Transforming household objects into simple, effective, and cost-friendly equipment is one of the best things about taking part in yoga and movement classes online.
As a student, building an at-home yoga kit can boost your practice. You can start to move more frequently, more creatively, and more independently. You don’t need to invest in an image, or a lifestyle, that isn’t actually yours: realising you can start right now, exactly where you are (as you are), is pretty liberating.
As a teacher, incorporating equipment into online classes can be pretty liberating too. I can teach things online that it would be less possible for me to teach in-person. Finding a class venue with 12 chairs and enough wall space can be difficult enough, let alone 12 sets of steps, or stairs! I don’t need to stuff a range of resistance bands, straps, and tennis balls into my yoga mat-filled bike panniers. Cycling to class with blocks, dumbbells, kettlebells, and sandbags --whilst a challenge I would like to accept-- is not realistic when you have to make multiple trips across a city to teach multiple classes a day (although I would enjoy the kudos).
What do you already own?
How can you use it to boost your online yoga experience?
A rolled-up yoga mat, towel, or blanket
Other than marking out an intentional practice space, making your floor more comfortable to be on, and perhaps offering a little grip (I confess, sometimes I find the floor alone to be good enough), a yoga mat, towel, or blanket can be rolled up and used to make a wobblier surface to practice balancing on: give it a go, roll something up and try to stand on one leg (it’s not easy is it?). Your rolled up thing can double-up as a pillow to place under your head, or sit bones. It can be used for self-massage in place of an unyielding (and often downright uncomfortable) foam roller.
A tennis ball, massage ball, or dog chew toy (minus slobber)
Like a foam roller, you can use something like a tennis ball to massage on and around the tissues of your body. You can wedge the ball between your body and the wall (standing helps to control the amount of pressure), or your body and the floor. If you find your body responds well to this kind of thing and it helps you feel relaxed, this is a movement method to add to your toolbox. Try rolling a ball around with the sole of your foot; apply more pressure, less pressure, get in all the creases and edges before attempting any hip-hinge/forward-folding kind of movements. Any difference?
Simply holding a tennis ball (in your hands, or behind the back of the knee) can be helpful for improving proprioception (our sense of where our body is in space) in some positions by creating what I like to describe as a ‘spotlight’ of sensation, focus, or engagement. From personal experience, this helps coordinate my hypermobile limbs. From teaching experience, this can be a helpful movement tool for people with developmental coordination disorders like dyspraxia.
Pillows of various size and density
A firm bolster, the seat cushion from your sofa, anything with a bit of 'squidge' can be used to make yourself more comfortable and add a bit of support in a variety of positions. If I’m in need of something more restorative, I like to sit in child’s pose, keeping my knees wide so there’s lots of space for my belly, and wedge the gap between my torso and the floor with a chunky bolster cushion.
1-2 yoga blocks, chunky books, or even a log from the fireplace
In the same way you might use a pillow, you can use a couple of cork, or foam blocks to add a bit of support where needed, but they make challenging pieces of movement equipment too (if you follow the excellent Jenni Rawlings, you’ll see her regularly invent ‘evil things to do with blocks’). Blocks, books, a log (channelling my inner Katy Bowman) can add a small amount of load to your upper body; you can stand on them; use them as ‘arm extenders’ to reach towards places; and to create obstacles. If you can imagine it, you can try it.
Yoga strap, belt, tie, tea towel, resistance band, bicycle inner tube, pair of tights (SO MANY OPTIONS!)
A yoga strap can easily be substituted for a dressing gown belt, tie, or even a tea towel. Something with less ‘give’ can be used to add extra support, or as something external to move your limbs against. Just be careful of the temptation to yank --trying to force your body into places isn’t a great long-term strategy.
Something with more ‘give’, like my beloved resistance bands can help adjust sensation (like that ‘stretch’ feeling) so it is both manageable and sustainable (great if you find yanking, pulling, or forcing yourself into positions too difficult to resist). Like blocks, stretchy bands can help extend the reach of your limbs if your range of movement is limited and they can assist in bridging the gap between active and passive range of movement, especially in people that have a high degree of flexibility with little accompanying strength.
Resistance bands are a useful precursor to strength-building; engaging accessory muscles within their full range of movement; and becoming more aware of the responsive movement (and function) of your trunk (that is not always so helpfully defined as your ‘core’) as it relates to your upper and lower body.
A dumbbell, can of beans, or full water bottle
Unless you have lots of weightlifting experience, a weight under 2kg would probably be a good place to start. I began my strength-building journey by adding a set of 1kg soft pilates weights (see image above) to what was my regular Ashtanga practice. Weights can be incorporated into most standing and sitting positions. In my experience, adding a weight changes the experience of familiar (and stale) movements, which helps me to make sensible (and sensitive) adjustments by honestly assessing what I might need in that moment: it’s a part of my practice in paying attention. (And it can springboard the gym-averse into strength-building more generally: see Kathryn Bruni-Young’s Mindful Strength).
Your house, your furniture
The space we have at home often feels (and is) limiting, but we can make use of walls and furniture to lean on, or put feet up on. The support a spare corner offers on either side (and well within reach) makes it a nice place to practice balancing in; a corner can also be a comforting place to sit, or rest against, when we’re feeling tired). A double-bed is the perfect size for any floor-based kind of movement when floor space is either unavailable, non-existent, or not easily cleared.
Learning to move around obstacles can teach us things that an hour a week in a spacious, beautifully lit, and spotlessly clean studio can’t. It might not be as relaxing and it might not feel as special, but it is more true to life and I can’t think of a better (or more useful) aim for a yoga and movement practice than as a way to gain experience navigating the world as it is, rather than as we’d wish it to be.