My Home Practice - What it Looks Like

I've mentioned that I'm really into my yoga, and I do a lot of it... often. I do my morning yoga routine in about an hour just to get me ready for the day. Then later I do my real practice. My full practice. I'm sure you've heard me mention these terms. It's not to say that my morning practice isn't important, but it's not the one where I really dig deep. It's not the one where I stop answering phones and just get into the zone for the afternoon.

The big practice I do each day can take anywhere from 1 - 3 hours. It usually ends up being right around 3 hours because that's just what I'm comfortable doing. I have a lot of things I intend to do and it takes a while to fit them in. Just this morning Adam was saying how I will sometimes sit down intending to stretch for a couple minutes, but then I keep adding one more thing and one more thing until I've accidentally done a full practice and 3 hours have passed. Yes, sometimes it happens that way... but I also have a notebook full of pre-planned sequences I really like to do. Someone asked me last week about my practice - what it looked like, how many asanas I did... soo...

Here's a sequence I wrote - a year or two ago. It's kinda old now. I wrote this sequence purely for Anjaneyasana with mermaid arms. I wanted to nail that pose, so I built a sequence that would get me there. Since then I've added a lot of things and I often ad lib a bunch of stuff as I go that doesn't get written down too. In fact, now this sequence has been altered to get me to Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana 2. This particular sequence takes me 2 - 2.5 hours, so it's pretty standard for me. Not the longest or shortest practice I do... just average.

This isn't for you - don't do this.

As you can see, my personal sequences are kinda involved and full of pictures, abbrevations, names or descriptions that are nowhere near official (it just helps me know what I'm talking about), and little symbols that denote flows or repeated things. Most of these poses I do 2 - 5 times each and the Sun Salutations at the top (looks like SS) I do 2 - 4 of depending on the day.

I'm not suggesting this sequence to anyone - it's all sorts of personalized for me and me alone. This is just an example. A little peek into what it is I do in my personal practice.