Practice, Makes Perfect Practice

For the beginning and advancing yoga student, one of the most common questions is: How often should I practice?

The easy answer is: As often as you can, but it is not exactly the right answer. The question "How often" implies a measurable number, a finite amount that we can achieve, mark off, and finish. Sort of like brushing your teeth twice a day, changing your car’s oil every 5000 miles, or getting your annual physical. You did it, you’re done. Mission accomplished. There are even “experts” who will say that practicing yoga two to three times a week is what you want to do to achieve results. What they do not define for you is what "results" they are talking about; A flexible body? Lower stress? Tight yoga butt? Freedom from suffering?

Even the word "practice" itself is misleading. It implies that when you want to become proficient in something, you simply practice. Like learning to play an instrument or shoot a hockey puck into a net, all you do is practice because, after all, Practice Makes Perfect, right? Maybe for some things, but not for Yoga. In yoga, practice never makes perfect. The perfection is an illusionary goal that keeps you in the ego’s game of accomplishment and removes you from the path of spiritual realization - which is the only result that ultimately will matter in yoga or your life. Does that mean that practice itself is a misleading way to view yoga? Absolutely not. Yoga is 99 percent practice and one percent knowing what to practice. You need a teacher for that one percent and the rest you do by yourself.

In the Yoga Sutras, Sri Patanjali tells us that practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break and in all earnestness. He does not say twice a week for six months.

So here is the answer - How often should you practice yoga? You practice yoga enough so that it is no longer a practice. It stops being a practice and becomes who you are. This can only happen if you practice yoga EVERY DAY. When you practice every day, it becomes a habit, it becomes your routine, it becomes your life. You do not have to practice getting out of bed each day (well, we hope not!) - why should you have to practice yoga every day? You just do it every day, like you do your life - it is not separate from you - it is a part of you.

When you practice yoga every day, it ceases being a practice and becomes a sadhana. A sadhana is your method and path for realizing the real result that yoga exists for. There can be no negotiation with your Self about this fact. You cannot say: "I will do yoga 6 days a week and take a break," or "I have been really good lately, so I will take a week off from yoga and catch up on all those Sopranos episodes I recorded."

And remember, all this practice of yoga, even every day, does not make perfect. There is no end to this. You cannot do this for 6 months, 3 years, or even 30 years and then decide you have done yoga enough that your practice has indeed made you perfect. Yoga is a lifetime daily experience that will break you out of the prison of suffering and self-loss. It is the most selfish selfless thing you can do.