5 Ways to Do Your Yoga Practice by Building Willpower

Many people understand that a daily yoga practice leads to a more enriching life. When we practice, we feel better. We are more in tuned with our senses, with our friends and family, and with the world at large.

The problem many of us have is actually having the willpower to wake up each morning and literally “Do our yoga practice.”

When we’re lying in bed in the morning, our minds have a funny, nagging way of convincing us that it is better to stay in bed and that “doing our practice” is not necessary. Our minds will come up with any sort of excuse. “You’re too tired, you need to clean your room, it’s too cold outside, it’s too hot outside, need to let the dog out, etc.”

Your mission is to transcend these excuses and hit the mat every day. Each time you succumb to excuses, you are losing a bit of willpower. Each time you do your practice, even if it is a short practice, you are making a deposits in the willpower bank.

1. Carpool with a friend

When a friend is coming to pick you up for yoga practice or when a friend is relying on you to pick them up for yoga practice, you are less likely to make up excuses and miss practice. When you’re only letting yourself down or lying to yourself, it is easier to succumb to excuses. If your friend has gone out of their way to pick you up for practice, are you going to lie in bed and make up excuses? Find a friend, rely on each other, and don’t let each other or yourselves down!

2. Set your yoga mat and yoga clothes near your door

A common excuse while lying in bed is, “Oh, I’m not going to get up because I need to get up and find clothes and gather my yoga mat. That’s too much effort, I’ll just continue sleeping.” Eliminate this obstacle by placing your yoga mat and a bag with yoga clothes next to your bed or door. This creates one less excuse for your mind to concoct.

If your asana practice is a home practice, lie your mat on the ground before you go to sleep the previous night. That way, you can literally roll out of bed and do your practice.

To take this a step further, if you practice with incense or music, have the incense in a ready position so that all you need to do is light it. Have your music cued the night before so all you need to do is press “Play.”

Seems like a small/obvious tip, but it really works!

3. Set small, attainable goals

It’s difficult to go from doing zero practice to full asana practice every day. A common mistake we make is trying to achieve too much in too short of a time frame. When we set lofty goals that are difficult to attain, we end up missing them and thus losing the all important willpower that we set out to achieve.

If you’re starting at zero practice, set a goal to practice 3 times a week for five minutes. Once you’ve achieved this successfully, slowly build up. Keep making deposits in the willpower bank 🙂

Rory wrote a great post here on lighting tapas.

4. Utilize an Accountability Partner

Ask a friend to text, call, or email you every day around 10am asking one simple question: “Did you practice today?” If you’re making up excuses having an accountability partner will make this more apparent. It’s important not to get frustrated by these messages, understand that your friend is helping you out of love, looking out for your best interests by forcing you to be honest with yourself.

5. For home practice, find a routine that works for you

While a YouTube yoga video is certainly not necessary, it is helpful for beginners or those who are having difficulty building willpower.

I have several “go to” routines. One is Pattabhi Jois’ Led Primary Series. The other is for when I have less time. When I have only 5~20 minutes, I put this short led yoga with Kirtan music on and do Sun As followed by Sun Bs, and keep flowing wherever my practice takes me. Always leave at least five minutes for Savasana.

Here are a few other yoga YouTube videos that I’ve enjoyed:

David Swenson’s short form Ashtanga 15 minutes

David Swenson’s short form Ashtanga 45 minutes

Pranidihi Varshney short form Ashtanga

The 5 Tibetan Rites by Raageshwari

It is important to be realistic and admit that sometimes you will not have time to do a full practice.

Remember that hitting the mat for even one minute each day is far better than not hitting it at all.

Bonus Idea:

Just get up and practice 🙂
There’s no substitution for looking yourself in the mirror and making a commitment. Tell yourself, even affirm out loud, “I am going to practice asana today. No excuses.” A few days of this and boom…. you’ve created a long lasting habit that sticks.

Remember, as the late Krishna Patabhi Jois rightly said, “Do you practice and all is coming.”

Yoga and Meditation Music for a Spiritual Practice

Yoga and Meditation music can greatly enhance your practice.

