How to start a home yoga practice

Kara-Leah in wide child

The only way to connect with your internal guide, that yoga teacher that lives inside of you and can’t wait to get out, is to start a home yoga practice.

And no matter what your level of yoga experience.

No matter what you know or think you don’t know.

Starting a home yoga practice is simple.

You just do it…

Bit by bit. Day by day.

Minute by minute. Posture by posture.

Start with what you know, and do that.

Find a book that resonates with you, a DVD that captures your attention, a website with articles that you like and add to what you know. Remember what you’ve learned from your favourite yoga studio.

Begin by sitting down, on your mat, wearing comfortable clothing that will keep your body temperature warm, and just BE there.

Be there with your breath.

Be there with your mind.

Be there with your body.

It doesn’t matter how you sit. Just sit in a way that is comfortable for you.

And then listen.

To the sound of your breath.

The energy of your body.

And the mutterings of your mind.

Pay attention to what comes up. Just observe it as it is.

“My mind is active.”

“My hips feel tight.”

“My breath is getting caught in my throat.”

And then, from that place of being with your Self, you will find yourself responding to those observations.

Calming the mind.

Breathing into the hips.

Opening the throat.

Out of one posture comes the next. And the next. And the next.

Maybe you only do three postures and then you finish in corpse pose, lying flat on your back.

It doesn’t matter what you do. There is no right way to do a practice. There is only what feels right to you, now, in this moment, as you listen to your breath and pay attention to your body and watch your mind.

BUT to know what feels right to you now in this moment, you have to access the present moment.

You do this via your breath.

For yoga IS breathing – creating a bridge between self and body, self and mind, self and All that Is.

If you do nothing else in your home practice, just sit with your breath.

Observe it as it enters your nose and goes down the back of your throat and expands your lungs and puffs your belly out soft and round like a buddha.

Observe it as it pours out again, collapsing the belly in against your spine and dropping your lower ribs slightly, carressing the top of your mouth as it exits the nose.

Observe the breath.

Now you are practicing yoga.

Where you take your home practice is up to you.

There are no rules.

Practice yoga when you are in the shower (engaging the standing leg while shaving the other).

When you wash the dishes (grounding the feet in mountain pose).

When you play with the kids (taking them for a ride as you do cat rounding the back then sinking the belly).

Get up an hour early and practice on the front balcony with the sun coming up over the mountains and the dog sleeping at your feet.

Practice five minutes a day. Practice two hours a day. Practice once a week. Practice seven days a week.

Allow your intuition to guide you through.

Have no expectations, make no judgments, just experience what you do for what it is.

Learn to feel your body from the inside out. Listen to what it tells you. Get out of the head, and into the breath.

Breath is yoga.

Breath is all.

Breath is life.