Bringing Your Practice Home

Many yogis don't practice at home because they simply don't know where to start. Here's how to create sequences that will keep you engaged, curious, and dedicated.

By Judith Hanson Lasater

A good way to initiate a well-rounded sequence is with warming poses that require strong and big movements, like Sun Salutations and standing poses. End with poses requiring smaller movements and more "letting go," like poses done seated or lying on the floor. This will give your practice a natural progression from more activity to more introspection.

In addition, since Sun Salutations and standing poses use large muscle groups and require large movements, such asanas seem to capture your attention more effectively at the beginning of a practice period. The quieter seated poses, on the other hand, require a deeper level of inner awareness that seems easier to achieve at the end of a practice session when your mind is a bit more settled and your body is more stretched and relaxed.

Here's an example of a brief but effective well-rounded practice session. Begin with Downward-Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana) to stretch your hamstrings and calves, open your chest and shoulders, and generally wake yourself up. From Downward Dog, move into Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) to stretch your back and your legs as well as your hip joints. Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose) and Dhanurasana (Bow Pose) come next; they serve to strengthen your back muscles and posterior shoulder muscles, stretch your chest, and create mobility in the spine.

After doing the backbends, move on to inversions. Either Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand) or Viparita Karani (Legs-up-the-Wall Pose) will help to rest your legs and are believed to contribute to health by flushing the internal organs. These poses also quiet the mind.

Start to wind your practice down with forward bends. Janu Sirsasana (Head-to-Knee Pose) will stretch not only your hamstrings but also your back, and especially your lower back; in addition, it will open your hip on the bent-knee side. Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend) will also stretch your hamstrings as well as gently increasing pressure on the organs of digestion and absorption in a way that is believed to improve these functions. Both of these forward bends are usually quieting for the nervous system and mind.

Finally, Savasana (Corpse Pose) integrates your whole practice. Fifteen to 20 minutes of rest in Corpse Pose reduces stress, improves immune function, and can give you a sense of ease and well-being that sometimes lasts for hours.

Long-Range Planning

Once you have created a well-rounded practice, you can begin to create other home practice routines that expand on it or vary it to achieve more specific goals. Each day's practice should in one sense be complete in itself, but it can also focus on a specific group of poses, a specific part of your body, or a specific energetic shift you would like to create. You can begin to think of balancing your practice in long-range terms: not just how you want to sequence your practice today, but how you want to sequence it over the next week, the next month, or even the next year. If you have identified poses, groups of poses, or parts of your body as weak links in your practice, you may choose to give them more time and attention until you feel you've achieved more balance.

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