The hardest part about cultivating a home practice is getting started. Here are some tips to get there:
1) Don’t expect yourself to spend an hour and half at a time on your practice. Even five minutes is enough if you approach it honestly and are honest in your need to stop.
2) Find a physical space that doesn’t distract you. Hardly anyone can dedicate a whole room, or even a corner of one, to her practice. But avoiding spaces where your desk overflowing with old bills is taunting you or the refrigerator crammed with the chocolate chip cookies you baked for your kids’ classes is beckoning will go a long way toward keeping you focused.
3) Make the space beautiful to you. For me, sunlight and space are key. Even when I practiced in a room so small I had to position my mat just so to avoid bashing into the dresser as I performed sun salutations, I made sure that the space felt open and sunny and uncluttered.
4) Find a time of day that works for you. No time is perfect. In the mornings I frequently want to hop right to my work. But I also know that my energy flags by the end of the day and that I am simply no good at leaving things undone in order to do something for myself. So I make the morning my practice time and just tell myself I’ll be much better at getting all the other things done if I practice yoga first.
5) Take all communication devices out of the room. I have squandered way too much yoga time on email and answering the phone. There are reasons messages are saved for later viewing.
6) Be flexible and honest. Something might cut into your practice time, and that something might just be your state of mind. Sometimes you’re just not into it. Then practice a little compassion and give yourself a break.
7) Work your way up to the challenges. A home practice is simply different from being in a room with a teacher and other students. It is less about mastering new poses than mastering old ones, finding your own energy, discovering the beauty in your own practice.
8) Know the simple sequence to avoid injury. Take at least a few moments to center before you begin. Warm up with some gentle stretches. Then do your standing poses, including standing balances, before moving to your mat. While you are warm, do at least some of your stretches. Sometimes I like to do backbends in here as well and sometimes I save them for the end of my practice as an added challenge in savasana (back bends are energizing, so it’s more difficult to settle down right after them). Headstand and shoulderstand are calming and usually belong at the end of a practice. Don’t forget counterposes — forward folds or twists after backbends, child’s pose after headstand — and trust your body to tell you what counterpose would feel good. And never, ever skip savasana.
9) Embark on your home practice with a sense of fun. And then fulfill it.