Yoga Self Practice - creating and maintaining your own yoga practice

Cultivating a self practice is something that can take some time. Yoga is a time honoured tradition that at the beginning takes some help and nuturing. A teacher is fundamental at the start of a yoga journey for anyone.

Finding the correct alignment, breath and drishtis is something very exact and it is difficult to learn this alone. A teacher will guide you through the beginning of the journey and then it really is up to each practitioner to decide where they take their yoga story from there.

Self practice is a student completing a yoga practice by themselves, alone. For me and many of my yoga friends this has taken quite a long time to work into our lives. Everyone is different and there is always room for another yoga class in my life but now I am experiencing something quite magical by practicing alone.

At first I found it extremely testing to actually complete my practice without stopping after the first few Suryanamaskara A's. My mind would start to whirl and I would talk myself out of completing the practice. I would slink off into the day after only a short time on the mat. I's ok to do this but not what I was aiming for.

Only over the last few months and after practicing with my beloved teacher have I found the strength to persevere and continue on through my practice. I have experienced a deeper understanding of yoga and its philosophy with this teacher and I feel this has contributed to my ability to complete a practice alone.

Starting with the Suryanamaskara A and B I now understand how to work my breath, using ujjayi breathing and activating my bandhas. I really need to concentrate to keep these all activated and the practice flows very quickly with me focusing on them.

The standing postures also now fly by as again I am concentrating on working my breath and bandhas and as I feel the benefits and affects of this I am encouraged to carry on.

By the time I have reached the seated postures my prana (life force) is flowing and I am feeling fantastic. At this point I now do not want to stop but wish to extend my practice and journey to the finishing postures.

I do not always have the time to make it to class and I have been practicing at home quite often. It is a lovely thing to do and my children are very excited by this. I place a mat on either side of mine and they come back and forth and practice some yoga with me. This is scrumptious not only as we share the energy but they are growing with a fundamental understanding of what yoga means to me and how it makes them feel in their bodies before they start trying to work it out in their minds.

They come and go from my mat and disturb me less and less as I practice more and more at home. I now finish with a Pranayama exercise which I would have never thought possible from my own bedroom. My kids sit beside me during this breathing exercise and enjoy the vibrations being present in our room.

Self practice takes on many forms and for each and every individual it means some different. See what form your practice takes when you practice by yourself, very interesting.

Ohm shanti ! ! ! !