In my personal practice, I aim to increase my awareness and to decrease the internal chatter within my mind. Yoga and meditation music helps me. Once I can quiet my “monkey mind,” I feel more connected to God and the Universe. This connection is one of the primary reasons I practice.

“Incessant thoughts of the past or future is a virtual reality. Aliveness is right here and now.”

I like to practice yoga with and without music. The sound of the breath or the sound of silence can be very powerful. When I do listen to music while practicing, I prefer spiritual music. This Lady Gaga song has been played in a couple of the classes I participated in. This song does not help me bring awareness internally or to the moment. I’m not criticizing people for listening to this type of yoga and meditation music during asana practice, it’s just not my preference 🙂

I prefer beautiful music with mantras and minimal English words. I prefer music that is calming yet strengthening. This helps me move inwards. Rather than trying to interpret lyrics, spiritual music without English words helps me stay lucid in the moment.

I’ve found these songs throughout the last six years from various sources. One of the best parts about traveling internationally is that you’re exposed to different culture, music, and teachers. I feel so grateful to have found such powerful yoga and meditation music. You’ll notice by the lack of YouTube views on some of these songs, these songs are relatively unknown. That’s why I’m so excited to share the following yoga and meditation music with you!

Some my favorite yoga and meditation music:

Baba Hanuman by Shantala

Om by Peruquois

I Will Surround You by Stars of the Lid

Now We Are Free by Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard

Baba Hanuman by Krishna Das

Muladhara by Shiva Rea & Alex Theory

Gobinda Hare by Snatam Kaur

New Moon by Chinmaya Dunster

I hope this yoga and meditation music helps enhance your practice. Let us know what you think and feel free to share your own yoga and meditation music in the comments section below!

Words cannot express how much this man has given to others. Thank you, Mr. Iyengar! Please comment with a notable BKS Iyengar lesson/memory in the comments section as a tribute to BKS.

14 December, 1918 ~ 20 August, 2014.

This is a 22 minute practice for anyone with an injury, a limited amount of time, or a preference to start their day with deep breathing & presence but not intensive asana postures.

Take time for yourself.

Be kind to your body.

Enjoy and let us know what you think 🙂

Danielle practicing Urdhva Dhanurasana ( Wheel Pose ) at sunset in Thailand.

Overcoming Asana has a very detailed piece on jumping back in Ashtanga Yoga. I encourage all yoga practioners to read it when they have the opportunity.

“Iyengar talking about his guru Krishnamacharya in an interview from the movie Enlighten up.
Iyengar is focusing on the ‘jumping’ aspect of Krishnamacharya’s teaching and explaining it as a result of Krishnamacharya teaching the warrior class boys of the Mysore palace. Practice as exercise, as fitness, somewhat akin to a ‘martial art’.

Yoga and Athletics Interview : Sage Rountree

We have a special guest interviewee for this week’s interview which is focused mainly on yoga and athletics. This is the final week of our 8 week yoga interview questions and answers series. For each of the past 8 weeks, we’ve presented interviews of 8 influential yoga bloggers. We’ve asked 8 engaging questions and released an interview every Saturday at 8am US EST.

For this week’s interview, we’re both fortunate and delighted to present Sage Rountree from sagerountree.com. Yoga’s explosion in the West within the last fifteen years can be much attributed to Sage and leaders like her. It was Sage who has succeeded in breaking down barriers and stereotypes about yoga. Not too long ago yoga was perceived as taboo in the West — especially for men. Fast forward fifteen years to last week when Sage was teaching yoga to the University of North Carolina Men’s Basketball team. Times have certainly changed and the connection between yoga and peak athletic performance is now a widely accepted scientific fact.

We’re very fortunate to have the opportunity to feature Sage on Lucid Practice. In an indirect way, I suspect it was Sage’s books, articles, and views that somehow led Brian and I into a yoga studio for the first time in 2008. We are all connected indeed.

Enjoy the interview and leave a comment or question for Sage in the comments section. And in case you’re wondering, Sage Rountree is indeed her real name!

