The Power of a Home Yoga Practice (and How to Set One Up)

As a yoga teacher, I risk being accused of blasphemy by saying this: The power of yoga is not in a group class.

The purpose of yoga is to connect with our inner bliss, that god-thing I wrote about last month. Certainly that can be bolstered by a community who practices together, but we often give up depth in order to gain connection if that is our only way to practice.

The answer is not to become a hermit, but to return to the essence of a yoga practice — one centered in the Self. Here community building is an activity that is sometimes complementary and sometimes separate.

At the core of this is a home practice.

Setting Up a Home Yoga Practice

When I began to slow down and deepen my yoga practice, I found that I was suddenly out of sorts with what my former studios were offering. Things were too fast or broadly applied to account for my body’s needs. I often saw teachers overlooking clear (and sometimes dangerous) misalignment. But mostly, I found the classes were not feeding me as much as my private study was.

So I took it home. I made a space in my living room, bought a couple of blocks, a bolster, and a strap and carved out time in my day for my practice.

At first I focused entirely too much on planning my sequences, often spending 20 minutes writing out the poses in a notebook that I would keep at the top of my mat. But when I shifted to consistently focus on what I already knew, I became more fluent in what my body most needed and threw out the lesson plan.

The Surprising Benefits of a Home Yoga Practice

I found a few benefits from a home practice that surprised me:

1. I was far more efficient. I could do as many poses in 20 minutes as I would have normally done in a 75-minute studio class. And I could hold them longer and go deeper into them.
2. My time was far more effective. I gained more flexibility and strength in six months of home practice than I had in 10 years of regular studio classes.
3. It was much more fulfilling. I did not miss the community aspect of yoga as much as I thought I would because I was having so much fun exploring a relationship with my body and mind.

Yoga and the Nature of the Teacher-Student Relationship

After practicing at home for a while, I shared these findings with a friend who owned several yoga studios. His livelihood depended on people like me going to regular classes, but his words were clear: “A home practice is where you really gain depth.”

It’s true. The way that yoga has historically been taught mirrors this. Students would come to work with the teacher in an immersive setting and then return home to practice what they had learned. Some form of this would continue for the rest of the relationship between the student and teacher.

Taking our practice home works because we cannot embody any teaching, no matter how wise, unless we play with it in the context of our life. The teacher and the teachings are important, but the student’s direct experience is known to be the most valuable. That direct experience can only come when we release ourselves from the reliance upon someone telling us what to do and how to do it.

An Easy Way to Set Up a Home Practice

In support of your direct experience, I’ll share some simple steps to make a home yoga practice a reality.

1. Create a space. It should be big enough to lay out a yoga mat and allow you to comfortably reach with arms fully spread on all sides. It does not have to be a space where nothing else happens (I have consistently used my living room), but it should be a space where no one will feel intruded upon and you won’t be intruded upon during your practice time.
2. Set a time. It’s one thing to say that you’ll start doing a short daily yoga practice and quite another to say, “At 7:45 a.m. daily I’ll do a 15-minute practice or four poses, whichever comes first.” If you live with people, telling them what time you will practice takes the guesswork out of space use conflicts.
3. Buy minimal tools and props. You aren’t setting up a yoga studio, so go simple — buy only what you normally use. My go-tos are a good mat (I like Manduka because they are indestructible), a couple of wooden or cork blocks (foam is too soft), a strap, a folding chair, and a blanket.
4. Start simple. You can begin with 3-4 poses that you know very well and build off that foundation. Or, invest in a couple private sessions (I offer these via Zoom) and tell the teacher your goals. When you want to level up, take a class or workshop and then bring what you learned home.
5. Listen to your body. Some days you will naturally have more energy, while other days you’re barely going to muster the strength to do savasana. You’ll get a lot by tuning into these energy waves and respecting them.

A home practice gives you the permission to go as deep as you want to go. With you as your own personal guide, you’ll learn far more than you ever thought possible.

Bonus resources: Click on the blog category Yoga at Home and you’ll find video tutorials, guided meditations, and yoga nidra recordings to get you started.