om sweet om

so it took me a little while to foster a consistent home practice. a few years really…well, let’s be honest, a decade…

for the first few years, i would hunker down for a home practice, do a few sun salutations, a couple of poses, and ten minutes later, i was done. that was the end of the practice, i did everything i felt like doing. ten minutes.

it was a bit of a barrier for me, that ten minute mark. somehow, it was all i could muster before wandering off in boredom.

eventually, i bought a home with a dedicated yoga studio in it. certainly, that would provide the motivation i needed to practice at home. no more wedging between the bed and the bathroom looking for a space to put my mat. i’d have nice hardwood floors, empty walls, and plenty of room to experiment….but i didn’t.

it was just about two years ago when my favorite teacher skipped town and i decided at least on the two days a week i used to practice with her, i would home practice. it was like pulling teeth.

and once i was nothing but gums, it was do or die and i finally found my way. and here it is.

if you want to start home practice of your own, maybe try this.

start with a fixed series of postures. now, let me be clear that i am not an ashtangi, but i personally recommend the ashtanga primary series. why? simply because it’s long. one-and-a-half to two hours, depending on how deeply you breathe. and one-and-a-half is the magic number.

only problem, there are no handstands in the series. 🙁

so, after a while, i started adding them in. i’m a non-conformist anyway.

and little by little, i started deleting the things i didn’t care for in the primary series and adding in the things that i did…until eventually, there was no way to discern that the ashtanga primary series ever existed in this room at all.

now, my practice is exactly what i want it to be. every day, i pick and choose whatever i’m in the mood for. i still have my sun salutations (kill me before i take those out!), but even those have certain deviations from the norm. no one has ever called me normal.

and the coolest thing? by working on what i want to work on when i want to work on it, my practice has soared to new levels. i’ve taught myself awesome things that were never taught to me in classes and, honestly, i can’t see myself ever returning to a studio practice. turns out, the best teacher was inside of me the whole time (cue some whitney houston song here)…