At IYISL we have been running a teachers’ led self practice session for a while. We are now adding a Tuesday early morning led self practice session to our timetable for experienced students who are keen to develop their own practice.
What is led self practice?
Yoga self practice is practicing asana by yourself with self awareness and adjusting your pose without a teacher’s instructions. Self practice is an important part of developing your yoga practice. It will help you access poses you find challenging and also help you start to work at a deeper level which has great physical and mental benefits.
Most people find starting their own self practice is challenging. Apart from finding the time , space and focus and an element of self discipline for practice, it is difficult at first to know what poses to practice for best effect and in what order.
Led self practice is a way of helping with these issues. The teacher leads by setting the programme, showing the poses if needed and doing the poses with the students. Otherwise the practice is done quietly with no instructions or adjustments. It is a chance for you to find your own way into the asana.
Early morning is the best time for this sort of quiet and reflective practice and, even if you are not really a morning person , this gives a very calm start to your day.
Developing awareness
In Iyengar Yoga we develop our yoga practice by becoming aware of increasing detail in poses in a way that helps develop our focus, concentration and awareness. More advanced classes and more difficult poses can help with this but in the end it is this development of our own inner awareness that is so important.
“Awareness must be like the rays of the sun: extending everywhere, illuminating all.” SRI B.K.S. IYENGAR
You can book to try one of these new early Tuesday early morning sessions via our class timetable and experience a different yoga practice.