Short Yoga Practice Sequences: What to Focus On

Almost all people seem to agree, whether they practice the postures of Yoga or not, that such a practice is something that is quite good to do on a regular or daily basis.

Many of us have attended or taught Yoga classes where postures are performed for an hour or so and we are advised or advise our students to try to practice for at least thirty minutes or more on our own on a daily basis.

However, many of those people who are new to Yoga find that the most difficult aspect of it is to develop the discipline to practice on their own on a regular basis.

Too many times we put too much pressure on ourselves to practice so that if we do not practice, we might actually feel things like shame or guilt.

Yoga does not wish these things for us and we can deal with this problem by understanding that we can focus on just doing a short practice session, perhaps one that is no longer then 5 to 15 minutes which will assist us in cultivating the strength, balance and focus that we know that we get from practicing Yoga.

Some will ask if such a short session is really worthwhile and beneficial and the answer to this is yes, it is.

5 to 15 minutes of stretching and breathing can be tremendously beneficial to do.

But what should one focus on in such a short period of time?

It is probably best to focus on doing standing postures, as they allow us to experience doing a number of bends and twists that are therapeutic and require a minimum of both space and time.

In a 5 to 15 minute standing practice session we can do a standing forward bend three times, a standing spinal twist three times and the triangle posture three times to both the left and the right.

We can also do the tree posture and other one - legged postures.

With the legs open and feet parallel to each other, we can perform a forward bend, a sideways bend and the angle posture, a posture that combines both a spinal twist and forward bend.

A short 5 to 15 minute standing posture practice is something that can be done before lunch at work or during an afternoon break or easily be done before dinner at night.

We do not have to think of our practice of the postures of Yoga as being something that is one hour long or done with a mat or wearing special clothing.

We benefit tremendously when we understand that we can use the body to perform postures in almost any environment and time of the day.

2005 John C. Kimbrough (February 28th, 2005)