Many things have been said and written about how to find motivation to practice, how to develop and maintain dedication. And for many people this is the greatest obstacle to a daily practice: lack of motivation, discipline and commitment.
For others though - and I’m part of them - motivation is never an issue. They have abundant energy and willpower. They just don’t know when to stop.
You can easily overdo it with practice. I certainly did. When I first found Ashtanga Yoga I got hooked from day one. I wanted to do more and more. With hindsight, I should have been more patient and loving towards my body, less attached to the desired outcome and more appreciative of the journey, instead of the destination.
Here are 4 things I would do differently now if I were to start all over again.
1. Doing super long practices
I remember there was a time I was practicing almost 2 entire series every day (full Primary and Intermediate up to Karandavasana). Back then I had a lot of time in my hands and I also wanted to build stamina. So it was a conscious decision and I have to admit it worked wonders for a while, until I started feeling depleted. I got to the point that I was dreading next day’s practice because it took forever and I knew I would feel crushed afterwards.
Doing very long practices for a while if you have a specific goal is ok but it is not a sustainable approach in the long run. We only have so much energy and we need to learn to manage it wisely. Putting all or most of it to the practice means you have much less to dedicate to your other daily activities.
So if you’re doing super long practices most days of the week and you feel fatigued and overtrained you might want to reconsider and split your practice.
A few examples of how to make your practice shorter: once you reach Eka Pada Sirsasana in Intermediate, you can start doing Half Primary and Half Intermediate. And once you reach Pincha or Karandavasana you can drop the Primary most days of the week and only do Intermediate.
Keep in mind as a general rule that a practice that takes longer than 90 minutes might already be too much for most people. Now my longest practices are 1h45 mins but I try to stick to 90 mins. When I do that I notice I have much more energy for work and other activities.
2. Not taking days off
This is a no brainer for me now. When I first started though, I was so enthusiastic about the practice I would very rarely take a day off, let alone a moon day. Like with many other things in practice (and in life), I had to learn the hard way. If you never give your body time to recover guess what happens: injuries. I had many and I had them often, to the point that I was forced to start taking time off.
Even one rest day per week can change completely how the body feels and responds to the practice. My biggest fear was that if I didn’t practice for a day or two I would get stiff. Well, it’s not true. Flexibility doesn’t just go out of the window like that. On the contrary, taking one or occasionally two days off every week will not only help with muscle recovery, but will also consolidate any gain made in strength or flexibility.
Another thing to remember: taking a day off asana practice does not mean that you should go rock climbing instead. Days off and moon days are meant to be days for actual rest, not just from asana but from any strenuous physical activity.
3. Not managing injuries early enough
This is by far the biggest mistake of all and the one I always urge my students to avoid. If you’re injured, don’t wait too long before you adjust your practice to manage your injury. Don’t wait for the pain to solidify and increase to actually do something about it.
If you have pain that feels like an injury (especially overstretching), it probably is. And if you don’t change anything about the way you practice, chances are it won’t go away on its own. It will become worse and worse until you notice it. And then you will need even more time managing the injury and modifying your practice.
I had this rib pain once that I kept ignoring until it became so harsh I actually had to stop any and all backbending for several months. Needless to say I learned my lesson. I had rib and intercostal muscle pain again since then - it’s my sensitive area for some reason, the same way for other people it’s the knees or the lower back. But immediately after I felt it I started modifying and taking it easy with backbends, to actually give it the chance to heal and most importantly not get worse. With this approach, both subsequent injuries healed in just a week or two.
4. Believing progress is linear
Like many beginner students I was also fooled into thinking the initial phase of fast and steady progress would last forever. Until I reached the first plateau which lasted quite a few months and taught me more things than my breakthroughs ever did.
This practice is not just a physical activity. It’s not a sport nor a hobby. It’s a deep transformative process for body, mind and nervous system and you shouldn’t expect transformation to be linear.
How fast or slow you will progress depends on many factors. It certainly does not depend solely on your commitment and determination to pursue a daily practice. It also has to do with the experiences, habits, lifestyle, all the “samskaras” stored within you and reflected in the way you practice and live. And you do not have complete control over that process. There will be rapid progress, there will be plateaus and there will even be phases when you feel that you’re regressing. It’s all normal and it’s all fine.
Faith in the practice is the one thing that will keep you going. It’s also the one thing nobody can teach you. It needs to come from within and until it does, you will keep second guessing the practice, your teacher, yourself and your choices.
But eventually, if you stick around long enough, faith will come to you. And with it will come a deep love for your practice as it is, regardless of any visible progress. This is - in my opinion - what differentiates a beginner from an advanced practitioner - the capacity to embrace all facets of one’s practice and approach them with acceptance and equanimity. The capacity to let go of most expectations, not out of laziness, but out of wisdom.
