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While I love taking studio yoga classes, they don’t always fit into my schedule. Which is why I started practicing yoga at home.
The best things about practicing yoga at home are that you don’t have to commit to a full-hour of yoga, you can wear your pajamas and you can drink coffee. Yes, something I break out of tadasana (Mountain Pose) to take a sip of coffee.
The hard thing about practicing yoga at home is taking that first step to start an at-home yoga practice. I get it, binge watching Netflix can seem a lot more appealing than rolling out your yoga mat.
But making time for yoga has about a trillion rewards for your mind, body and soul (that’s an exaggeration, but it’s a lot).
So here are a few things you can do to begin your yoga practice at home…
Create a space that you love
I’m currently working on creating a yoga space in one of our spare bedrooms. The room has served as an office we never use and has become a place we put random things. But I’ve slowly cleaned it out, created a usable office space and will create an area to practice yoga.
I’ve been collecting things that will inspire my yoga practice and make the room feel peaceful. I’ll share more photos when I finish the space!
If you don’t have a room or part of a room to devote to yoga, just create a small space in your living room or bedroom. Keep your yoga mat there and keep the area clean and inviting.
Use online yoga videos
I love using follow along yoga videos to focus on a certain type of yoga practice or a certain part of the body. When my hips are feeling particularly tight, I’ll search for a hip opening yoga sequence. Or if I only have 20 minutes, I’ll find a short sequence.
My favorite sites are YogaGlo, Grokker and One0Eight. You have to pay a monthly subscription for them, but the monthly fee is about the cost of attending one studio class.
You can get 14-days free when you sign up for Grokker here -> http://bit.ly/sara-yoga
There are also tons of free yoga videos on YouTube. Some great options are:
Another option is to find a yoga channel on whatever TV app you use like Hulu.
Try practicing without a video
Now that I teach yoga and have started creating my own sequences, I’ll be practicing yoga without guided videos more often. But you don’t have to be a teacher to do this.
Start by doing a few Sun Salutations, then do a few of your favorite yoga poses.
Set a goal
Goals can be good motivators! I’ve done a few yoga challenges that either challenged me to practice yoga daily for 30 days or practice a certain pose every day for a month. Both challenges pushed me to create a more consistent home practice.
You could also set a goal for getting into a certain pose. Whether you want to be able to do a yoga handstand or Camel Pose or Wheel or Dancer’s Pose, setting a goal will push you to plan your practice around creating more strength and flexibility for that pose.
I have a few “Bucket List” poses! The full expression of Mermaid Pose (the pose in the title image of this post), Crow Pose and Yoga Handstand.
I’m thinking of doing another yoga challenge soon. I need a little motivation too ; )