Beginners question: taking yoga class for a month, can I do it at home, alone too?

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

Ok, so I`v been at a yoga class 6 times now, once or twice a week. I bought myself a yoga anti-slippery mat and few more things, plus a great book about yoga and ayurveda. The book has detailed pictures and descriptions of a 35 key yoga asanas, as well with vectors of movement shown and warning descriptions for each asana.

But Iv been wondering... our teacher told us its much easier to learn a proper posture, than unlearn it when you have learned to do it wrong. And I desire to do yoga at home too (and continue to go to classes, but I cant go to classes more than once/twice a week) but I also realise I can barely do few asanas myself, and Im affraid Im to “green” to tell if I`m doing it wrong or right. And also I dont know much about planing sequences for them to work for me, not against me.

So there is a part of me that wants more yoga, and a part that is not sure if Im ready and if it will do me more harm than gain. So far Iv tried yoga at home twice, for like 20 minutes and it was quite chaotic.

So anyone with experience or some insight into beggining of a practice, please give your opinion. Should I wait some more time, or just go light at first?

Thanks,

Tomek.

ps. I just wanted to add… I love yoga, I have just fallen in love recently and just wish to have more dates with my loved one! :wink:

#2

Good morning, Atman! The metaphor in your post-script is a beautiful and apt one – it contains both your longing and your intent to do this right.
Since your teacher mentioned ‘easier to learn it right the first time’, I’ll conjecture that you asked your teacher about going solo and this was the reply. If you have a good teacher, (be grateful and) take that as a gentle indicator that it’s not the time for that yet.
If you haven’t asked your teacher yet, before your next class ask something like, “I’d like to practice some asanas at home. Am I doing anything with proper alignment for that to be a good next step yet? If so, what poses would those be?” and give your teacher a class or three to think about it.
In the mean time, explore some of the other aspects of yoga. Have you heard about the yamas and niyamas yet?

#3

Namaste Atman! your longing for yoga is very evident in your post and now that you are in love, its the perfect to do beautiful things together. check if your loved one also wants to do yoga so you can meet and spend a very beautiful time together. Techne has very well said, you might not be ready yet to do the yoga poses by yourself. having the loving guidance of an instructor till you learn the basics throughly is very important and then you will be able to do any pose correctly. doing yoga and and following yama and niyama will help you stay away from avidya and allow your relationship and health to prosper.

ॐ

#4

You could also pay for a private session with your teacher to make sure you are doing things right…then you may be more comfortable practicing at home!

#5

Hello, and thank you all for answers and suggestions.

Let me clarify few things at first:

  1. My loved one is yoga, not a person :).

  2. I havent asked my teacher about trying solo, thats just something he said during group practice (and I was thinking - well, maybe its good for his buisness to say it, than students will use more group practice and pay more)

  3. I have actually just parted with a girl that I loved recently, and she goes to the same yoga school as I do, (so far I was lucky to not meet her there) but I dont want to bump onto her (so recently) after what happend, and I decided to find another place for yoga, for some time. Too bad, since I liked this one, and the teacher has good reputation and 20 years of practice, but thats good for my feelings now.

So I`ll be checking out other yoga schools, and perhaps just see when I will feel comfortable with doing it alone.

Also, yes Iv heard about yamas and niyamas (just last week, hehe) but at the same time, Iv been following them more or less for some time in my life as a part of my own way, I`m a vegetarian for a few years now and perhaps thats why I felt so quickly that yoga is for me - it seem like extention to my previous life, and a real practice, something I can actually do, not just think about. To put effort into it, and have this effort rewrded - and thats great.

#6

Its not like quiting yoga with teacher and only doing at home, Im just going to go to another place for my lessons (for some time). And I do it for myself, to be able to focus on me, and let those feelings fade away slowly - insted of meeting her there, and re-opening it again and again, not being able to grief and let go. That is how I see it, after some time I plan to return, but so far, even virtual contact - just s message over internet with her - made me walk backwards for three days, so to speak. I need a time without her around, at all.

#7

Listen, thanks for your advices but I can take care about myself and choose whats right for me in this matter.

#8

So why ask for advice? And you dont have to answer, I already know.

#9

I asked for advice about yoga practice home alone. As for beating grief, forgetting about her etc - these are your advices about whole different thing, and I thanked you for them, but you really dont know me, nor any details about this ex-relationship, and that is the reason I think there is no use for it.

#10

Well I tell you this - it is partly fear, fear that I will meet her there and re-open those feelings, fear that I will not be able to let her, and those feelings go when I will be seeing here constantly. And I want goodness for myself, and in this situation good is being able to move on. Plus I definitelly do not want to beat any feelings inside me, but rather feel those feelings and let time do the rest. And I believe seeng her will be like reseting the timer.

#11

Tomek,

I’ll try to bring this back around to your original post and respond to some of the other elements that have come up in the thread as it has matured.

I believe practicing yoga off the mat is imperative. That includes a home asana practice. It has a purpose and that purpose should not (in my view) be confused with yoga itself. And I am referencing an inherent purpose not the purpose of the mind or the preference or the opinion or the desire.

