Yonder Window

I’ve been told it’s cold and windy outside.  From my cozy apartment it looks like mid-April.  So I made this a laundry day.  The dryer cycle is 90 minutes, so I made that “yoga time”.  I just did an 45 minutes of asana and 15 minutes of pranayama while meditating on the beautiful blue sky.  In my head, the weather is perfect.

I stole this picture.
I stole this picture.

My standing poses are transforming before my very eyes.  I’ve always had a lazy home practice.  I had a good run back in 2010 when I got up 4 days a week to do yoga for 20 minutes in the morning.  That lasted almost 7 months, I think.  I was in a state of transition similar to the one I’m in now, except I wasn’t quite so self aware back then.

The home practice I have now feels so organic I don’t even have to plan it.  I just know at least 20 minutes of my day will have yoga in it.  Sometimes it’s just 5 minutes of warmup and 5 poses before I take a shower to go out.  Of course, 3 of the 5 poses are inversions because nothing gets me geared up like standing in my hands. On a day like this, I get a full class-like experience that leaves me sweating and glowing with energy.

When I have limited time, I’m pretty much making up my sequences based on how I feel.  As I said yesterday, having props like a chair or quality bolster helps me maximize my time.  For me, it’s about limited space so I have to maintain a certain amount of enthusiasm about prop creativity to get the best results.  Whether it’s to get going or I want to wind down for the day, I listen to my body and do what feels right.

I’m not a yoga teacher.  I’ve been taught by very talented people how to do complicated poses over the course of many years.  And I’m eternally grateful because having a sequence like this available to me at home is why I love my life.

If you’re interested, here’s my patented Pump-Me-Up Practice:
–  5 minutes of shoulder warm-up
–  a quick triko-virabhadrasana combo to wake up the legs
– tadasana (2 min)
–  ahdo mukha svanasana (2 min)
–  ahdo mukha vrksasana (1 min)
–  sirsasana (2 min)
–  salamba sarvangasana (3 min) – 5 minutes of svasana

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