I have to admit that this is one of the things I am finding the most challenging about getting really deep into my yoga practice. I'm not a morning person, anyone who knows me will tell you, and thus managing to wake up early and do any sort of anything that involves more than brushing of teeth is a challenge. My friend Meg, who runs Real Life Yoga, blogged about it very interestingly in her 'Rise and don't whine' post! I'm glad I'm not alone.
I've tried going to the park at lunchtime to practice, but the weather's been very changeable recently, and with a new colleague starting, I've not felt like I can just jaunt off by myself. And then after work I am often very busy - whether that's an exercise class, socialising with friends, choir rehearsal or something else, by the time I get home it's time for bed. On the nights I do have in, I find that on the whole (though not always) I'm really knackered and just want to crash out.
In terms of what I'm doing during the week, I've got vinyasa flow Monday lunchtimes, Body Pump Monday evening, vinyasa flow Wednesday evening, Pilates some Thursdays/Saturday mornings, mysore Saturday morning, Pilates Sunday morning, astanga Sunday evening. So you can probably tell why I'm getting knackered. And that's sans any swimming or cycling or walking!
So how to resolve this? I think a home practice is a really useful thing for psychological reasons, as well as for practicing and developing and tweaking your flow. I've always had one, albeit a sporadic one. I've done videos of Yoga With Adriene, I've done yin, I've done sun salutations, I've tried meditation... but nothing quite sticks in terms of doing a daily thing. I suppose I think I'm probably putting pressure on myself. Although you shouldn't get fixated on any pose, I would really like to be better at certain things, and a regular home practice will give me that.
I also need to remind myself that a home practice doesn't have to be class length. It can literally be a few minutes every day. Lily also told me when we met up that when she started her course, only about 50% of the people actually had a home practice, which really surprised me! I can do what I did yesterday morning, which was, if I can vaguely recall, viparita (legs up in the air, flexed feet), bit of savasana (corpse pose) and adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog). My bedroom doesn't actually have space for very much more width wise!
Going back to Meg's points, I'm interested to see what I can take from them. They were:
Lay it out - well, my stuff is right next to my mat, and I like to do yoga in my pyjamas! So that shouldn't be a problem.
Don't be alarmed - this is a tough one, as I struggle to drag myself out of bed. I do tend to have one alarm, then turn it off and sometimes fall back again for another 45 mins. I haven't yet really approached my home practice with 'respect and diligence', or settled on a time that works, if I'm honest, Meg...
Ditch the duvet - this is getting harder!
Stick to the plan - what don't you need? Well, this is easy enough, I can certainly avoid looking at my phone while practicing in class.
Quality not quantity - committing to the realistic. Totally doable, how I like to do my home practice anyway (unless I'm following a video)
Don't expect exceptional - I've been back at yoga long enough to know that at no point should you expect anything to be necessarily right, and that when you're not properly warm everything is way harder!
Remember why it's worth it - there are millions of us out there, but we are all working at the same stuff for our own goals. It is quite cheering to think that!