0This series of lessons deals about performing yoga at your home. I would recommend hiring an instructor, but in case you are not able to get an excellent trainer, then this might help you. I am not keeping the content to an ideal one, and it will be more of a realistic approach, which I gained during my journey of 3.5 years of giving home classes.
So to start with, let's discuss what points you should keep in mind before starting a yoga session.
- Do not start yoga straight after sleep.
During my classes, I encountered many clients start the session straight after waking up. Please maintain a gap of at least 20-30 min, between waking up and staring yoga session.
- Maintain time gap between meal and yoga
Avoid eating at least 15-20 min before and after doing yoga. For a proper meal, wait for at least 1 hour. Avoid drinking fluids (water, drink, juice, etc.) to full stomach. You can take a sip of water in between if you are feeling thirsty, but not in large quantity.
- Proper Warm-up
For the starting days, keep the warm-up session a little longer and as you get used to asanas, increase the time given to asanas. Do not try to overstretch your body from day 1, but increase the level gradually.
Keep one-third part of your session for warm-up. Generally, I follow 20-20-20 min for warmup-Asanas-Pranayams.
- Use a mat or blanket
Always use a mat or blanket and do yoga on a levelled floor/ground.
- Importance of Savasana
Always do savasana for 2-5 min after you are done with Asanas and moving to pranayama.
- A proper place
It is always better to do yoga in the open air but not under direct sunlight. If doing at home, choose a place near to the window and away from the kitchen and bathroom portion of the house.
- Wear Supportive Clothes
Wear loose clothes which allow free movement. I often see people use tight track pants, which sometimes restricts motion. Make sure, track pants, inner-wears don't have thin elastics or stripes. Especially for a woman who is practising heavy workout (weight loss or power yoga, etc.), ensure that you don't wear inner-wears with thin stripe/bands/nada, which are body fitting. Either you can lose them, or stop wearing them.
- Go with a uniform pace
Again, I experienced this while giving home classes. People often try to increase the speed to cover the lost time( due to the phone call, interference of others, or they need to leave early) in between session. Avoid doing this, better skip asanas or pranayamas instead to doing all at a faster rate. (Especially Kapalbhati).
- Don't blindly follow videos in social media
People often follow 2-3 min videos on social media about a specific topic. 'Like 5 min home exercise for weight loss'. They may or may not be correct, but your body needs the strength and flexibility to absorb those exercises. Like you can't attempt Halasana from day one.
My next lessons will be on warm-up exercises which should be practised before asanas.
Stay tuned!!
