Bringing Your Practice Home!

Bringing it Home!

Be inspired and create your own home yoga practice. We are moving into the colder months now and that means weather can get pretty ugly out there. I don't know about you, but when the weather is cold and dreary it becomes a challenge to leave the house to go to work, let alone to practice yoga. Now, it's not to say I never leave my home in inclement weather to take a yoga class, but it is certainly nice to know I can roll out my mat and engage in a powerful practice in the comfort of my home.

Steps:

1. Find a room or area within a room that you can roll out your mat.

2. Assess the environment for good feng shui. Make sure the elements are balanced so you feel comfortable.

3. Place images, artwork, fabrics, etc. that inspire you.

4. Use natural elements and materials in the design process to minimize or eliminate chemical outgassing.

5. Space clear the room with a combination of essential oils, incense, bells, stones and crystals or anything else that feels cleansing to you.

6. Start simple. Don't overwhelm yourself with long practices and complicated sequences.

7. Choose a time that works for you.

8. Let your body guide you instead of making rules for your practice. Maybe take savasana in the middle of your practice instead of at the end.

9. Reading a spiritual book can be a huge inspiration at the beginning and end of a practice.

*Note: To learn more about how to create a balanced and peaceful room see my Feng Shui E-Mini-Series. 

Simple and Engaging Self Practice:

        

                                    

 Follow this short vinyasa flow practice and be inspired for the rest of your day.

• Begin in seated easy pose and come into a brief meditation
• Turn your attention to the breath
• Set an intention for your practice - perhaps to be more humble
• Come to table-top and take a few rounds of cat - cow
• Release to child's pose
• Rise into down dog
• Walk the earth to the top of your mat to mountain pose
• Raise your arms overhead sending gaze towards heaven
• Forward fold to the earth
• Release right foot back for modified anjanelyasana (low lunge); inhale your arms overhead
• Exhale and release your hand either side of front foot and sit back towards your heels to stretch your hamstrings
• Inhale and bend your knee, and exhale your right arm to the sky for spinal twist
• Release and step back into downward facing dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
• Inhale to plank pose, exhale to your knees, chest and chin toward the mat
• Slide forward to low cobra, and then shift your hips back to child's pose
• Curl your toes under and shift to down dog
• Inhale and walk your feet to the top of the mat
• Breathe in and soften your knees
• Roll up to standing and return your hands to the heart center 
• Repeat this sequence opposite side

Set time for your practice so that ultimately nothing can knock you off the center of your day!

Om!

Mary Jane Kasliner

FengShui Yoga Girl - www.fengshuiyoganj.com