I’ve been told it’s cold and windy outside.  From my cozy apartment it looks like mid-April.  So I made this a laundry day.  The dryer cycle is 90 minutes, so I made that “yoga time”.  I just did an 45 minutes of asana and 15 minutes of pranayama while meditating on the beautiful blue sky.  In my head, the weather is perfect.

My standing poses are transforming before my very eyes.  I’ve always had a lazy home practice.  I had a good run back in 2010 when I got up 4 days a week to do yoga for 20 minutes in the morning.  That lasted almost 7 months, I think.  I was in a state of transition similar to the one I’m in now, except I wasn’t quite so self aware back then.

The home practice I have now feels so organic I don’t even have to plan it.  I just know at least 20 minutes of my day will have yoga in it.  Sometimes it’s just 5 minutes of warmup and 5 poses before I take a shower to go out.  Of course, 3 of the 5 poses are inversions because nothing gets me geared up like standing in my hands. On a day like this, I get a full class-like experience that leaves me sweating and glowing with energy.

When I have limited time, I’m pretty much making up my sequences based on how I feel.  As I said yesterday, having props like a chair or quality bolster helps me maximize my time.  For me, it’s about limited space so I have to maintain a certain amount of enthusiasm about prop creativity to get the best results.  Whether it’s to get going or I want to wind down for the day, I listen to my body and do what feels right.

I’m not a yoga teacher.  I’ve been taught by very talented people how to do complicated poses over the course of many years.  And I’m eternally grateful because having a sequence like this available to me at home is why I love my life.

If you’re interested, here’s my patented Pump-Me-Up Practice:
–  5 minutes of shoulder warm-up
–  a quick triko-virabhadrasana combo to wake up the legs
– tadasana (2 min)
–  ahdo mukha svanasana (2 min)
–  ahdo mukha vrksasana (1 min)
–  sirsasana (2 min)
–  salamba sarvangasana (3 min) – 5 minutes of svasana