You might want to keep up a regular yoga class at your local studio, but you just don’t have the time. And with all the will in the world, you can’t put extra hours into the day. The next best thing seems to be to practise at home, in front of your laptop with the help of an online tutorial or perhaps a DVD. You can squeeze in your yoga between finishing the dishes and getting ready for bed, or first thing in the morning before you start your day. And while yoga anywhere is better than none, we’re still fans of yoga practised in a studio. Here are a few reasons to make the effort to get down and take a class once in a while.
Caring, sharing
One of the best parts of attending a studio-based yoga practise is getting to meet and interact with your community of yogis, each of them on a learning journey themselves. What better way to develop your yoga ability – and make new friends – than to spend time with others who are making similar endeavors to your own? Despite your best intentions, practising at home in front of your laptop is unlikely to give you the same sense of connection and support that you do at a studio. Just as the Buddhist sangha is a source of advice and guidance, so your yoga studio – and all those you know there – is a mechanism to keep you on track and motivated, even when you’re struggling.
Focus!
We all know how full of distractions the home is. Whether it’s your email, the kids waking up, or the clothes that need to be hung out to dry, there is always going to be something to pull you away from your practise. That’s bad enough in most situations, but yoga is meant to help you escape from the distractions of everyday life. It should be an opportunity for you to free yourself from your thoughts, and enjoy a moment of reflection. That is far more easily achievable if you take yourself out of your usual surroundings, and into the relative sanctity of a yoga studio. It will make it easier to reach and hold your poses, and to separate your non-stop day-to-day routine from something that ought to be pure and undisturbed.
Getting right
Yoga is rarely easy – and it’s not meant to be. Getting that pose right should be a challenge, something to aim for and something to be proud of when you do achieve it. But managing that alone, with only a laptop for company, can be more difficult or even downright impossible. Without a teacher on hand to point out where you’re going wrong, show you how to correct it and also make sure you are not putting yourself at risk of injury, you could end up at best demotivated, or worse still badly hurt. Your yoga teacher uses their experience to monitor each of their students’ progress during the class, and to adapt their instructions and the direction of the session accordingly. That means you get a learning experience that is customized to what you and your fellow yogis need most – and that’s more than an online tutorial can ever give you.
Want to get the right balance of personal practise at home and studio yoga sessions? Talk to us today about our classes.