How to Practice Yoga at Home
Updated: Dec 2, 2022
One of the beauties about practicing yoga is that you can do it anywhere. You just need a yoga mat and a space large enough to lie down your mat – that’s it!
What can feel more challenging is knowing what to practice. Even if you have been practicing yoga for some time, it can be hard to know how to build up your own home practice.
Make a commitment to yourself to practice regularly
It’s common to have good intentions to start yoga at home, but to have difficulty putting this into practice.
You might struggle to find the time and motivation to practice regularly, or find that the weeks pass by quickly, without you finding a moment to practice at home.
Like learning anything new, it’s better to practice a little bit of yoga each day, rather than practicing for longer periods irregularly.
It takes 21 days to form a new habit, so why not give yourself the challenge to practice often over this period until it starts to become a new routine.
To begin with it can be helpful to choose an ideal time of day and length of practice that feels practical to maintain.
For example, you might choose to aim to practice three days a week for 30 minutes in the morning.
Remembering that even though you might be aiming for 30 minutes, any time you can make for practice is good, even if some days this is just 5 minutes.
Try keeping this regular rhythm of home practice over a period of time until it becomes part of your routine.
If this new routine feels enjoyable and manageable, you could gradually increase the number of days and length of your yoga practice.
Start slow using set sequences of yoga poses to have a well-rounded yoga practice
To begin with you might struggle in your home yoga practice to know what yoga poses to practice and in what order.
Practicing with set sequences of yoga poses can be useful when you start practicing at home.
This allows you to focus on your body and breath in the yoga poses themselves, instead of getting distracted by worrying about what to practice.
This will ensure that you have a well-rounded practice, that builds up gradually to poses that require preparation, and eases off at the end for relaxation.
At the end of this blog you can find a 30-minute beginner and 45-minute intermediate sequence made up of some of the most common yoga poses.
Some styles of yoga like Ashtanga use set sequences of poses, which also are well suited to home practice. You can always start with the sequence of poses in front of you while you practice, and then over time try to learn the sequence off by heart.
This might sound easier said than done, but learning a sequence of poses from memory is harder than you might think.
The best advice is to start slow. Begin with a shorter sequence, modifying the poses and taking breaks as you need.
Once you have been practicing consistently for a while you will find it easier to practice in a continuous flow without referencing practice sheets.
Body awareness and knowledge of alignment will help guide you in finding the right way for your body to move into different poses
Body awareness is one of the key skills that you gain from practicing yoga. However, it can be hard to know if you are doing the poses correctly.
Alignment in yoga is all about finding the correct position for your body in each yoga pose. The more you practice the same poses, the more you start to tune into your body and feel how to adjust and modify the pose in a way that works for your body.
To avoid injury and get the most benefits from yoga you need to learn the specific alignment principles modifications that are necessary for your body when in each yoga pose.
Yoga pose tutorial videos—like the ones we have developed on our Antara Yoga YouTube channel—are useful to gain understanding in the correct way to approach the most common yoga poses.
You can use these short videos the same way that you would use the verbal cues that yoga teachers give in class. This will give you guidance on the overall alignment of a pose, and new insights on to how to approach the fundamentals of a pose.
Based on this guidance you can start to build your own inner compass of finding alignment within each yoga pose.
Beginner sequence
This 30-minute sequence can be used by beginner level students. In case there are poses that you are not sure how to approach you can refer to the individual yoga pose tutorial videos.
Thunderbolt pose (Vajrasana)
Child pose (Balasana)
Sun salutation steps (Surya Namaskara)
Mountain pose (Tadasana)
Chair pose (Utkatasana)
Standing forward bend (Uttanasana)
Plank pose (Phalakasana)
Cobra (Bhujangasana)
Downward dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
Warrior 1 pose (Virabhadrasana 1)
Warrior 2 pose (Virabhadrasana 2)
Triangle pose (Trikonasana)
Tree pose (Vrikshasana)
Wide legged forward bend (Prasarita Padottanasana)
Butterfly (Baddha Konasana)
Seated forward bend (Paschimottanasana)
Knees-to-chest pose (Pawanmuktasana / Apanasana)
Corpse pose (Savasana)
Intermediate sequence
This 45-minute sequence can be used by intermediate level students. In case there are poses that you are not sure how to approach you can refer to the individual yoga pose tutorial videos.
Thunderbolt pose (Vajrasana)
Sun salutation steps (Surya Namaskara)
Chair pose (Utkatasana)
Eagle pose (Garudasana)
Standing forward bend (Uttanasana)
Warrior 3 pose (Virabhadrasana 3)
Low plank pose (Chaturanga)
Locust pose (Salabhasana)
Downward dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
Warrior 2 pose (Virabhadrasana 2)
Triangle pose (Trikonasana)
Half-moon pose (Ardha Chandrasana)
Low plank pose (Chaturanga)
Locust pose (Salabhasana)
Downward dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
Side plank pose (Vashisthasana)
Child pose (Balasana)
Pigeon pose (Ardha Kapotasana)
Cow face pose (Gomukhasana)
Upward plank pose (Purvottanasana)
Seated forward bend (Paschimottanasana)
Camel (Ustrasana)
Wheel pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana)
Knees-to-chest pose (Pawanmuktasana / Apanasana)
Shoulder stand (Salamba Sarvangasana)
Fish pose (Matsyasana)
Corpse pose (Savasana)
Want to receive guidance to help improve your home yoga practice?
If you’re in Amsterdam you can find Irene teaching workshops, group classes, or book in a private class or series to be taught one-on-one.
If you’re outside of Amsterdam Irene also offers online private classes that can be taught one-on-one of in a group. Contact us for more information.
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