How to create a personal yoga practice on and off your yoga mat

I recently finished an eight week course in the History of Yoga with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, which inspired me to read Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (Amazon affiliate link). At the end of the course, which I absolutely loved and highly recommend, there was an optional essay which really got me thinking a lot about how yoga has evolved over the last few centuries in particular.

My essay focused on the relationship between premodern hatha yoga and modern yoga, but it also got me thinking about contemporary yoga today. While this isn’t the post to delve into this subject, I’m going to highlight the opening of my essay.

In the book Roots of Yoga (Amazin affiliate link), Mallinson argues that premodern yoga can be identified through breath control, whereas, yoga today is through bodily postures.” (Mallinson 2016).

It got me thinking about my own yoga practice over the years and also about contemporary yoga in general. I’m sure if you randomly surveyed people on the street about what yoga is, there would most likely be references to physical movement, the body, health, exercise, and possibly the breath too — with these things taking place in a yoga studio or at home on your yoga mat.

Although there’s nothing wrong with yoga practices that centre around asana and the body, I’ve often found that to learn more about yoga, you have to either do a yoga teacher training, stay at an ashram, or seek out yoga workshops and talks that go into other aspects of yoga. Based on my own experience teaching yoga one to one, often practitioners of yoga today are really keen to know more.

As you delve into yoga’s rich history, it’s easy to get lost in the details. With so many styles of yoga, ancient texts, and emerging ideas, it becomes almost impossible to practice yoga in its entirety. It’s a multifaceted subject that could mean or be so many different things from physical exercise, meditation, to applied philosophy.

What I’ve always loved, however, about yoga is that there’s almost always a practice that’s suitable for pretty much any purpose, mood, physical or mental condition. You could say that yoga very much aims to please. 

The purpose of this article, therefore, is to provide a basic template for you to create your own personal (and evolving) yoga practice on and off the yoga mat, by choosing one thing to practice from each of the following six things. 

Another way of looking at this might be to select just one or a few of the things below to work on. This is similar to how I practice yoga — preferring to explore a wide range of yoga styles and philosophies, rather than sticking to just the one. Sometimes I’ve practised one style over another for several years at a time such as Sivanananda and Ashtanga, but more often than not, I feel the urge to move on and explore something new. I can then continue to draw upon a previously practised style as and when I need or want to. 

Creating a yoga practice on your mat

1. Conscious physical movement and asana practice

This could be any form of conscious movement that feels right at the time. For example, I might practice Yin yoga in the evening to help me feel at peace in the moment or to help me unwind. I might practise a fast vinyasa flow session to help wake me up, or a more restorative session if I want to focus on opening up an area of my body, such as staying in supta baddha konasana for a long time. 

Sometimes I might want to incorporate some spontaneous dance style movements into what I’m doing. The commonality? Consistency. I basically try to move my body every day, because it helps me to feel light and comfortable in my own skin, and accepting of myself regardless of what mood I’m in. If I’m angry or upset, I try not to judge myself for feeling like this. 

Moving my body really helps. I also believe (but I’m definitely no expert) that we store emotion in our bodies. Sometimes when I  moved my body in certain ways during a yoga class, I’ve felt such strong emotions come up and be released.

I’m a huge advocate of asana practice for so many reasons but I’d also like to make the point that without a healthy body that can move easily, it becomes quite difficult to comfortably sit still and meditate. 

2. Breath and/or sound work

While I focus on my breath throughout my movement practice, I also have a seperate breathing or pranayama practice which has been more or less the same for the last few years. 

I practice bhastrika breath alongside the Wim Hof power breath, and now I have a baby, I’ve been singing yoga chants more frequently too, and even making sounds throughout my asana practice, which is really therapeutic. Sound work can play a part in pregnancy yoga practices, but there’s no reason why we all can’t benefit from a bit more sound or singing. 

3. Meditation

Although my meditation practice is a lot shorter these days, I will typically go into meditation after I’ve moved my body and focused on my breath. I find it so much easier to find stillness in the mind (not that this is the purpose of meditation!) after I’ve moved my body. For my current meditation, I repeat a mantra, or practise yoga nidra, but I have explored many other meditation styles over the years from Vipassana to open heart meditation.

Creating a yoga practice off your mat

4. Thoughts to ponder

One of my yoga teachers in India said you could take just a small snippet from the Bhagavad Gita, such as a sentence and reflect on it for several weeks — or for as long as you like. I absolutely loved this approach because yoga philosophy and wisdom is a huge topic. It’s so easy to get lost! 

But what I’ve found when I pick just a sentence or tiny fragment from a yoga text, there’s so much to gain, and I end up exploring the wisdom on a much deeper level than if I was to cram read a load of books (I still can’t get enough books though!). 

Focusing on just a sentence helps to bring focus to the wisdom and is easier to embody and assimilate, especially when yoga seems to offer wisdom for absolutely all areas of your life from how to think, to what to eat.

5. Applied practical yoga philosophy

Arguably, everything could be applied philosophy, but for the sake of this — I mean applied philosophy to be all the yoga practices that can be incorporated into the rest of your life. 

Again, you could take the same approach of picking a fragment of yoga philosophy at a time, then work at incorporating it into the rest of your life. How might Ahimsa (non violence) be used in your everyday life? It could be as simple as being kinder to yourself by giving yourself more love and having fewer destructive thoughts. 

In 2012, I had the pleasure of spending some time in a Sivananda ashram in Tamil Nadu where I was introduced to the niyama Saucha (cleanliness). I actually got told off for leaving my bed unmade and not folding some of my clothes up neatly because it went against the Niyama Saucha. Since then, I’ve always made a conscious effort to be more mindful of not just my own home, but any space I’m in — trying not to just scatter my things everywhere.

6. Karma yoga

I treat this one as what I can do for others, even if it’s as simple as making a cup of tea for someone. I also treat this one as a way of enjoying boring household chores such as cleaning or washing up, because when I was at the Sivananda ashram I actually enjoyed this stuff. Simple things like washing the floor or serving food were turned into a mindfulness practice. I’m not saying I now jump for joy at the thought of hoovering, but I at least try to enjoy it more by changing my mindset, thinking I’m showing my environment some love by caring for it!

This now concludes my six ways you might incorporate more aspects of yoga into your life on and off the mat. Feel free to add any other suggestions or ideas you might have for expanding a personal yoga practice.