Please try this at home

While I like to hold high yogic ideals, some days my practice consists of several forward folds in front of the dryer, a twist as I’m backing the car out of the driveway and a mountain pose in the checkout line.

How do you find time to practice?

This is the perennial question. Here are some ideas that might help:
1. Make an appointment with yourself – same time each day, or at least in between other obligations.

2. Less is More – try 10 minutes instead of 90 (which often turns into 0. And 10 is better than 0.)
3. Get your partner, dog or child involved. The partner or dog might want to only do shavasana, but they might try a pose or two once they see you doing it. Children love to crawl under and over yoga parents. My son makes a great weight in head to knee pose.
4. Shut off the tv and put on some expansive music. “Expansive” here is open to interpretation. I listen to “Baba Nam Kevalam” mantra recordings (click here for some free ones), Deva Premal, Loreena McKennitt, or the Grateful Dead depending on what I’m feeling like that day. Other days silence is bliss!
5. Don’t get distracted by distractions – If you own a peaceful, zenned-out yoga studio, great! But if you have to take a phone call, rescue dinner or let the cat out during your session, so what? It would be nice if none of those things interrupted your practice, but if they do, roll with it. The reality is that life can invade your home practice (that’s why it’s nice to go to a studio sometimes!) The best way to handle it is to breathe and go with it. I remind myself that my son’s not going to be 4 much longer and that his  spontaneous renditions of Billy Jonas songs are better than any triangle pose I’ve ever experienced.

5. Beginning and Endings – Starting your practice with an “Aum” or a chant and ending it with a short meditation makes it a sacred ritual regardless of what’s happened in between the two.