How to Become a Yoga Student

To be a student of yoga you have to become a practitioner of yoga, not just be a class goer.

One of the participants at my retreat talked about how her local yoga studio closed down during Covid and now she doesn’t have a regular place to practice and she does not practice at home. She has been attending my Women’s Yoga Retreat, Savasana by the Sea, for 15 years, but she feels like she is not making any progress. I told her that she has to make the transition from being a class goer to becoming a practitioner.

Here are three important steps on how to become a yoga practitioner:

1. Develop and maintain a home practice

   • Pick a different category of poses to practice every day. Make a schedule and stick to it. You don’t need to practice for more than 15 or 20 minutes every day. But you may find if you roll your mat out, you might practice for a little longer. Showing up is 90 %. For example, choose one pose from each category and work on perfecting it:

     Monday - Standing Poses

     • Utthita Parsva Konasana

     Tuesday Inversions

     • Sirsasana and Sarvangasana

     Wednesday _ Seated Poses and Forward Bends

     • Paschimottanasana

     Thursday - Back Bends

     • Urdhva Mukha Svanasana

     Friday - Twists

     • Bharadvajasana I

     Saturday - Hand Balancing

     • Adho Mukha Svanasana

     Sunday - Restorative

     • Supta Baddha Konasana

2. Pick a pose in each category and work towards perfecting it. Start with a foundational pose before you pick a more advanced pose. For example, maybe you want to perfect your Parivrtta Parsva Konasana, but your Parsva Konasana isn’t great. Start with Parsva Konasana and perfect that first . On Standing Pose day, do poses that help you do Parsva Konasana. Compare a photo of yourself with the pose that is in Light on Yoga.

3. Pay attention to your own alignment. Do not depend on a teacher to correct you.

   • Set up a mirror to watch your self. Or, set your phone up on a tripod and record a video of yourself practicing. Or, if you have a zoom account, record yourself practicing. Then watch it. This is the opportunity to see if you are doing what you think you’re doing. Please don’t get caught up in what you look like. Trust me, you look fine. This is the you that the rest of us see and love. Learn to look with compassion and curiosity. I always say that you don’t need to be a yoga teacher to be able to see if someone is in good alignment or not.

   • Draw alignment marks on your mat and take care to set yourself up symmetrically on your mat.

   • Remember that it is not practice that makes perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect.

4. Pick one teacher or at least one style of yoga and stick to that.

   • If you study with different teachers who practice different styles of yoga, you could get conflicting information which can be confusing and might lead to frustration. The alignment in Yin Yoga is very different than the more Yang styles of yoga. And most Vinyasa styles of yoga will tell you to “soften your knees”. But that is an incorrect instruction in Iyengar Yoga.

   • Study with someone who knows more than you and who is willing to observe you in your practice and who will adjust and correct you. A lot of yoga teachers use their teaching time to get their own practice in. Study with someone who is teaching, not playing “Simon Says.”

   • Some students don’t want to be corrected, they just want to do their own thing. The problem is that often keeps us stuck in our old patterns and habits and limits our capacity for growth. We are often blind to our own limitations.

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