I took a long break from my home practice of yoga. Partly because I was getting treatment for my back and was advised to take it easy, the other part because changes suddenly took place in my life and I didn’t know how to deal with it. Practicing yoga brings clarity and healing and I guess I wanted to sit in pain. So my regular practice of yoga, the practice that brings me clarity, creativity and self love. The practice that helps me realize my strength and bravery slipped. The few times I attempted to get on the mat for a practice, something hurt or got hurt, then I stopped and walked away from my mat. I stayed busy and made plans to work, busy evening plans with other people or found something on TV the watch to keep me distracted from dealing with whatever it was that I was trying to avoid feeling.
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As yoga is my main form of exercise, I realized I needed to do something and found myself walking outside regularly. Then my ankles hurt so I had to take a break. Wah wah poor me. That was then… It was about the last couple of months maybe a little longer. Now I’m back. I stopped my back treatments before I should but I had to focus on the things that I felt were important and wanted to grow and expand in my life. I tried some new hiking spots and enjoyed cooking at home again (I stopped getting creative in the kitchen too).
The only thing left was to figure out how to get on my mat. The creativity of any flow just wasn’t coming to mind yet. I decided to go back to my David Swenson’s [xyz-ihs snippet=”Ashtanga-Yoga-Practice-Manual”].
I love this book, you have a lot of options and you can work through the book at your pace. There are different sequence options for when you have do not have time for the full practice. When I take a break from yoga, it is tough to come back because I feel like the strength and flexibility I had built is all gone. That is probably the reason that yoga is suggested to be practiced regularly. I also strongly dislike the feeling like I’m always beginning again. I have an injury and I have to take a break, I then come back to practice and have to start over. Sometimes I feel my practice has a ceiling and I can’t reach past that because of setbacks and willpower. So I’ve decided to begin again, again!
I’ve scheduled some serious time to practice and am keeping track of the length of my practice. Currently, I’m going to keep it easy (from a sequencing perspective) and will practice Ashtanga Yoga following David Swenson’s book. I’m sticking to any of the shorter sequences found between pages 255-259 and one days where I can put more effort & time into my practice I am practicing pages from the full flow, but only the Surya A, Surya B, the Standing sequence and the Finishing sequence for now. Once I master those or if I feel I can put more energy into my practice, I’ll throw in the primary.
Ashtanga Yoga | Instructor vs. Home Practice
I’ve practiced at home many many times, I also have videos and books. I’ve attended a small number of classes (not many located in Orange County). What I’ve noticed is that when practicing at home, it’s great because I can practice at my own pace and explore my breath/poses and alignment. When I take a class under the guidance of an Ashtanga instructor, they take me further. I don’t believe I can survive through the entire class (a gazillion chaturangas into upward facing dog) but I get further with their adjustments and tips on what the pose should really look like.
Due to my current life & work schedule, I can’t see myself committing to an Ashtanga class however I see the major benefits of them and will attend them from time to time to continue to grow in my practice.
Below are my favorite Ashtanga books that are on my bookshelf today:
[xyz-ihs snippet=”Ashtanga-Yoga-Gregor-Maehle”]
This is a great book and I’ve had this for a long time. I like how the book references muscles and highlights good information related to how muscles are worked in poses.
[xyz-ihs snippet=”The-Power-of-Ashtanga-Yoga-Kino-MacGregor”]
I’ve been following Kino MacGregor for awhile now on Instagram. She has a lot of tutorials that she shares and is helpful.
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