Yoga is one of those elusive tools that only works when you use it, and incorporate its practice
into your daily life. Unlike food, drink or sex, whose drive to consume is deeply embedded in
our genes for survival, yoga is more like "work"; it requires a certain amount of discipline and
momentum to do. As such, there is always the risk of losing balance - turning habit and
initiative into compulsion. If you are doing your practice because you have to do it, or because
you can't miss a day, you'll find yourself in the all too familiar situation where you have simply
traded one addiction, compulsion, or fear with another. And so there is no freedom, no
liberation, and no growth. You find that you are back in prison, albeit perhaps in a more
palatable and socially acceptable cell.
So take a day or 2 off, practice with music, take your mat outdoors, invite a friend over Sunday
morning for practice and brunch, try a new posture, create your sequence, whatever... Keep it
fun and fresh. Listen to your heart. Be kind to your body. Explore. Make the practice your
own. The Ashtanga police will not (in all likelihood) break into your home at night and arrest
you for practicing on a Saturday, skipping a day, or playing with an advanced sequence.
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