Bringing Your Yoga Practice Home

What is the most difficult yoga pose for you? When comparing notes with your yoga friends, you will probably be able to share a few interesting answers to that question. However, when it comes to regular yoga practice, the greater challenge does not actually lie on a specific yoga pose but on how you can develop and maintain yoga and bring it to your home.

In the previous articles, you have learned how you can fortify your yoga practice as well as the basics of breathing and meditation.

Yoga Practice At The Comforts Of Your Own Home

Yoga practice at home is not exactly a new thing. A lot of people are able to achieve success in performing yoga in the comforts of their own home. It is actually a great idea since it can be easier for you to incorporate a routine into your busy lifestyle. You can also consider complementing a home yoga practice with one at a yoga center.

For beginners of any yoga practice, the main challenge is in remembering the important poses. For the experienced students, they face the challenge of determining what particular emphasis to choose. If you are seriously contemplating of bringing your yoga practice at home, the thought can be a bit daunting, but something that is definitely worth trying.

In order to fortify your desire and commitment to incorporating yoga practice into your daily routine at home, below are some valuable tips to help you out.

Plan Your Yoga Practice Sessions Ahead Of Time

In order to come up with a highly rewarding yoga practice, you need to address two important questions. First, “what exactly do you need from your yoga practice today?” If you have had a grueling day at the office, you may want to focus on a restorative practice in order to effectively replenish your energy. On the other hand, if you are feeling energetic and up to the challenge of practicing more complex poses, then you may want to focus on performing dynamic asanas.

Whatever type of yoga practice you want to focus on for a particular session, it should be aligned in what is alive in you at that given moment. Focus on your inner need and not simply engage in a yoga practice today mainly because you were not able to do so yesterday or you have other superficial needs.

The second important issue you need to address is understating the principles behind the proper sequencing of yoga poses. After you have decided on what particular yoga practice you want to pursue today, you will then need to decide on the order of asanas you will perform.

Before you will be able to do that, you need to take time and really understand the individual impact of each pose on your mind and body. This way, you will be able to place every asana in a sequence that is most relevant to you.

To gain better understanding, instead of focusing too much on breathing and perfecting ease pose, try to listen to what your body tells you as you execute every pose. Which part of your body is stretched? For example, if backbends tend to tire your arms easily, you will naturally choose not to perform this asana if you already have overly tired arms to begin with.

Basic Yoga Pose Groups

To start creating a yoga sequence that you will enjoy and actually look forward to, you need to group yoga poses accordingly, just like following food groups for your nutrition. It is important that you are able to balance your asanas to fully address the needs of your body. To help you out, consider the following basic groups of yoga poses:

Standing Poses

• Trikonasana (Triangle Pose)
• Parsvakonasana (Side Angle Pose)
• Virabhadrasanas (Warrior Poses)
• Vrksasana (Tree Pose)
• Suryanamaskar (Sun Salutation)

Arm Balance Poses

• Bakasana (Crane Pose)
• Tittibhasana (Firefly Pose)
• Vasisthasana (Pose Dedicated to the Sage Vasistha)
• Plank Pose
• Chaturanga Dandasana (Four-Limbed Staff Pose)

Inversion Poses

• Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand)
• Halasana (Plow Pose)
• Sirsasana (Headstand)
• Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand)
• Pincha Mayurasana (Forearm Balance)

Back bends

• Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose)
• Salabhasana (Locust Pose)
• Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog Pose)
• Kapotasana (Pigeon Pose)

Twist Poses

• Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend)
• Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend)
• Savasana (Corpse Pose)

Seated/Floor Poses

• Padmasana (Lotus Pose)
• Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose)
• Hanumanasana (Seated Splits)
• Gomukhasana (Cow Face Pose)
• Supta Padangusthasana (Reclining Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose)
• Supta Virasana (Reclining Hero Pose)

Restorative Poses

• Supta Baddha Konasana (Supported Bound Angle Pose)

A Well-Rounded Yoga Practice

It is important to keep in mind that the foundation of a home yoga practice is to create a basic and well rounded pose sequence that does not need to put emphasis on a particular area of the body. Instead, it should be able to move your spine in various directions through inversions, vertical stretching, forward bending and back bending, twisting the relaxation poses.