How to Build a Home Yoga Practice – Part 2
This is a continuation of How to Build a Home Yoga Practice. Part 1 can be found here.
Create space
It sounds fairly obvious that the next stage of your plan, once you know when you are going to practice, is knowing where you are going to practice. You do not need a separate room or anything fancy. It may just be a part of a room that you can put your mat down or section off.
The space for your practice may be about 2.5 metres by 2 metres. This is actually a luxurious amount of space to practice in and you may feel comfortable using a lot less. These dimensions leave enough space around you so that you do not feel cramped or restricted in any way. It gives you enough space to be able to do a headstand for example, without having to worry about hitting a wall or any other object if you accidentally fall.
The space you practice in must be clean and free of clutter. It needs to be functional yet comfortable.
Develop a balanced sequence
The next tip for success at developing a home yoga practice, is to know in advance what postures you are going to practice. If you wait until you get onto the mat, it is almost certain that you will only do what you like to do.
A balanced program that includes poses that you do not necessarily like is essential. If you stick with a balanced program you are going to make far more progress than someone who wakes up in the morning and decides what to practice depending on how they feel at that moment or going with the flow.
To develop a sequence you may want to ask your teacher to select poses suitable for your capabilities. You will need a selection of about 25 – 30 poses from a variety of posture groups. In this respect the Knoff System is highly effective. The Knoff Yoga system has poses divided into 11 groups that are practised in the following order:
- Sun Salutations
- Inversions Heating (this includes poses like Dolphin Pose and Headstand)
- Standing Poses
- Arm Balances
- Forward Bends
- Seated Poses
- Abdominals
- Twists
- Backbends
- Inversions Cooling (Shoulderstand or Legs up the Wall)
- Relaxation (Savasana)
This sequencing of poses takes into account that in every practice, we want to work every part of the body. We also want to balance flexibility with strength.
By practising poses in this order, by the time you get to the end of arm balances for example, you may be feeling a little tired, and it is at that point that you get to sit down and do your forward bends. You will be warm from the poses beforehand and you will practice the forward bends with greater ease. At the same time you will be taking a little ‘breather’ from the more intense arm balances and standing poses. Backbends are placed near the end of the sequencing as they are the deepest movements of the spine and need all of the poses that went before to prepare for them.
Having worked with the Knoff system of sequencing for some time now, I can say that I do not think there is a better system for sequencing around.
When you do practice, ensure that you do at least one pose from every posture group for a balanced practice. In the first level of Knoff Yoga, there are 26 poses, if you practiced them all, holding a minimum of 5 breaths in each pose, it would take about 30 – 45 minutes to complete. So you can see that it is possible to do a balanced practice, practising only one of every posture group and it would take you around 15 or 20 minutes. There is no excuse for not doing a balanced practice.
If you have more time, you would do more than one pose from each group. When you practice, ensure you stay a minimum of 5 slow breaths in each pose. If you have more time, of course you can hold the postures longer. 
To be continued …
Tags: balance, knoff yoga, plan, sequencing, space, tips