Practice Without Walls

As one year winds down and another begins, I usually decide to make a change for the better. I set an intention. I pick my word for the new year. I resolve to add or subtract something from my life. But this year, the change found me without any plotting on my part. I���ve had a home yoga practice for years, but I���ve always felt it wasn���t enough���wasn���t consistent enough, wasn���t strenuous enough, wasn���t long enough. Definitely wasn���t on par with the yoga I did within the walls of the yoga studios I frequent.

But this morning when I hit my mat after oversleeping and missing the class I���d planned to go to, my practice found me, and I recognized its beauty and its goodness like I never have before. In doing that, I also recognized my own beauty and goodness in a way I never have before. This is the magic of yoga, my friends. It takes an awareness that we need and weaves it into our being via the body and breath.

Embracing my home practice and my whole self in whatever form it shows up will be my work in 2017.

Let me assure you that it wasn���t that my practice suddenly pulled itself together and looked like a Yoga Journal spread. It wasn���t planned and it certainly wasn���t perfect, but it was a totally organic expression of me in the here and now. I didn���t consult any of the books looking for poses to cure what ailed me this particular morning and I resisted the urge to google a specific sequence or recreate a favorite teacher���s class. Instead of looking outside myself for answers, I simply tuned in. I listened and I wasn���t afraid to act on what I heard. To create a practice that answered the call of my body and soul at that moment.

So what does that look like? It���s one thing to wax poetic about answering the call of one���s soul and another to picture what one actually does when plunked down on a mat, instructorless. I want to pull away the curtain and show a real home practice���kind of like those make-up less pictures people post on Instagram. It���s time we have some images of untouched, non-airbrushed home practices to replace the idealized forms dancing in our collective yoga brain.

Why? Because when you see unvarnished beauty in another, you can start to see it in yourself.

With that, I welcome you to my practice, and I invite you into your own.

First, the music. My play list included the following eclectic mix of songs, each of which speaks to me in a different way.

Anusara Invocation (Joe Panzetta)
Lord���s Prayer in Aramaic (Indiajiva)
The Trees (Shellee Coley)
Wait for It (Shellee Coley)
Echoes of Nature with Tibetan Singing Bowl
Angel���s Prayer (Ty Burhoe & Krishna Das)
Long Sat Nam (Joe Panzetta)
Har Haray Aree Wahe Guru (Joe Panzetta)
I Am Human (Joe Panzetta)

Like everything in your home practice, this is about what moves you to move. Not about what you should listen to, what your yoga teacher plays or what���s yogic.

There���s nothing magic about which songs you choose for your practice except the magic that they ignite in you.

My list runs about 45 minutes which is about right for my home practice. I put it on shuffle so I can respond to the music without anticipation. This is important for me as a recovering over-planner!

Still not sure what to put on your list? Go through the songs on your phone and pick the ones you���d like to hear on your mat. Consider what resonates with you in class and what doesn���t. If rock songs energize you in the studio, they will at home too. If they make you cringe in class, keep them off your playlist!

Now, let go and just move.

I learned this from Star Amoureux, a kundalini inspired teacher of mine who now lives in Alaska. She always started her classes with free form movement, and I do the same. It forces me to figure out what my body needs rather than following some pre-determined plan. I feel the glitches in my body���some old ones (low back) and some new ones (crick in neck). This is priming the pump for the rest of your practice. So I���m cat-cowing and doing a lot of spine undulation. I move into neck rolls and stop at the crick. I breathe into it and picture it unkinking itself.

Next I piled up everything within reach���my bolster, meditation cushion and back pillow���to create a support high enough to rest my torso on in seated wide angle leg stretch. My tight unstretched morning hamstrings needed all the help they could get! Propping in a home practice is all about functionality. Use anything that serves you.

Practice like no one is watching because they aren���t.

As I turned my head from side to side, resting it on my support, I noticed the places my neck was still bothering me. I added some more gentle neck work, massaging my own trapezoid muscles then cradling my head in my hands as I stretched out my sore neck again.

Onward to downward dog, being mindful to let my head hang and not engage my neck. I stayed here a long time. Longer than I���ve ever stayed in a yoga class. Not because it���s my favorite pose or because I was aiming for a certain hold. I was simply doing the work that presented itself. You see, I���ve always gotten my heels to the ground in this pose because I can. But hanging out in that pose at home, I realized the cost of those firmly planted heels. My tail bone, which should be pointed up, elongating my spine, heads south when my heels drop. I played with it incrementally. Heels down a half an inch, tail bone up a half an inch. My job was to find the sweet spot that got my heels as close to the ground as I could without dropping my tail bone and aggravating that low back pain of mine.

The ego that wanted that picture perfect pose had to go. The heels aren���t down, but my pose is better for it.

Home practice is our self-study (the niyama���yogic practice���known in Sanskrit as svadhyaya). It���s where we can stop and examine ourself rather than moving on to the next pose with the rest of the class. I usually don���t work up as much of a sweat at home as I would in class, but I learn things about myself that I couldn���t learn in class. Things I carry with me.

Continuing exploration in my yoga laboratory, I transition into plank and upward dog. The sacral stability I had cultivated in up dog was gone, and I had to start all over to find a way to do this pose without tweaking my low back. In class, I���d grin and bear it. Or skip it. But here I could test out every pelvic angle to find the one that kept the integrity I need in my sacrum if I���m going to be able to do this pose into my old age. I found an approach that worked for me and flowed back to down dog which is precisely when our dog ran up the stairs to join me. Participation of wayward children and pets are definitely a part of a home practice!

With the dog milling about, I switched gears, setting up my meditation cushion and chanting along with my music. During the next song, I grabbed my singing bowl and played along. When Sat Nam came on, I was drawn into the beat of the music and drummed along on a bongo my son had made years ago. Finally, I spent the last minutes of my practice stroking a sequined pillow rhythmically back and forth. Did I lose you with that one? A friend gave me one of those mesmerizing pillows covered in sequins that change their appearance when you rub them one direction and then the other. It is better than a stress ball! But is it yoga? Yes! That is the beauty of your home practice. You are in charge of you.

Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. Be unorthodox and don���t apologize for it.

Remember, your practice doesn���t evaporate when you step outside the four walls of your favorite yoga studio. It is within you. How about committing to letting it roam free in 2017? Even if you end up rubbing a sequined pillow instead of lying in savasana!

I would love to hear about your home practice adventures! You can share your own experience in the comment section below. Still need convincing? You can wear socks or your birthday suit. As Roger Rippey said in class yesterday, let your freak flag fly this year. Happy 2017, everyone!