Sequencing: An Essential Skill for Home Practice

by Baxter

Pathway at Dripping Springs by Brad Gibson

We recently received an inquiry about how to sequence a home practice. Although this is a large topic in many respects, it is an essential skill you can develop that will go a long way to make your home practice more enjoyable and rewarding. 

Sequencing refers to the way you construct or put a practice together. In some ways, it is like a mini journey we take each time we come to our mats to practice yoga asana. Like any journey, you want to consider where you are heading on that given day, what you’d like to accomplish and how much time you have to devote to the practice. Time of day can play into designing a sequence, as we tend to be a bit stiffer in the morning, requiring a bit more warm up if we want to do some more challenging poses in our practice; whereas a practice later in the day might be able to forgo too much warm up, as we tend to be more open from simply being up for many hours. 

I find it helpful to start by simply sitting for a few minutes. I get centered, become aware of how my body is feeling, how my mind and emotions are operating, how my breath is flowing. With that information, a plan for the day’s practice will often begin to emerge.
 On a very simplistic level, I usually design a practice to follow this plan: a period of warming up movements that may or may not be official yoga poses, often done reclining, sitting, or on hands and knees. Then I work my way toward standing poses, often with some vinyasa, such as a round or two of Sun or Moon Salutations. I will often have a goal pose or two that I have decided I would like to include in my practice, and I usually work on those poses at the midpoint or two thirds of the way through my session. Then, a period of cool down, perhaps with one or two restorative poses, follows. I will often do some breath work just before taking a rest in Savasana for at least 5, and hopefully 10 minutes. 

An additional factor to consider is adding counter-poses if you have a particular focus on a group of poses that are similar. For instance, this week I have been doing some backbends in my practice, so I have been adding some gentle forward bends, like Child’s pose, to counteract any untoward effects of the backbends.

Each style or system of yoga has general guidelines on how they view proper sequencing, so in a future post, if you all are interested, we can look at some of the systems and how they specifically approach this skill. Until then, give a try, be willing to experiment, and listen to how your body and mind feel at the end of your practice.

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect