Building a personal yoga practice is an important part of this long standing tradition.  To be able to practice anytime, anywhere is the key to building and maintaining a strong yoga practice.  Iyengar teaches us to “practice a little a lot, rather than practice a lot a little.”  In other words, better to have a brief practice that you revisit often than to do a long practice only once in a while.

Keep it simple and realistic; begin with three basic elements and grow from there.  

1. Pranayama: find a comfortable seated or lying down position, close your eyes and simply breathe.  Take time to notice the breath, to build the breath and to feel its effects.
2. “Strike a pose”: choose one posture that you absolutely love.  It feels good in your body and you look forward to it.  Come into your pose and breathe there for 5-10 breaths if possible.
3. Rest: Savasana (corpse pose) is the most important part of any yoga practice.  It is a chance to absorb physically, mentally and spiritually the effects of carving out a special moment in time to honor yourself and your place in the world.  Too often this pose or segment of the practice gets "short changed" for the more physically demanding postures, but without taking time to honor what is in the present moment, YOGA (to yoke the mind, body and spirit) has not really taken place.

In no time at all your intuition will kick in and you’ll find yourself holding poses longer or very naturally moving into a second, third, fourth …pose.  Before you know it, your yoga practice will no longer be "something you do” but will be part of “who you are!”

If it’s a single sided pose, be sure to do both sides!
(Click captions for Yoga Journal's detailed pose guides.)