However you raise the question of “at what point on the path should I begin a home practice?”. Obviously, to begin a home (asana) practice one must know a little of this and a little of that. To me, it is the teacher’s responsibility to provide enough in class that the student has things to take with them when departing. It is for this reason that we teach several series’ in Purna Yoga?.

Perhaps begin your home practice with some of the series you’ve learned in your practice. That can be a few minutes of centering, warming up, surya namaskar, and perhaps just a couple of poses before taking savasana.

At this stage it is more important to develop the discipline to come to the mat daily and do the practice. Alignment will come, presuming you continue to go to class on a regular basis AND that your teacher has an eye for alignment and can correct you there. It will be to you to take those corrections home and integrate them into your daily practice.

As for the issue with transition in your social life one should only do what one is ready to do. Forcing and feeling do not coexist and in yoga it is more imperative to heighten the sense of feeling (often called awareness) than it is to storm headfirst into the abyss. Such storming lacks gentility, jars the nervous system, and often only serves to bolster the ego.

There is another side to that coin though. And that is that yoga mandates we come out from behind the shrubbery and shadows in which we often hide. This is one of three reasons why I request that students avoid wearing black clothing for practice. By design it is a concealer. So yes there is a certain empowerment I should impart to my students that allows them to face that which comes up in their practice - be it joy or sorrow, be it fear or an open mind.

I study with an amazing teacher so I’d likely not steer my practice elsewhere no matter what. But he is the rarest of birds. If you can go elsewhere, get the same guidance AND feel good about the going, go.

#12

Do you mean “sometimes YOU need to conceal”?

As long as the doing is mindful, by conscious choice and not rote action, and serves the individuals particular path, then only that person is to say if it is for them or not - no other.

#13

Analogies are fascinating. Good ones are empowering and clarifying. Others only muddle a potentially beneficial exchange of ideas.

But I’ll go along with you, for a bit. Though I doubt I’ll actually get anything inside the tight weave of your belief system.

Miners elect to go underground. It may very well be their dharma to unearth minerals. And, in that context, I would certainly wear clothing appropriate to the mission.

That having been said, for the practice of yoga I would also select what I wear as carefully as possible. I would not indulge in the things of dark while pursuing the things of light - to the best of my abilities. At the same time we must acknowledge the darkness within all of us that is latent so as not to cover it with a veneer of spirituality.

Since the practice of yoga is a practice toward light, toward mindful evolution, toward a higher consciousness, I would mitigate those things drawing myself (and students) in the opposite direction. Of course we don’t live in a vacuum, therefore we “do the best we can”.

One of the issues here appears to be the craving for one correct answer. When we seek, need, crave, desire one right answer there becomes a wrong answer. This is the very foundation for dogma and clearly leads to war.

#14

Hello InnerAthlete!

Thank you very much for your detailed post.

I find it very helpful, starting slow but getting used to everyday discipline, even for a short while daily, sounds just right to me, at my stage.

Also I very much agre with what youv said about not forcing - in my experience its better to allow than to force. That doesn`t mean I always do what my good experiences dictate me, but thats another story ;).

However in this situation, I looked into myself (after discusion with >greater than<, whose posts seem to be gone now) and discovered that it was indeed fear that was telling me to change my yoga class, and I was running away. And I have also discovered, that when I decided to continue to go to yoga where I started and where I like it, and face this situation instead of imagining how it would be, I feel stronger and better, for not running away and facing whats there for me. I can allways decide to go, if things get ugly for me, but I will still be richer for the experience of confronting my fear, and that seems like a good deal.

So thank you guys once more, and have a good day.

#15

Namaste Tomek,

I love the comparison you have drawn here and would like to use it a bit further. Many love affairs can develop very quickly, but alas within a few years, months or even days and weeks they have lost their sparkle and lustre, just to end in a void of disappointment and tears.

Those love affairs that developed over time, where patiences was the key to allow the emotions, mind and body to settle in the love affair, to grow and to develop and to become aware of the other one in the affair, they tend to last longer, sometimes lifetimes and they blossom and grow even further.

Build your asana practice by looking at what your teacher do if you respect the person and want to learn from this person. Allow your body and mind to assimilate it all, take it in, digest it and add some patience. One day you will start your home practice again and it will flow, naturally.

My own teacher, whom I have much respect for, always recommended that we do the surya namaskar, a few rounds, and those asanas we do in class which we find sometimes more challenging than the others. That’s how I started my own home practice years ago and from there it got a life of its own. Today as a teacher I still do it, sometimes my home practice will consist only of the asanas I find difficult and sometimes I do the one I love and find easy, other times I do the ones that I know moves me in deeper inner realms, this is the beauty of the home rpactice, you can discover so much. Enjoy! :slight_smile:

#16

Thank you :).

Good point, especially for me: take ot slow, patience rather than revolution.

It is also similar for me with music - If I like an album right away very much, often after a while I`m bored with it. But I need more time to get to know a value of true gems,

Its strange, often during yoga classes, when my muscles are too weak to hold on and Im about to collapse down or let go and go out of the possition, Im thinking something like - thats too hard, and requires too much effort, its not for me, I wont be able to hold on to yoga. But when I`m back home, I wish to return to the gym soon ;D