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Friday, November 2, 2012

Friday Q&A: A Week of Home Yoga Practice

Q: I am a 65 year old student of Iyengar. I thankfully found Iyengar after trying Hatha, Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Anusara. All the styles helped me positively, with Anusara coming the closest to the perfect style, but Iyengar has been a godsend. My question is how do I create 4 or 5 daily sequences so I am covering all the asana groups in a week? Reason being is as I age I'm finding that I can wear myself out if the daily practice is too long and or too strenuous.

A: This is a wonderful question! And it’s just up my alley (which is why you get me, Nina, answering your question) because I practice regularly at home, and try to cycle through all the asana groups in a week.

Your basic strategy should be to give up on the idea of doing a completely balanced practice each day. The only way to create a practice that includes every single type of pose (standing poses, backbends, twists, forward bend, inverted poses, arm balances, Sun Salutations, etc.) would be to have a very long practice. Instead, on each day that you practice, focus on a particular group. I wrote a post about this inspired by food writer M.F.K. Fisher called A Week of Yoga Practice, so check that out. For now, as a random example, you could plan a week of sequences like this:
  • Monday: Backbends
  • Tuesday: Twists
  • Wednesday: Forward Bends
  • Thursday: Inverted Poses
  • Friday: Sun Salutations and Upper Body Strengtheners
  • Saturday: day of rest
  • Sunday: Restorative yoga
(I have left standing poses out of this list because most sequences for the other groups include some standing poses as well). I believe this is the way that many of us Iyengar style yoga practitioners practice, though not everyone breaks the poses into the same categories (and I'm sure we could get into some interesting debates about whether backbends should come at the beginning of the week or not!). If it works for you, you could adhere to a strict schedule, or you could switch things around each week. I actually change what I practice on given days depending on the focus my teacher takes for my class that week, and also what I’m in the mood for. Sometimes your body will tell you what you need to do that day.

And if there are too many groups to cover in the week (say you want a day to focus on arm balances and hip openers or on core strengtheners), just let that flow over onto the second week. There is no law that says you have to cover all the poses in a single week! Because I knew this question was coming up, I wrote a post earlier this week Creating a Mini Yoga Practice that describes how to create a shorter practice by combining related standing poses or Sun Salutations with poses from a single group. So go ahead and apply the simple formula I described in that post to create your own customized yoga sequences.

I hope this is enough information to get you started. If not, let me know. Or if anyone else has further questions about home practice, leave a comment on this post or contact me via the Contact Us tab at the top of the page. This one of my favorite topics!

—Nina
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