One of my students surprised me when he said yoga was something he enjoyed but he wasn’t planning to become a “serious” yogi. He wasn’t the only one with this view.
When it comes to meditation and calming the mind, some students would admit to try to meditate regularly while others would use meditation and relaxation as a “quick fix” against stress when they can’t come to class. They are however a minority while most people continue to consider impossible to stick to a daily practice amongst their multiple responsibilities.
We are used to make a distinction between “serious” athletes who train every day and people who workout or go to fitness classes. This view has been transferred to yoga, partly because yoga shows in every gym timetable (making them believe it is another stretching class) and partly because few yoga teachers encourage students to set their personal practice. However, personal yoga practice opens the door to discover the individual benefits which may be impossible to grasp in a 90 minute class at the nearest gym.
The Western world placed yoga somewhere between fitness and health-related physical activity and ever since, we face popular misconceptions working in detriment of the many dimensions yoga can touch. Developing a personal yoga practice refines people's understanding of yoga and makes them more sensitive to the physical and psychological benefits they are likely to start experiencing.
I’ve focused on the meditation-mind relation to list a few reasons why everyone should develop their personal yoga practice below, but if you find more reasons, it would be great to hear about them.
- A daily yoga practice connecting body, breath and mind, creates the setting needed for a meditative state of mind
- Improving your capability to calm the mind may require only a few minutes of daily practice, but it requires continuity. Likewise, the body and mind connection needs this continuity to start operating in deeper levels.
- Without a teacher telling you what to do, presence and stillness become a natural process that you can be retrieve at leisure any time, any place.
- Listening to body and mind through personal practice allows you to recognise your deepest needs. Your personal practice may be different every day but it will also target more honestly what you really need out of it.
- Yoga classes become more enriching when you can focus on questions and issues you’ve discovered and experienced during your own practice.
If you are a yoga enthusiast, feel empower to develop your own practice. This is potentially the best antidote against feeling that you are not progressing in your practice. The body of knowledge behind yoga is so widespread, rich and flexible that one could dwell in one particular area and never exhaust the sources available.
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika mentions that “One should practice in an area of one and a half metres where there are no surrounding objects” and that “one should practice every day in order to build up the spiritual vibrations.” * These days, when I remind my students about this, they can see that rather than a precept applying to “serious yogis” it is in fact a common sense practice to help them enjoy the full spectrum of benefits yoga has in store for each one of them.
*Hatha Yoga Pradipika - Swami Muktibodhananda , Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, Bihar, India.