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I am pursuing a home practice. I ordered and received Gabrielle’s Home Practice Kit which I love. Using my bathroom seems like the logical choice of rooms as I can fill my soaking tub with hot water to bring in the humidity element (approx. 65% – 70% if I run the shower too), and it’s big enough (12×12 overall). The heat is another matter. I have a portable combined heater/air conditioner floor unit which blows in hot air to about 80 degrees. I have to vent it out the window every time I use it which is a real inconvenience. Anyone have a home practice who would be kind enough to share some tips with me? Ideas for getting the room hotter (i.e. heaters)? Motivational tips are also quite welcome as most days just thinking about all the things I need to do to get the room ready for practice is enough to keep me from practicing. I miss the studio, but I had difficulty tolerating the heat. I look forward to any and all advice. Many thanks!
Hi Nina!!!
I am so happy you like practising at home. :cheese: Have you looked into the use of infrared panels? They are rather inexpensive and if you move house you can take it/them with you! They also heat rather efficiently and would heat you rather than the whole space. Look into it!
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Gabrielle!
Many thanks for the tip. I will definitely look into infrared panels. They may be less cumbersome than the two hot air heaters I have at each end of my bathroom. One is so big that I have to vent it out the window (such a pain). I also have a question about the Home Practice. Can the standing series be done separately from the floor series on occasion when time does not allow both? If so, what would be a proper warm up if I were to do the floor series only? Should I begin and end each series with the breathing exercises if done separately? Many Thanks!!
NinaHello! I am Cynthia. I am 40 years old and I live in Northern California in the USA.
I have just completed day two of at-home hot yoga sessions at home. I have streamlined a small guest bedroom/office for easy conversion into a ‘hot yoga studio’ as needed. The room is roughly 10’ x 12’ x 8’ tall. It has mirrored sliding closet doors and a laminate floor which will most likely need to be carpeted as winter approaches. It also has a large window I will need to further insulate beyond the gauzy cotton drapery it presently has over it. While it’s been around 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside, I got the room up to 105 degrees Fahrenheit fairly quickly using the central household HVAC system, a radiator and a high output space heater box, but that was only at head height and I am 5’9”. I have two temperature/humidity digital barometers in there, one placed at head height and the other at about knee level.
There was a big difference in the temperatures between the different heights and I could really feel it when I was doing the floor series of postures. Also, I never achieved the deep level of flexibility in my legs that I was able to achieve really quickly when I was attending a professional studio down in Chico. I’ll apprise you of the evolving results as I make adjustments to the room and I am seriously considering checking out those infrared panels Gabrielle mentioned. Since my house is small, I block the floor vents in rooms that I don’t want heated while I am running the household central heating system, full tilt, to heat my tiny yoga room. I use a spray bottle to mist the room with water and I aim it at the draperies, my thick cotton yoga mat as well as the open air about the room. I have yet to get a humidifier but I will.
Because it has been four months since I last practiced, I am very sore all along my back and hamstrings as well as my shoulders. It is just like starting all over. I remember I was sore for the first three weeks when I first got into hot yoga, and I averaged 3-4 sessions per week, sometimes 5. The hardest for me, in the beginning, was the incessant shoulder burn of the pranayama, half moon and standing back bend poses where our arms are unrelentingly raised for….. so….. long…… LOL! It took me a while the first time and it will take me a while again but I know I will develop the strength and stamina and get through it without breaking posture to rub my deltoids out! I love Gabrielle’s voice on the audio cds which I have transferred to iTunes playlists which I play straight out of my iPhone in the room. It’s perfect. I’ll look forward to sharing my journey with you. Thank you for being here!
Namaste,
CynthiaHi Cynthia
How is your heating now? Have you made some changes? To heating, to insulation or maybe both? I think you’ll find, even with standing infra red heaters in the corners that you’ll experience less heat loss because of what and how that type of heater does. Panels are great because they don’t emit light as well as heat. They need to be installed with care (professionally) because they can be heavy.
Thank you for posting (and for your kind words) and I do look forward to hearing how you go.
If anybody else has updated information about their favourite heaters then chime in. It’s always welcomed! See you soon
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Gabrielle!
We still haven’t had a major cold blast yet so temps have been really mellow outside, so, as of yet, no major insulation adjustments! I did get a warm mist humidifier and it only got me to 22-25% humidity when I had all the heaters going and at least 100 degrees in there, so I got another one just like it and run both. Now I get it to 50% humidity even at 95-100 degrees and I’m sweating bullets! I have found that if I don’t keep the floor vent central air flowing I run out of oxygen in the room and get really dizzy and out of breath. Before, I just opened the door every once in a while to fan some fresh air in but I got tired of interrupting the flow of the session by doing that. So, now I just keep the central household heat on low, like 60-70, just t keep warmish but most importantly FRESH air coming in and I also keep the oil radiator on and the space heater fan box on, if necessary. Often I have to shut that fan box space heater thing off because it belches out so much dry hot air and it gets the room WAY TOO HOT – like 108 degrees and such. Too hot. So. …I have yet to check my electric bill. That might be the impetus I need to search out these infrared panels of which you speak! I have been doing the yoga everyday except for two days, because I made myself sick on Halloween with too much partying. Let me tell you, the first yoga session after that was ROUGH. Anyway, this time around I find that I am not sore every day for three weeks solid like I was when I first started months ago. I was worried about that. Now that I’m doing it almost everyday, my body seems to recover more quickly. I am loving this! God willing, I will maintain this discipline. Thank you again for being here!
Namaste,
Cynthia -
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