Led Practice - a bridge to your home yoga practice
As teachers, we are always harping on about the benefits of a home practice. There are many reasons for this which I won’t go into here. The teachers of The Yoga Room (with the help of some level 2 students) hold a Led Practice session every Saturday morning from 7.00am til 8.30am. It runs pretty much all year round, except for Christmas holidays.
Attending Led Practice is a great way to start to become independent of your teacher and work towards practicing at home on your own.
What is led practice?
A teacher or student will call a sequence of Asanas (or poses) and proceed to do them. Everyone follows along, adjusting their own timings, using equipment or maybe not even doing some of the poses. Everyone in the room is doing their own practice, using their own knowledge and working at their own pace. Nobody is going to call you out on anything, judge you on your yoga or even comment. There is usually a teacher present to help if anyone needs help but essentially we all stay on our own mats and do our own practice.
How do I start led practice?
Speak with your teacher about Led Practice if you are thinking of coming along. Your teacher will confirm all the details and answer any questions. To encourage students to come along, as from this week I am introducing a new pricing structure that can be used in conjunction with your term classes or independently.
It looks like this: Casual session – $15 5 sessions – $65 10 sessions paid with term fees – add $100 to your fees. If Led Practice runs in school holidays (which it usually does) then you can do make ups in the holidays, but only within the current term. You can take the 5 session option and use it over the whole term so there is some flexibility.
Thank you to Clair (who is one of our level 2 students) for her thoughts, set out below, on her experience of Led Practice over the past few years, set out below:
Why do led practice?
Having taken some time to get my head around the idea of an early Saturday yoga practice I have become a convert. Now, like all good converts, I’m driven by a need to convince others.
But isn’t it early on a Saturday?
Yes, but you have to get up at some point and sleep is what Saturday afternoons are for. No-one ever felt worse after yoga.
I’m not good enough though…
Good enough for whom? Does it matter? Would letting going of the comparisons and competitiveness make a difference to your practice?
...and I don’t know all those Hindi names!
Most of the poses you will have done before and it’s a great way to learn all the names.
...If a yoga class is like going to training, then led practice is like playing the game. It’s fun, it focuses, it challenges, it reinforces, it extends, it’s non-judgemental and it gives you the confidence to build on your yoga practice.
