We kicked off World Yoga Practice Month on January 1, 2008 with a challenge: practice yoga every day in January. A bunch of yogis and wanna-be yogis signed up, and something amazing happened: the group became more than just a bunch of people stepping onto their yoga mats every day. It became a supportive, inspirational community of yoga practitioners all over the world. We were having so much fun that we decided we didn’t want to give it up at the end of January, and continued with monthly themes…If you are not into the whole “goal” thing, that’s cool too. Feel free to hang around and check out the blogs and forums. From Ashtanga to Iyengar, newbies to longtime practitioners, everyone is welcome to join the fun. 

The rules are simple: practice yoga every day in January. Your practice can be as short as 10 minutes! If you accomplish this goal, you will be in the running for prizes. 

OK, so I have to admit that at first the thought of getting all spun up about making sure I do yoga every day had me a little worried. But then I started thinking more about it-I mean, isn’t this what I am teaching people to do?! My point being, you CAN do yoga every day without being all goal-obsessed about it. It doesn’t have to be an hours-long, hard-core practice to count. I am thinking, for days when I might not get an “official” practice in, how about some après-ski yoga (since I’m going to be skiing a lot this month – more to come on that shortly), restorative poses before bed, yoga play with my 3 year old. Or what about just sitting down on my mat without a plan or goal and see what happens? There’s a lot of room to play here. So I say, don’t be intimidated by the every day thing. This is a great way to kick off the new year and your 2009 yoga practice by bringing it into focus and figuring out what yoga is to you. And that is something different every day. Practice and all is coming, indeed.

Namaste and Happy New Year!