Although I am going to yoga classes four to
five times per week, I intend to do a 30-min morning self-practice to
complement my practice. I started my
morning practice this week and managed to get up and do the practice on Monday,
Tuesday and today. I skipped Wednesday
as I had a late night and could not get myself out of bed when my alarm went
off at 5.10 am. I am finding that an
early night makes it easier for me to keep my intention in the morning.
My morning practice starts off with sitting
in meditation for a few minutes to quiet my mind before going into some stretching
poses to wake up my body. I find that
my body is quite stiff in the morning, especially my hamstrings.
I decide what are the poses to practice as
I move along, giving my body what it needs for the day. Some of the poses I do include hip and shoulder
openers and some core work. I am doing
the poses from Kino’s video below as I find it is great way to warm up the core while keeping me centered as I co-ordinate the movements with my breath.
I also try to do some of the poses that I
know I need to work on such as my bunny hop to handstand and doing a headstand
which should be practiced everyday as recommended in this post.
I end my morning practice with a 5-min savasana
so that my body can soak up all the benefits from my practice.
I find
that the morning self-practice is a wonderful soothing and energizing way to
start off my day and helps to clear off the sleepiness from my system. I am calm and less stressful in facing the
morning traffic when I drive to work.
I hope that I would be able to keep up
with my morning practice as I know it will bring a significant difference to my
practice; honing my svadhyaya (self-awareness) as well as cultivating tapas (self-discipline) which are two of the five niyamas in the eight limbs of yoga.
"For me, yoga is not just a workout, it's about working on yourself." - Mary Glover
