Practicing Yoga at Home
I’ve been practicing yoga 3 to 5 days a week for over 22 years. Until March 2020, I went to 90-minute classes and had many wonderful teachers. The teachers would always tell us we should do a home practice as well, but I almost never did, and when I did, I practiced for only 5 or 10 minutes. Frankly, I lacked the discipline to do more on my own.
Going to class suited me perfectly: a teacher chose the poses (asanas), gave instructions and corrections, and provided the opportunity for my practice to be substantial. Of course, it was up to me to make it substantial, and being who I am–a man who tends to ruminate on issues (often writing and editing issues) that I feel I need to resolve as soon as possible–my mind would wander. The 90 minutes gave me time to let it wander, observe it wandering, gradually stop it from wandering, and focus my attention–or at least 70-80 percent of it–on whatever pose I was doing. At the end of every class, I felt lighter, more relaxed, more present than I felt at the beginning.
Then came the pandemic. By the end of that March, I was no longer comfortable going to class, and, with deep regret, I stopped. But having experienced yoga’s profound benefits for so many years, I knew I had to continue practicing. After 2 decades of hearing that I should do a home practice, this meant I would start doing one. And I knew it couldn’t be for just 5 or 10 minutes; I vowed that even though I’d never come close to it in the past, my home practice would be at least an hour.
I soon realized it was impossible for me to do a Zoom class; I couldn’t place my computer anywhere near the space I needed to clear for my practice. Clearing it was a challenge in itself: I had to move my computer table and other furniture to make room for my yoga mat, props, blankets, and me. Once I figured out how to do this, I was surprised to find that I enjoyed planning the home practice that I would conduct for myself. I was fortunate that 2 generous teachers I’d studied with talked with me on the phone and gave me guidance about adjustments I could make for poses that were problematic for me.
With their input, I planned sequences of poses in which some were strenuous and some were restorative, and I began an afternoon home practice, using a digital timer. Hearing a “beep, beep, beep” when poses ended wasn’t the same as hearing teachers telling me it was time to get out of poses, nor did the beeper remind me, as teachers always did, how to get out of the poses properly. Now that was up to me, just as it was up to me to get into poses properly, and to focus my attention on the parts of my body that I needed to work with in order to do the poses properly and experience maximum benefits.
Now my home yoga practice is part of my everyday life, and I look forward to it. I can’t say that my mind doesn’t wander at home as it did in class, but when it does, I observe it, I bring my attention back to the pose, and focus on the parts of my body that I need to fully engage and the ways I need to engage them to really do the pose. It’s challenging, and I don’t always succeed at practicing with 100 percent commitment, but I continue working on it, and I continue improving.
I find that developing the discipline to do my home practice regularly, to do the strenuous poses strenuously and the restorative poses so that they restore my body and truly calm my mind has made me far more aware as a yoga practitioner than I ever was before.
Shortly after I began my home practice, I reread BKS Iyengar’s Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom. Although I’d read it before–I bought the book in 2013 when it was published and Iyengar came to Los Angeles and spoke at UCLA and at the Institute where I took classes–it was as if I were reading it for the first time. His learned insight into yoga, his love of yoga, and the beautiful way in which he wrote about the asanas and the evolutionary spiritual journey we take when we practice with awareness inspired me and informs my daily practice.
I practice Iyengar yoga, a school of Hatha yoga, but Light on Life isn’t just about Iyengar yoga; it’s about the principles and philosophy of yoga, and if you practice any type of yoga, I believe that reading Light on Life will enrich your practice as it has enriched mine.
I hope that in the new year I will be comfortable going to classes again. In the meantime, it’s a blessing that I’ve finally found out why my teachers always recommended doing a home practice and that I’m experiencing its benefits.
