The messages that come to me through Facebook share a common theme: queries about home practice and related accoutrements (or how I cut up my t-shirts, so stay tuned for a separate post on that). In light of these pressing questions facing the humans of yoga land, I thought it might be helpful to comply a list of my home practice helpers. [Note: In case it’s unclear, I’m not an expert in anything here but what I like]. So, without further ado, these are a few of my favorite things:

1-I need some hot stuff. I use a Delonghi micathermic space heater. Here’s what I love: it’s thin and sleek, easily stored against a wall, and it has wheels, so you can easily move it around just by swatting it with a free hand (as I tend to do, when rolling over onto my side in parsva dhanurasana). I don’t think it gets hotter than 80 degrees (I wouldn’t say it heats the entire room), but it gives off heat you can feel (without being a safety hazard). When you are close, you feel it: good for me. If you have some oddly cold room, however, your best bet might be a Vornado space heater, which works by circulating air. This is particularly fantastic working in a small room, even one with a high ceiling; however, it does not give off a feeling of hot stuff. In my former home in Virginia, I used to heat up a room with the Vornado, and then use the Delonghi during practice. Either way, there isn’t a crazy Bikram hotness using these things. It’s just right — and warm.

2-Girl, I’m gonna make you sweat. Quite often I receive questions like: “what’s with the mist machine?” and “where did you get that smoke machine?” Ah, the magical mist machine is the Continuum Transfunctioner, a mysterious and powerful device; it’s mystery is only exceeded by its power. . . . No, wait— that’s the thing from Dude Where’s My Car. Actually, what I’ve got is a seriously kick ass humidifier. I purchased this tropically wonderful product at the recommendation of my doula in anticipation on my baby. Five years later, my lovely Air-O-Swiss still makes me sweat. It may well be pricer than other humidifiers, but hey– it lasts, it works, it makes the humidity warm, and I just love it so. I turn it on and crank everything up, all the buttons– though I’m unsure what they all do.

Why the humi-kickass-ifer? Ever walk into a bustling mysore room, even in temperate weather? There’s an undulating life force of heat floating in the air, a heat that comes when lots of bodies are in one place sweating at the same time. This “shakti” air or whatever you call it exists in megadoses in summer, especially in a humid locale. It sounds gross, but I feel free in this oppressively sticky air. My Air-O-Swiss baby helps mimic that zeitgeist when all by my lonesome, especially in this #Utahisrad dry climate (I didn’t need any extra humidity practicing in my sister’s place one August in New York, thank you, although I did in Virginia, where we had so much A/C going all the time, you know, so we wouldn’t up and die). Oh yeah, did I mention that I just like it?

3-Because I’m all about that bass. I mean breath. I meant to say breath, dammit! Ashtanga is all about the breath . . . but when I started practicing largely at home and alone three years ago, the quiet was deafening. Or with someone else downstairs with my kid, the noise was distracting. So I began to practice using audio of a led primary taught by David Garrigues, and then with a recording of the sounds of the AYS Philadephia mysore room — that’s right, just the sound of breath, feet landing in chaturanga, and here and there emphatic shouts of “yes,” “no” and so on and such from Mr. DG — as my background music.As to whether other types of sound have since found there way into my practice space…. I’m gonna plead the fifth.

The most meaningful practice I have is the one without bells, whistles and added sound. Really. But, if you’re practicing to a led primary audio one Friday, or an old youtube video of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois himself cueing the likes of Richard Freeman et. al., or Krishna Das, or Drake (Wait, what? Who put that in here?)) . . . nothing beats good sound. So meet my little friend, this portable bluetooth speaker! Perhaps it’s my new DJ friend’s influence, but I shall never play anything off my iPhone merely by pressing its pathetic little “speaker” button again! Actually, the sweet speaker I’ve got does me right but I’m curious about what else is out there (and cheap). I just bought this one on sale (less than $20 in the unpopular colors because it has been discontinued), because of the review here.

4-Work from Home. All the world’s a stage, and it seems, everything in mine a potential prop or assistant. Of course, for anyone practicing at home, it is old news that a bed, crib or dresser can come in handy as a supta vadrasana assistant. Why stop there? I’ve also managed to adopt a bench as my final backbend/tictocs buddy, and spare laundry for help getting a sweaty foot behind my head. I have friends who use couches for mayurasana, not to mention chairs, walls, towels, blankets, moms, kids and friends for everything else — you get the point. The world is our oyster, sure — but with a little creativity I can find plenty of pearls without leaving my room.Oddly enough, practicing alone at home with space set up just the way I like it has only made me more open to those days I practice in a friend’s space, a slightly colder room (ok, I am not perfect, but I get there), or without a mat. Hell, it’s hard for me to believe, but not much is required but us (but I’ll take heat when I can get it, ok?)

5-What about your friends? It’s a touch ironic that the final helper for my home practice is the mysore room and teacher I practice with once or twice a week at the Front Climbing Club in nearby Salt Lake City. David Garrigues once said: “true yoga is discovered alone.” That may be, but viewed in a certain light, I don’t do anything alone. Each time I practice, each time I move someplace new on my mat, uncover something I’ve been working on, discover something I never thought I would, I am indebted to the lineage, the system of ashtanga, the teachers who inspire me to keep practicing, the teacher who has brought me to where I am now
— not to mention the people in that mysore room who keep me going in the most unexpected ways (and tolerate my occasional shouts of profanity). When I get on my mat at 9:15am, I know they are rolling up their mats and heading out to work; I know that someone somewhere in this world is right with me for that first chant; I know that my first inhale is one among many at any given moment. Gadgets from Amazon are no match for this connection to others.

There is nothing solitary about what we do. So have a good time doing it.