1)      When and why did you start practicing yoga?

I was turned off by the first few classes I attended—they were both intimidating and humbling, and it was only in my first pregnancy, when I enjoyed the sweetness of prenatal classes and the community of the other students, that I started to enjoy the practice. As I was training for a marathon when my elder daughter was a baby, I found a class to attend regularly, and I realized in the race that the benefits of my practice went far beyond the physical. Thanks to what I learned in yoga, I was able to stay focused, breathe fully, and finish with a smile in a time faster than I’d dreamed.

Sage Rountree

2)      As former college football players, we’re advocates of yoga’s physical and mental benefits for athletes. Can you touch on on a few of these benefits?

Yoga builds strength, flexibility, and focus—both physically and mentally. It also fosters balance, not just of the body in space but in the spaces within the body: the front and the back, the left and the right, the top and the bottom. Better yet, yoga encourages athletes, especially team-sports athletes who have a rigorously scheduled practice calendar, to find balance between work and rest. It gives athletes time and space to settle in to simply being, and thus jumpstarts recovery. (I wrote a whole book on this balance between work and rest, The Athlete’s Guide to Recovery. I call it my guide to how not to work out.)

Sage Rountree yoga books

3)      You’ve worked with collegiate athletes, Olympians, NBA and NFL players. Can you highlight an individual experience where you felt you made a real connection and had a profound impact?

Just last week, I was called in to teach the UNC men’s basketball team. At the time, they were in the midst of a ten- (now twelve-) game winning streak, and many of these games had been played in a very short period of time. My visit was intended as a special treat for the weary players, and their delight at walking in to what they thought would be another hour of practice and drills was completely gratifying. Nothing is more critical to performance than being able to center and relax, and without a quieter yoga practice and time to absorb all the work of training, it’s hard to continue to play at your best. After a hard stretch of pushing themselves to the edge of their abilities, these guys did a great job of relaxing—of playing the other, softer edge (the edge of consciousness).

Sage Teaching Yoga

4)      What are two or three asanas that you think greatly impact athletes? (i.e. what asanas are good for explosion & being a dynamic athlete?)

Some of the more glamorous transitions—jumping back, jumping forward, and jump switches—can help build strength plyometrically, but most serious athletes are best served doing this in more sport-specific ways. The perhaps boring but true answer is that Tadasana (Mountain Pose) is the base for everything else. Learning that well, finding good balance front to back, left to right, and top to bottom, is critical. To increase the challenge, change Tadasana’s relationship to gravity: make it Plank, make it Handstand, bend it at the hips and make it Downward-Facing Dog. Better yet, turn that dog upside down and make it Legs Up the Wall, for recovery!

For any athlete who runs, which is most of us, having a good balance between strength and flexibility in a split-leg stance is important, thus Anjaneyasana (Crescent Lunge) is useful. Any pose that challenges us to pay attention and challenge our perceived limits—repeating a pose one more time, holding a stretch, or letting go even more—is going to make us better athletes.

5)      On the surface it might seem that yoga (noncompetitive) and high level athletics (ultra competitive) are worlds apart. You are both an athlete/coach of competitive sports but you’re also a yoga teacher. How do you approach this apparent dichotomy?

Competition comes from the Latin for “striving together.” Sports challenge us to do our best, regardless of the outcome. This is what yoga teaches, too: practicing effort with nonattachment to results. Here’s one of my more popular posts for my Yoga Journal blog, Active Yogi, on competition.

6)      We’re attuned to the fact that yoga is an effective proactive tool in preventing injuries. In your experience, how beneficial is yoga in helping athletes heal and recover from injury?

As a teacher, I try to be clear that while yoga is good for rehabilitation (find a teacher with a physical therapy background!), it’s far better for injury prevention. Sports injuries come from imbalance. Acute injury stems from a loss of balance in space; overuse injury comes from an imbalance in the body; and burnout—mental injury—comes from an imbalance between work and rest. Yoga practice helps us find and maintain balance on all fronts.

Sage Rountree Books on Athletic Recovery and Mindful Racing

7)      What yoga or wellness books have had the biggest impact on you?

