I can tell when students in my classes have taken up doing home practice. I’m such an old hand at figuring this out that I can even guess at how many practices a week they do.
What is it that gives them away? Well, these students are continuously improving in their poses. How quickly they evolve is in direct relationship to how much personal practice they do.
Another thing is the high level of attention these yoga practitioners have when they attend classes. I can see their minds ticking over and mentally filing away individual poses to try on later or even the whole sequence of the class.
A great place to get the content for practising on your own is from your regular class(es). When I attended classes at the Iyengar Institute in Poona, we paid for and did six sessions a week over a month’s period. Then, as a bonus, you could pay a little more and do an extracurricular practice each day when the yoga room was populated with serious practitioners, as well as the Iyengar family and other teachers.
Mr. Iyengar would be watching like a hawk to see if what you’d been taught in the public classes translated to what you did in your own practice.
If your memory isn’t so great, rather than try to remember the whole class program, just take away a few poses that intrigue you, either because they are challenging or because they are novel.
The expression ‘practice makes perfect’ doesn’t necessarily fit with yoga philosophy. But a good outcome from the work you do on your own might be that your level of enjoyment and interest is such that ‘practice makes practice attractive’. Then, you’re truly hooked!
