana, ideally for 5 to 10 minutes, pay attention to feeling the more subtle balance of your body lying on the floor, establishing an even balance between your shoulder blades, the back of your pelvis, the backs of your legs and arms, and the back of your head. Notice the areas of the body where you can still feel the residual effects of the poses you worked on today. Finally, let go of whatever judgments around success or failure may have come up with the challenge of balancing poses, and instead let your attention follow the easy movement of your breath for several minutes. 

I hope you enjoy this sequence. Regular practice will help you maintain and improve your balance.

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The Kindness Practice

by Jill Satterfield

Ripening Fruit by Melina Meza

Here's what I have come to know as a fairly universal contemporary problem: many of us are a bit too tough on ourselves. We criticize our looks, our thoughts and emotions, our progress on the spiritual path, our practice quantity and quality. And the fact is that this is not helpful. But if we add tenderness and kindness to our outlook, vocabulary, thoughts and emotions, we can loosen the unhealthy grip of the overactive critic and relax into our lives and being a little bit more.

Just to inspire and remind you: One of the goals of practice, besides alleviating suffering, is to be in the present moment. When you bring yourself into your body, you are in the present. When you absorb the natural beauty of the sky, you are in the present. When you hug someone you love, you can be in the present. There is plenty of beauty in the present—anchor yourself in that.

1.33 By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness. —translation from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami Satchidananda

Jack Kornfield says, “Buddhist texts describe compassion as the quivering of the heart in the face of pain, as the capacity to see our struggles with ‘kindly eyes.’” These kindly eyes allow for some faltering, some forgetting, some mistakes, and gently remind us to start again.

Gripping onto thoughts, feelings or anywhere in the body just causes discomfort and resistance. What we resist will persist. If we can soften around displeasure, discomfort, and the occasional raw mistake, we can flow a bit more into the movement of life. Movement implies softness; nothing moves very far in constricted areas or very easily through tight places. 

Of course there's a distinction between too tight and too loose, which was famously brought to light by the Buddha in the story of the sitar player. The musician asked him, “Should I maintain tight controls on my mind during meditation or should I let it flow?” The Buddha asked, “How do you tune your instrument?” The sitar play said, “If I tune the strings too tightly, they break. If they are too loose, no sound comes out.” “Just so,” replied the Buddha, “you should hold your mind in meditation.” If we are too loose with ourselves, we won't practice or even attempt to be mindful—that would require too much effort. On the other hand, if we are too tight with ourselves, we create tension and guilt, and will probably eventually give up on practicing.

If we see only love and light, it’s the same issue, so we need to be aware of spiritual bypassing and denial for sure. But, especially as we mature, in years and in practice, acceptance and the choice to not increase suffering but actively decrease suffering is preferable. As Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein wonderfully puts it "Life is painful. Suffering is optional."

Remember that a practice has room for creativity. Play around from time to time and see what the results are. Rigidity in form is not always the answer; some of us need a little freedom to experiment to find out which technique works for us, depending on our current situation, mood, state of health, age, and so on. So a creative practice might include walking in the woods or by the beach, or reading some poetry to inspire the next session of meditation or asana. Practicing restoratives for an hour has become one of my favorite ways to meditate in my body. 

Tenderness. Kindness. Creativity. Spiritual friends and teachers, the ingredients of a great life being lived as it is offered, not too loose or tight, but being with what is—kindly.

Jill Satterfield is the founder of Vajra Yoga + Meditation, a synthesis of yoga and Buddhism that combines meditation, yoga and contemplative practices. Named “one of the 4 leading yoga and Buddhist teachers in the country” by Shambhala Sun Magazine, Jill has instigated mindful and creative educational programs for over 28 years.

She is also the founder and Director of the School for Compassionate Action: Meditation, Yoga and Educational Support for Communities in Need, a not-for-profit that trains teachers, psychologists and health care providers to integrate mind and body practices into their professions. SCA also provides classes to people in chronic pain, with illness, those suffering from PTSD, and at-risk youth. Jill teaches workshops internationally, is a faculty member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Mindfulness for Yoga Training and the Somatic Training in Marin, California, and is a guest teacher for many other training programs. To find out more about Jill, visit her website vajrayoga.com.

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Mini Back Care Stress Management Practice

by Nina

Two Birds by M.C. Escher*

Yesterday I came up with this three-pose mini practice for a student who has lower back problems and is also suffering from stress and anxiety. Because he has high blood pressure that isn’t yet controlled, I couldn’t include any inverted poses or even partial inversions. But I was quite pleased at what I came up with; it’s a simple sequence but also very effective. 

So I thought I’d share the mini practice with you today in case any of you want to try it. I’d love to hear what you think of it.  

Pose 1: Reclined Leg Stretch Pose, version 1, 1.5 minutes per side if possible. 

This classic pose releases tight hamstrings that can pull on your lower back while also lengthening your lower back, creating space in your spine and relaxing back muscles. Because it releases physical tension from your hips and legs, it can also help reduce stress. For a more relaxing experience, try this pose in a doorway, with one leg up the wall and the other through the doorway and your arms by your sides. (You may have to use more than one doorway to practice the pose on both sides.) See Featured Pose: Reclined Leg Stretch Pose for information on the classic pose.

Pose 2: Restorative Child’s Pose, 3 to 5 minutes (turning your head half way through). 

This classic restorative pose is soothing for the nervous system and also lengthens your lower back, creating space in your spine and relaxing the back muscles. While you’re in the pose, try bringing your awareness to your breath as it moves in your back, and intentionally ask your lower back muscles to relax (hopefully they'll listen!). See Featured Pose: Child's Pose for information on the pose.

Pose 3: Legs on a Chair Pose, 10 or more minutes. 

This is Beth’s go-to back pain reduction pose (see My Magic Four for Back and Spine). It’s also a very relaxing version of Savasana, which is more comfortable for some who have back pain than the classic pose. So it’s perfect pose for reducing stress at the same time you’re reducing back pain. While you’re in the pose, focus your awareness on your breath or, if that causes anxiety, bring your awareness to letting go and relaxing your lower legs onto the chair seat. 

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