Besides coming to class, practicing yoga postures on your own is the most effective use of yoga.  As you've experienced, yoga postures, breathing and movement provide a wide variety of healthy benefits!

However, most of us don't really want to practice yoga!  What we really want are the benefits we get from practicing yoga!  I.e. releasing and transforming stress, increasing your energy levels, creating internal space, releasing pain, improved posture and skin tone as well as healing injuries and disease.

The list goes on.  But generally you feel great, relaxed and invigorated, strong and alive . . . all at once!

Seven steps to creating a disciplined practice:

1) Write down all the benefits you want to achieve (or that you know you get from yoga) as well as what negative effects you want to avoid in your life (disease, aging, stiffness, muscle atrophy, etc.).

2) Make a commitment to yourself or better yet to a purpose bigger than yourself - i.e. your children, family or a better healthier, happier more peaceful world - and keep it!

3) Set aside an allotted time each day or every other day that you will practice.  A consistent fifteen to twenty minutes every day is more effective and lasting than ninety minutes once a week!

Is one time better than another?  Not really.  Depending on my schedule I've practiced at all times of the day or night.  The key is to overcome the atrophy and do it.

4) Clear out any distractions.  Turn the phone off, put the kids down for a nap, tell everyone around you do not want to be disturbed during this time.

5) Create your practice plan.  Write down which postures you want to do, in what sequence and for how many breaths.  (You may also use my class sheets and audio CD's for sequencing).

6) Be open and listening to your body, changing the sequence for what your body is asking for or what feels right in the moment!  Also adjust for your time allotted.

7) Create a practice journal or notebook.  Make notes of any adjustments to the sequencing as well as any thoughts, feelings, discoveries and realizations which come up. These are my greatest pleasures in practice.

When I first began practicing outside of class, I attempted to remember what postures we did in class and the specific points of how to do them.  I couldn't and what I attempted seemed to create more imbalance in my structure!  So I got a video and would turn it on and do fifteen to twenty minutes of postures before I would start my day, jump into my car and be off to a 12 hour day at the office.  Yoga has made me more peaceful and easier to be around (when I practice regularly).

Currently, when I need inspiration, focus or a boost in my practice I'll throw in an audio CD of one of my classes or one of Ana Forrest's CD's.

To guide you in designing and sequencing your daily practice read Part II of this series "17 Secrets Of Sequencing"