I have a yoga studio.
An actual yoga studio, right here at Big Raven Farm. It's beautiful, peaceful and only a short walk from my house. You would think that having a yoga studio practically in my backyard would mean I practice there every single time I do yoga.
I don't.
There are days when I have 20 or 30 minutes between everything else I'm doing, and walking over to the studio somehow turns yoga into a bigger production. It's not that the walk is difficult. It's that I have to stop what I'm doing, head over there, get settled, practice, gather everything up and walk back. Suddenly the little window of time I had doesn't seem quite big enough.
I've caught myself doing the math in my head and deciding I'll practice later when I have more time. You can probably guess how reliably "later" works out.
So I've gotten much better about finding a spot at home, moving whatever actually needs to be moved, putting down my mat and starting.
There's just one problem with practicing yoga at home.
I have eyeballs.
Practicing Yoga at Home When Everything Needs Your Attention
I'll get on my mat and suddenly see everything.
I need to put that away. I should fix that. How long has that been sitting there? Are the windows really that dirty? I should probably wash those. There's something over there that belongs upstairs, so maybe I'll just take care of that quickly before I start.
This is how a person with 20 minutes available for yoga ends up cleaning windows instead.
And I know I'm not the only person whose brain works this way.
It's tempting to think the solution is to get everything settled first. Pick things up, straighten the room, wipe down the counter, put away the laundry. Then you'll be able to concentrate.
Except houses don't really stay settled, especially houses where people actually live.
There's always a basket that needs to be put away, mail on the counter, a coffee cup you forgot about or dog hair that somehow reappeared approximately eleven minutes after you vacuumed. Something needs fixing. Something needs cleaning. Something suddenly becomes incredibly urgent only because you're supposed to be doing yoga.
If I take care of everything that catches my attention first, I've usually taken care of my yoga time too.
We Can Make Getting Ready for Yoga Another Chore
I think this is where a home yoga practice can get unnecessarily complicated.
We have an idea of what practicing yoga at home is supposed to look like. A quiet spot, a clean room, maybe a candle, nice lighting and a plant that is somehow thriving. Our phone is somewhere far away, and nobody needs anything from us.
That sounds wonderful.
Some days I really do want to walk over to the studio. I want the quiet and the separation from everything else. I'm incredibly lucky to have that space, and there are times when being there is exactly what I need.
I just don't want having the perfect place to become a requirement for practicing.
Because it's surprisingly easy to turn getting ready to do something good for ourselves into another chore. We clean the room, wait for the right time, change clothes, get everything quiet, gather our stuff and make sure there's enough time for a "real" practice.
By the time we've satisfied all the requirements, the time we had is gone.
I've done this with more things than yoga. Sometimes the biggest obstacle isn't finding time. It's everything we've decided needs to happen before that time counts.
The Best Place to Practice Yoga at Home Might Be Right in the Middle of Everything
We've talked before about yoga happening in real life, not just in beautiful studios or perfectly arranged spaces. In our blog "Why Are So Many Yoga Mats Boring?" I wrote about pushing the coffee table out of the way, practicing with laundry nearby and dealing with a dog who has somehow claimed the exact piece of floor you need.
I wasn't really exaggerating.
At home, I find the space that works that day. Maybe something needs to be moved out of the way. Maybe something else just has to be ignored. And Auggie apparently interprets the appearance of a six-foot yoga mat as an invitation for him personally.
But once I put my mat down, something changes.
Those six feet by two feet become the place where I'm practicing. The rest of the house can keep being the rest of the house. The laundry can stay where it is, the windows can wait and whatever needs to go upstairs will survive another 20 minutes downstairs.
That's really all the space I need.
Ten Minutes of Yoga Still Counts
This connects to something else we've written about before, creating a simple daily yoga ritual even if you only have ten minutes.
I think one of the biggest mistakes we make when we're trying to practice yoga more consistently is deciding that a short practice isn't worth doing.
An hour is great when I have it. Twenty minutes works too. And if ten is what the day gives me, I can do quite a bit with ten minutes.
The funny thing is that I can easily spend those same ten minutes deciding whether I have enough time to practice yoga.
That's why removing some of the ceremony around a home yoga practice has been helpful for me. Instead of going somewhere else, making the room look better or waiting until everything on my list is finished, I can put the mat down and start.
On a longer day, that may turn into a full practice. On another, I might do a few sun salutations, stretch, move my back and hips around a little and call it good.
I'd rather have ten minutes of actual yoga than an hour-long practice I keep planning to do tomorrow.
Maybe the Distractions Are Part of the Practice
I still notice the dirty windows.
I wish I could tell you I've reached some wonderful state where I roll out my mat and become completely oblivious to everything around me. Nope. I notice things.
The difference is that I'm getting a little better at noticing them without immediately doing something about them.
The window does not need to be washed right now. The basket can sit there. If I suddenly remember something, I don't have to grab my phone before I forget it.
For the next few minutes, I can stay where I am.
There is probably something useful in that beyond yoga. Most of us spend our days responding to whatever asks for our attention next. Emails, texts, laundry, work, errands, people, animals and that one cabinet door that's been slightly crooked for six months but suddenly becomes unbearable when you're trying to hold Warrior II.
Yoga gives me a small place to practice not responding immediately. Not forever, just for now.
Your House Doesn't Have to Be Finished
I don't mean that we should stop cleaning our houses or live surrounded by chaos in the name of yoga.
I'm still going to wash the windows. Eventually.
The point is that your house doesn't need to be finished before you're allowed to use it for something other than maintaining it.
I think that's an easy trap to fall into, especially when you work from home or spend a lot of your day taking care of things. You look around and see jobs instead of rooms.
There is always one more thing you could straighten, clean, organize, answer or fix. If yoga has to wait until all of those things are done, yoga is going to be waiting a very long time.
A Yoga Mat Made for Real Life
When Darin and I were developing Big Raven Yoga mats, we spent more than two years figuring out what we wanted them to be.
Printing Yoga Mat
Comfortable, stable, grippy, durable and, yes, beautiful. But never precious.
We wanted mats that people would actually use.
We've talked about that recently in "How to Choose a Yoga Mat You'll Still Love Two Years From Now." A mat has to work for your real life, not just look good when it's brand new.
For one person, real life is taking a mat to the studio several times a week. Someone else practices outside, packs one for a trip or unrolls it in a hotel room. And for plenty of us, it's putting a mat down in the living room between the couch and a basket of laundry.
That's also why I like having a mat I genuinely enjoy looking at. When six feet by two feet of something is stretched across the middle of my house, I don't particularly want it to disappear.
I want it to make me happy.
And if seeing it makes me a little more likely to put it down tomorrow, that's even better.
Put the Mat Down Anyway
I still love practicing in our studio. There are days when I want to walk over there, close the door and have that separation. But I've stopped making the studio the condition for whether yoga happens.
Other days, yoga happens at home with all the evidence of regular life sitting around me.
The windows are still dirty when I finish. The thing that needed to go upstairs is probably still sitting there. Auggie hasn't become particularly helpful.
But I got 20 minutes on my mat that I probably wouldn't have gotten if I'd waited until everything around me was ready too.
And maybe that's the case for practicing yoga in a messy house. The room doesn't have to look like a yoga space before yoga can happen there. Sometimes you just have to put the mat down where you already are.
Put Your Mat Down Where You Actually Live
Your yoga mat doesn't need a perfect room around it. It needs to feel good under your hands and feet, support your body and be something you're happy to unroll again tomorrow.
Explore Big Raven Yoga mats and find one made to be used right in the middle of real life.