I managed to do four days of self-practice but this morning, when I got up, I did only one round of sun salutation before folding up my mat. Maybe it was because I did not have much time to do the practice, only about 15 minutes, as I needed to prepare to go to work or I was thinking that I do not need to do the practice as I can go for a class today at Beyoga. Anyway, I could feel that my body was not into it and decided not to continue with the practice as I was not engaging my bandhas when I was doing the pose. I did not want to injure myself as I know that it is important to pace myself and not going into the poses too fast without any proper warm-up and stretching.
When doing a self-practice, it is important to work your breath (use ujjayi breathing) and activates your bandhas as the practice flows very quickly when you focus on them.
For the past three days, I had managed to do a 45-minute practice as I incorporated different poses each day that I felt my body needed. On Sunday, I did shoulder stand, (my favourite pose) as it stretches my neck and shoulders and followed-up with fish pose as my counter pose and reclining hero pose towards the end of my practice.
I did the some of poses in the Ashtanga primary series on Monday and added some lunging poses which included the kneeling crescent lunge to help strengthen my legs and open my hips as it I could feel some tightness due to lounging on my sofa all day watching TV on Sunday.
I felt a bit lazy on Tuesday, so I did restorative poses which meant lying more on my back. The poses included reclining bound angle pose, reclining big toe pose and a variation of legs up the wall pose with the legs apart into a wide "V" to stretch my inner thighs and groins.
If you would like to start your own self-practice, this article has some very good tips.
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