Starting a home practice

Having started going for classes 2-3 years ago, my practice usually revolved around going for a 60 min class maybe once or twice on a good week. I just didn’t quite know what to do without a teacher instructing through poses and keeping count. Doing yoga at home didn’t even cross my mind. It’s quite possible that I didn’t want to have to think what next and liked that I just have to follow along especially after a long tiring day at work.

Last year, things changed a little and I decided to buy myself a good mat so that it would entice me to practice yoga on my own rather than depend on classes. I tried sometimes for a couple of minutes whatever I could briefly remember from classes or watched online videos that could guide me along. However, I would easily get distracted and could never stay on the mat for longer than 20 minutes.

Jump forward to this week, I realised how I actually look forward to time on the mat where I can have my personal practice, be it trying to master a pose or simple stretching out in cat-cow. The time we’ve spent on lesson planning comes in handy here and what better way to make use of these skills learnt than to apply on yourself. I find myself thinking of how I want to start my practice, what warm up poses should I start with, and if I had a pose I wanted to master, how I should complement it with some preparatory poses and then counter poses.

It is quite interesting looking back seeing how my practice has evolved and will continue to evolve. As for now I’m excited for what’s next and where this new home practice will take me.