Creating your own yoga flow is easy, and can help you to be more consistent with your practice.
1. Choose a grounding pose to begin your practice.
Chose from a seated posture with legs crossed, lying on your back in Savasana or in Child’s pose and stay here for 1 song, focusing on your breathing. Bring your attention to lengthening your exhale to help create calmness in your body.
2. Warm up your body by getting the joints and muscles moving.
You can transition onto your hands and knees and begin to move through Cat/Cow or shift your weight through your hands and knees to move in circles in each direction. Another way to build heat in the body is to perform Sun Salutations moving through downward dog, plank and then up dog. If you start on your hands and knees in your Cat/Cow, you can always flow into a Sun Salutation too! Go through these movements for at least one song on your playlist.
3. Choose 3-4 wide legged standing poses that you will flow between.
Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Crecent Lunge, Triangle, Side Angle, Wide legged fold, and Pyramid pose all work well together because of the similar foot placement for each pose. Start with right foot forward, moving through the poses you chose and then repeat with left foot leading. Try to keep your focus on your breathing, and hold each pose for several breaths moving to the next one on an exhale. To create more of a Vinyasa flow just add a Sun Salutation between sides.
4. Add in a balance pose.
Balance poses can be done in the beginning of a yoga flow and are said to increase focus when they occur then. But they are most likely to be built into the middle of the flow after the warm up and several standing poses. Choose 2-3 balance poses such as Tree, Dancer, Warrior 3, Standing leg raise, or Half Moon. With balance poses, you can sequence all the poses on the right and then the left, or switch between sides for each pose.
5. Choose 2-3 hip openers on the mat to begin to calm body and prepare for Savasana.
Some of my favorites include Seated forward fold, Supine Twist, Thread the needle, Happy Baby and pigeon pose. I recommend doing the same pose on each leg, and ending with a pose where you are lying on your back. This transitions you into Savasana where you can end with your favorite calming song.
Remember that this is your yoga flow, so it can be as long or as short as you would like. You can use poses that you like and that come easy to you, or mix in more challenging poses.
