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If you'd like to start a personal yoga practice, and learn to practice on your own outside of classes and without videos, but you don't know where to begin, I have a recommendation for you. Find the book "Moving Toward Balance, 8 weeks of Yoga with Rodney Yee" by Rodney Yee with Nina Zolotow. Yee's book takes readers through an 8-week journey of fully experiencing dozens of poses, learning to listen to their inner teacher and developing a level of comfort and confidence in their personal practice. It answered a lot of questions for me, and the first time I read it I wished sincerely that I'd found it sooner.

In the introduction of the book Yee explains that the best way to learn yoga and fully understand it is to practice on your own. He speaks compellingly about why practice at home is so important. He observes that students that don't have a personal practice tend to focus on whether or not they are doing a pose right, while those that do seem to focus on the experience of the poses and the effects they have in the body and the mind. This really spoke to me, and provided another incentive for becoming more disciplined in my own personal practice.

The need for a personal practice is a common theme in conversations I have with yoga friends. We have read and believed that we should practice on our own, but many of us struggle to find the discipline, or maybe it's the confidence, to do so 3 people yoga poses. I've had mental conversations with myself that go like this, "I'm not sure what to do once I get on the mat, so I'm just not going to get on the mat today. Maybe I'll find inspiration or instructions tomorrow. " Sound familiar? Well, Yee's book offers inspiration and instructions.

Yee helps on the confidence front by asking readers to approach their personal practice with a playful and accepting attitude, instead of being self-critical and competitive. He cautions that worry about whether you are practicing correctly can kill your motivation like nothing else. The book providestips on overcoming some of the most common excuses, how to create a space that inspires you to practice, and how to motivate yourself to practice. The motivational methods include music, bribing yourself, and even a humorous story of a student that watched The Simpsons while practicing for the first few months.

Thecore work of the bookcomes through the 8 weeks of Yoga program. Each week has a different focus on a type of asana and an aspect of the non-physical side of yoga. Week 1 is focused on standing poses and being present, Week 2 is focused on sun salutations and awakening awareness, and so on. There are color photos throughout, providing great illustrations of the poses. If you follow the 8-week program, you will deepen your personal understanding of yoga. And at the end of the eight weeks, Yee answers the question of "What now? " with two sections on creating and sustaining a personal yoga practice.