On yoga, Erich Schiffmann’s Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness; T. K. V. Desikachar’s Heart of Yoga; and Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews’s Yoga Anatomy. Most folks buy that latter book for the insightful art, but the opening section on cells, the breath, and the spine is priceless.

Jean Couch’s The Runner’s Yoga Book is a classic in the yoga-for-athletes field; without it and Jean’s work, I wouldn’t have written my books, including The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga and The Runner’s Guide to Yoga.

Sage practicing right before the bend

On wellness, I love the work of my friend Matt Fitzgerald, especially his Brain Training for Runners. Matt synthesizes recent research on the brain to explain how we limit ourselves and how we can move beyond false limits. It’s fascinating.

Bonus Question)      What style of yoga do you practice & why?

I combine a range of disciplines, depending where I am in my training cycle. In the off-season and base, there’s more power yoga; as I approach a race, more yin yoga. Throughout, I make a point of complementing my yoga practice with Pilates (though you wouldn’t know it from my gracelessness in many Pilates exercises). The attention to core and glutes has removed a lot of niggling foot pain.

And trail running is the best yoga practice I know. It makes me pay attention—to my footsteps, to my companions, to nature. I go to the forest every day.

8)      Many of our readers are just beginning to practice/study yoga. What advice do you have for beginners?

If your first class, or first few classes, aren’t great for you, keep looking. Just like there are different models of running shoes that suit different runner’s needs, there are different teachers and styles. Keep trying until you find one that fits well—it’s out there, and it will make all the difference.

About Sage:

Sage Rountree is Yoga Journal’s Active Yogi blogger and author of several books including The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga and Racing Wisely. With over a decade’s experience teaching yoga, Sage is an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher at the highest level (E-RYT 500) with the Yoga Alliance and sits on the faculty at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. Her nationwide workshops include weekends on yoga for athletes; trainings for yoga teachers on working with athletes; and running and yoga retreats. Her students include casual athletes, Olympians, NBA and NFL players, and many University of North Carolina athletes and coaches. Sage competes in running races from the 400m to the ultramarathon and triathlons from the super sprint to the Ironman. She holds coaching certifications from USA Triathlon and the Road Runners Club of America, and she writes for publications including Runner’s World, Yoga Journal, and USA Triathlon Life. She lives with her husband and daughters in Chapel Hill, NC, and co-owns the Carrboro Yoga Company and the Durham Yoga Company. Follow Sage on Twitter and Facebook.

8 weeks, 8 yoga bloggers, 8 questions, posted each Saturday at 8am.

Stay tuned for our next interview series which will likely be with influential travel bloggers. Check out our previous seven interviews with influential yoga bloggers:

• Meredith LeBlanc of The Pondering Yogini
• Tonya of The Yoga Deck and Ultima Healing
• Jen and Liz of The Travel Yogi
• Brandon and Anne of The Yoga Nomads
• Roseanne of It’s All Yoga, Baby
• Maria of Daily Downward Dog
• Adriana of Wouldn’t Stop Picking at It

Yoga Interview Questions and Answers : Blogger Adriana Palanca

Today is the 7th week our 8 week yoga interview questions and answers series where we’re presenting interviews of 8 influential yoga bloggers. We ask 8 engaging questions and release an interview every Saturday at 8am US EST.

For this interview, we’re happy to learn more about Adriana from adrianapalanca.com. We originally connected with Adriana after finding her blog and reading about her development as a yoga student. Adriana is a fantastic writer, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading her insights on yoga, travel and life. We’re very fortunate to have the opportunity to feature Adriana on Lucid Practice. Enjoy the interview and leave a comment or question for Adriana in the comments section.

Now on to our yoga interview questions and answers :

1)     Can you start by giving us a little bit of background about yourself and your blog. How did you start practicing? You’re a writer and a yoga teacher. Was blogging about yoga a natural progression?

