Posts In: headspace

A conversation about practicing yoga at home with Missy DiDonato and Laura McCorry of Yoga One. 

Yoga One is offering daily live yoga classes online to support your health and wellbeing, no matter where you’re located. You can find our full schedule of class offerings here.

Laura: I realized lately that the longer I stay at home and attend yoga classes from home, as convenient as that is, there’s something about the experience of physically moving my body from one location to another that I’m missing. I feel like the journey of getting to yoga is part of the experience.

Missy: Totally. That’s why the Yoga One studio is such a special place to me, the physical space it occupies holds the experience of yoga apart from the rest of my life. So the journey of going to yoga, when you practice at home, can be reinterpreted or approximated to make the whole experience more meaningful.

Laura: I love that idea of yoga being set aside from everyday life, a sort of oasis from which we draw rejuvenation, which then carries over into the rest of our lives. When you’re practicing at home, it’s so easy to be distracted and so tempting to check your phone. How do you make sure that your time for practice is set aside and distraction-free?

Missy: I think the process of preparing my space before practice is really important – getting it clean and organized, laying out my mat, grabbing my props. If I’m having a hard day or I’m just feeling lots of emotions, I’ll get out my palo santo or sage and literally clear the air.

Laura: These might seem like small acts, but I bet they’re really important for creating space in your mind. These physical acts of preparing which helps you prepare mentally as well. Just like the physical practice of yoga has an impact on your mental/emotional state.

Missy: Yes! And it comes back to ritual, whatever that looks like for you. Moving furniture, clearing the space, putting on music, using sage, taking a walk around the block, turning off your phone. Ritual helps you drop in to the right headspace and lends weight to your habits.

Laura: Ritual is what signals to your body that what comes next is important. I especially love the suggestion to walk around the block, almost re-creating the experience of going somewhere before dropping in to your practice.

Missy: Yes. I think the practices of ritual, of preparation, and of yoga itself are going to be so important for all of us as we evaluate what happens next as a society. What are your safe rituals going to be as the world opens up? How do you keep your yoga practice a priority, whether that practice is at home or in the studio?

Laura: I know everyone is going to feel differently on the subject of opening up after isolation, and there’s certainly not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach. Throughout our isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic, yoga has been the most consistent way I check in with my body and emotions, experience grounding and calm, and practice letting go of expectations.

Increasingly, I’ve realized that I need to schedule my practice time in order to “make it” to class. Do you schedule your own yoga practice time?

Missy: Definitely. I have to look at my week and figure out where I have childcare, what other commitments I have, and then I put the classes I want to take on my calendar. Yoga One uses the MindBody software, which has a feature where you can sign-in for classes ahead of time and you’ll be sent a reminder email the day before. I know that feature is helpful for a lot of people! We’ve all got so much going on, any organization and reminders are appreciated, at least for me.