Hello again!
If you're reading this then the chances are you also read my first ever yoga blog - THANK YOU.
After putting it off for so long I've been overwhelmed with the response. For this blog post, I'd like to talk about how your home practice is different to the yoga that you do in class.
Getting to know yourself
One of the advantages of practicing yoga is that you get to know yourself in a different, more sensitive way. In the introduction to his brilliant book 'The Path to Holistic Health' B K S Iyengar says:
"Yoga helps to integrate the mental and the physical plane, bringing about a sense of inner and outer balance, or what I term alignment"
When we're in class the teacher is acting as our guide to alignment, giving us the instructions needed to bring awareness to your body, and take the mind to the little toe, the pad of the thumbs, even the inner organs.
At home, with no teacher to guide us, we need to find our own inner guide, to take our attention out of the busy brain, into our body, which is ready and waiting to get to know us.
Detail of instruction
I vividly remember one of my first yoga classes. We were doing a seated twist and my teacher told us to move our shoulder blades in a certain way and I had literally no idea what she was talking about. I just turned even more ferociously and hoped that was what she meant.
There have been many more instructions over the years that have whistled by over the top of my head. That's completely normal.
Then one day, the instruction to move my shoulder blades in the twist made total sense. The penny had dropped, as my awareness of my body slowly developed.
What to do at home
In a class, the teacher does their best to give instructions that will work for all the students. But often they can't tailor their class to each student. So they might say, "Take a brick if you need one"'. For many of us, we don't know if we need a brick or not. That's where a home practice comes in.
Take Uttanasana, (standing forward fold) for example. Standing with your feet hip-width apart, start out in Tadasana (mountain pose) and stretching the arms up, stretch forwards to bring your hands down towards the ground. If you can only touch the floor by rounding your upper spine, or your knees bend, then you need bricks.
However, if you practice first thing on a cold morning, you might be surprised to discover that even if you can usually touch the floor, it will feel harder, and the backs of the legs will set up a loud complaint. The body is not a static object, but an incredibly sensitive and changing instrument, which through a dedicated yoga practice, we will eventually learn to 'play'.
Talking of 'PLAY'
Your home practice is exactly that - it is YOURS. You decide when, where, what, how long. And because you're now in charge, you can give yourself permission to play.
One of my favourite Iyengar yoga teachers is a lady called Carrie Owerko (some of you might remember I came back from the summer holidays all fired up after a weekend workshop with her). Her strapline on her website is perMISSION to Play, and that's exactly what she does. She bends the rules of yoga, pushing at the boundaries of possibility and play to create a fresh and exciting new take on movement and yoga.
But if you're only just setting out on your yoga journey, playing with it can seem intimidating - we just want to be TOLD what to do!
How to play in your home practice
So, because the aim of this blog is to support you as you learn to fly, I'm going to give you three examples of some simple pose variations that you can practice at home.
Remember that these are just suggestions. If you come up with your own, even better!
If you have a knee problem, be aware that for some poses you might need to put something soft in the back of the knee - a scarf is good. If you have a back problem, always have your feet slightly apart, don't jump into any of the poses, and don't force any forward bends. Shoulder problems keep space around the sides of the neck.
Adho Mukha Virasana/ downward-facing hero pose
start with the knees wide and the arms wide
then take the knees narrow and the arms narrow
then take the knees and hands the 'normal' distance apart
move your right hand to the centre and take your left hand to the left and stretch the side body
do the same on the other side
lift up onto your fingertips
press your hands down flat
bring your elbows down to the floor
Adho Mukha Svanasana/ downward-facing dog pose
start with your hands and feet wide
then take the hands closer and bring the feet together
Now turn the hands out - feel what happens in the upper arms and shoulders
Turn the hands in slightly - ditto above
lift right up onto your tiptoes
now press the heels down (onto bricks if needed) and see if you can lift the toes
Urdhva Hastasana/ upward-facing hands pose in tadasana
Stretch the arms up in line with the shoulders, palms facing in
Stretch the arms up with the palms up facing forwards
Stretch the arms up with palms facing behind you
Take the arms wider in diagonals
See if you can bring the palms together keeping the arms straight
If you were interested in the rest of the sequence for your home practice, the poses to follow would be:
Utkatasana (chair pose)
Trikonasana (triangle pose)
Virabhadrasana 2 (Warrior 2)
Ardha Chandrasana (half moon pose)
Uttanasana (standing forward fold)
Sarvangasana (shoulderstand) or Setu bandha Sarvangasana (supported bridge pose)
Halasana (plough pose - feet to the floor behind the head)
Paschimottanasana (seated forward fold)
Savasana (corpse pose)