I knew I wanted to be a writer from a very young age. I was penning stories as soon as I could write. But I didn’t discover yoga until I was 28, when I quite suddenly developed allergies and asthma. I don’t know what (or who) compelled me to take a yoga class, but I desperately wanted to stop being afraid of my body and hoped that yoga could help.

Over the years, my time on the mat helped me to move past my suffering and discover a relationship with myself that I never imagined possible. And it’s been the much experience with my writing. Writing is a perfect foil to the catharsis of the yoga practice, allowing you to document and further explore the revelations discovered on the mat. The more I practice, the more clearly I write. The more clearly I write, the more I seek practice.

2)     How can readers benefit from reading your blog?

For me, blogging is an extension of my yoga practice and of what I teach. Even if I’m not writing about yoga, I’m still practicing what I’ve learned on the mat. That is, I’m expressing my truth in a compassionate way, with clarity, offering a different way of looking at the world, but never losing touch with my sense of humour or love of the ridiculous. I believe that this gives my writing an honesty that readers can truly relate to.

3)     Many of our readers are avid or aspiring travelers. There’s a section on your blog about travel. Tell us what travel means to you and why it is important in terms of spiritual and personal growth.

When you travel, you have no choice but to be in the present moment. Every day is packed with exciting possibility, every new outing brings new marvels or a new encounter. You’re so stimulated by all that’s new, it’s impossible not to be in the present moment.

On a more personal note, in my mind, travel is renewal, allowing me to refresh my body and refuel my creativity. It’s also an opportunity to discover something new about myself. One of my favourite things to do during a trip is to sit at a sidewalk café and sip an espresso while people flow by. This reminds me of how vast and beautiful the world is and it helps me to transcend the usual parade of thoughts that follow me around. And of course, travel also helps me to see my own city with fresh eyes when I return.

4)     You write a lot about presence and breathing during yoga practice. How important are these components?

Breathing is the whole purpose of the yoga practice. Without the breath there is no practice. When you breathe deeply and you can stay with that breath, that’s how you create presence. This is what we learn on the mat and hopefully, take that lesson with us into the world.

5)     Tell us a little bit about one of your top three yoga blog posts.

My favourite blog post about yoga is My Yoga Practice is Nothing Special. It may be a little too esoteric for some, but it expressed a breakthrough moment for me. When I realized that the yoga practice is not magical. It’s what you are able to accomplish through the practice that’s magical. It marked the moment when I stopped treating my yoga practice like it was a precious thing outside myself and realized that it was a part of me. Only took 12 years!

Otherwise, my favourite blog posts don’t directly address yoga, but talk about revelations I came to thanks to the practice.

Adriana’s mascot 🙂

6)     What yoga or wellness book or books have had the biggest impact on you?

Mostly recently, the books of Judith Hanson Lasater, because I’ve fallen in love with the restorative practice. But if I had to name one book that shifted my perspective in a permanent and impactful way, I’d say “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chodron.

7)     Do you practice a specific style of yoga? If so, why? 

I practice whatever my body is asking for. When I need to stretch and move, it’s vinyasa. When I need to take care of myself, it’s restorative or yin. If I need to stay home, I stay home!

8)     On what form of social media do you connect w/ other yoga practitioners most effectively?

Facebook is the most obvious answer, but I’m discovering that the exchange of ideas is far greater on Twitter.

Bonus Question)     What advice do you have for people who are just beginning to study & practice yoga?

Breathe. If you learn nothing else in the first few classes, you’re fine as long as you continue to breathe.

About Adriana:
Adriana Palanca is a writer and yoga teacher living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. To read more, visit adrianapalanca.com.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/WouldntStopPickingAtIt

Twitter: @apalanca

Instagram: www.instagram.com/apalanca

8 weeks, 8 yoga bloggers, 8 questions, posted each Saturday at 8am.

Join us next Saturday AM for our next interview and check out or previous six interviews:

• Meredith LeBlanc of The Pondering Yogini
• Tonya of The Yoga Deck and Ultima Healing
• Jen and Liz of The Travel Yogi
• Brandon and Anne of The Yoga Nomads
• Roseanne of It’s All Yoga, Baby
• Maria of Daily Downward Dog