This past fall, when I finally became an empty nester after my third child left for college, I signed up for nearly every workshop in my region: Laurie Blakeney in Milwaukee, Manouso Manos in Chicago, Lois Steinberg in Urbana, Chris Saudek in Madison… I even registered for a weekly yoga class. I was eager to make up for lost time, when I had to take care of so many needs of so many other people.

I learned tons, filling my study notebook, learning variations of asanas, and getting many insights into my own practice. The fall culminated in a week visiting my daughter in New York City and taking class a couple of times each day at the Institute.

However, I understood something on a new level this fall: practice must take precedence over study. That is to say, it's important to supplement our practice with feedback and new perspectives. But we must not allow the study to overwhelm the personal practice.

I knew I had reached an unhealthy over-saturation point when my own practice began suffering. I was neglecting the specific needs of my own idiosyncratic body. While studying with a variety of stellar teachers this fall, I didn't have adequate time to process and incorporate my learnings into practice. I didn't even have time to look at all the notes I had written. I didn't have enough time to work on asanas and parts of my body that need extra attention. I was operating under someone else's agenda rather than my own.

This fall was a great lesson in trusting my own initiative and insights. Weekly class and an occasional workshop are terrific, but only if we maintain a deep and engaged personal practice foundation. I'm sure you have found, as I have, over the years, that the further we go on the yoga path, the more we need to practice, not less. In the beginning, 20 minutes of home practice sufficed. It grew into 30 minutes, an hour, and now 2 hours is not enough; 3 is ideal in order to include pranayama.

The Pune schedule of morning practice and daily class makes complete sense. We balance the study with personal practice and application of information and insights. We listen to our teachers, but we also listen to our own bodies. Some traditions of yoga emphasize daily class as a form of personal practice. I encourage my students to come to class once or twice a week instead of every day, and instead, to practice at home daily.

As an empty nester, I have consolidated my teaching schedule so that I have 3 days off. On these days, I enjoy leisurely practice, getting to those poses that take a lot of time or set-up, trying the same pose many ways, looking over notes and reviewing what I have learned, and much more. I still attend workshops with senior teachers of course, but not at the expense of my own practice.

As Guruji points out, we are not doing yoga until we are practicing on our own. Self-discipline and self-knowledge must balance teachings from others. We ultimately have to do it on our own.