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Kara-Leah is an internationally-renowned writer, teacher and retreat leader. Millions of people have been impacted by the articles, books and videos she has published over the last ten years. Her passion is liberation in this lifetime through an every day path of dissolving layers of tension into greater and greater freedom and joy. You can find out more about her, including when her next retreats are, on her website. Kara-Leah is the visionary and creator of The Yoga Lunchbox.
Jenifer says
I think the three benefits that a student gains from home practice is:
1. personal ownership — it moves from being something where you follow to where you lead;
2. deeper understanding — what is taught in class is encoded or entrained through home practice with deeper awareness and understanding (physically and otherwise); and
3. total freedom — as you say, one can explore in their own way, and not just movement but also the deeper experiences of the practice because they can do things extended beyond the bounds of the classroom like holding postures longer, or coming out of it and going back into it to experience the mind-space of doing asana in new and dynamic ways.
It’s pretty exciting stuff. 🙂
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Jenifer,
Very succinctly put. I like that. Home practice is very exciting stuff!
Tina says
If your practice is not totally self-led, then if you have a home practice you are free to explore professional-level, world-class offerings from teachers who do not subscribe to the no pain no gain, Top Gun acro-training school of today’s status quo yoga … and explore (without threat of ridicule from others who nay be your, ahem, contemporaries, who may not act their age, so to speak) relatively prop-free ultra slow-flow restorative, chanting-intensive mild vinyasa yoga, a highly modified power yoga class sans inversions, or – for that matter – inversions that are plyometric, athletic and not held for 5 minutes … for prices a lot cheaper than a class …
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Tina,
I read through your comment a few times, but I’m not sure what you’re saying. Are you talking about online yoga classes, or a home yoga practice?
Tina says
I’m talking about both. Right now I am exploring yoga DVD-only (at this writing) offerings from Jillian Pransky and J. Brown (of Abhyasa Yoga).
But I also have created my own, self-sequenced, recorded practice onto an mp3 playlist.
It’s all good …
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Tina,
That sounds like a fabulous mix – I’ve heard nothing but good things about J. Brown’s DVD.
Anish Nair says
Hi,
I am a yoga enthusiast .. this was amazing information . i would also like to know on breathing exercises for improving lungs health and if possible can you kindly share more information on surya namaskar.