Deepen Your Yoga Practice
Through the years, I have come across yoga students who expressed their enthusiasm in deepening and advancing their yoga practice. If you have outgrown the basic poses, you naturally will look for ways to bring more depth and meaning to your yoga routine.
By this time, you have hopefully moved away from the notion of yoga practice as an ordinary form of fitness regimen and recognize it as a truly rewarding way of life.
So how do you advance your yoga practice? There are different approaches to enhancing yoga practice, and answer to this will largely depend on the frequency of your yoga sessions and the type of yoga you practice.
However, here are some of recommendations you will want to incorporate into your practice:
Spend More Time On The Mat
If you normally allocate 30 minutes 3 times a week for your yoga practice, you may want to take it a notch higher by either increasing your frequency or the duration of your sessions. Over time, you will surely notice the significant difference as you slowly start to devote more time on the mat. As you commit yourself to yoga and embracing it as a lifestyle, you will slowly notice a transformation, not just of your physical body but also the quality of your life.
Explore New Yoga Style
How long have you been practicing yoga? If you have been performing the same style for a year now, why not switch it up. If you have been practicing Hatha, consider Bikram or the more dynamic and creative Vinyasa. By choosing to widen your knowledge of yoga, you will be able to gain better understanding of its many forms and principles.
Focus On The Process, Not The Result
A lot of people view yoga practice as a means to an end. While that is not exactly wrong, you should take time and examine what your intentions are for practicing yoga. Is it to simply show off complex yoga poses on your social networking site? Well, that’s okay. If that is how you feel empowered then go for it. But in order to fully embrace yoga, you need to focus on the moment and not what you wish to do in the future with your practice. Enjoy the journey and do not be in such a hurry.
Add Yoga Meditation In Your Routine
As I have emphasized in my previous posts, yoga practice should not solely focus on the asanas or yoga poses. If you want to deepen your practice, make sure to incorporate yoga meditation to achieve the balance of the mind and body. It’s also one of the most effective ways to calm the mind and wind down after a long, hectic day.
Pinpoint Tense Muscles
As you go through your yoga poses, be more aware of your body as you hold a specific pose. For instance, if you are executing the Tree pose, pinpoint the areas in your body that have overly tensed muscles. The goal is to hold a pose with little muscular effort needed. You don’t want your yoga practice to be overly stressful or lead to injury. Among the most common areas that tend to tense include the shoulders, the toes and face.
Ready to take your practice to the next level, adapt the three life-changing habits to complement your yoga practice.
