Day One: thirty minutes
You’ll need: a mat, a strap, and a blanket.
In unsettling times, it’s important to find balance and connect with our breath. Give yourself the gift of your whole presence in this class, and let go of the anxiety and fear that at any moment the foundational elements of your life—or even life itself—could swiftly be taken away. Also, try to forget that overnight you’ve opened up a homeschool for two children who could not give fewer fucks. Let’s begin.
Day Two: twenty-five minutes
You’ll need: a mat, a strap, and a blanket.
This slightly shorter but still blissful flow will build on yesterday’s postures and include a djembe track, to drown out the sounds of your children knocking on the door, screaming for ham. We’ll begin on all fours, in cat pose.
Day Three: twenty-five minutes
You’ll need: a mat.
We’ll embrace simplicity today by using just our mat. The truth is that my blanket is the roof of a pillow fort that’s taken over our living room, and when I tried to retrieve it I think my five-year-old tased me? Is it possible that my toddler smells like menthol cigarettes? But at least now they’re quiet. We’ll begin in downward-facing dog.
Day Four: twenty minutes
You’ll need: a mat.
This vinyasa will run twenty minutes, which is honestly a very short amount of time to devote to blissful self-care, but also the absolute most time I can leave my children unattended before I worry about fires. We’ll begin in child’s pose.
Day Five: fifteen minutes
You’ll need: a mat.
Pranayamas are yogic breathing exercises that increase our energy, release tension, and awaken a clear mind. Let’s build to breath of fire, accepting and loving the goddess within you, who is currently filling the room with the scent of expired Sun Chips and Gewürztraminer. Let’s all quickly brush our teeth and then meet in a cross-legged, seated position.
Day Six: fifteen minutes
You’ll need: a towel.
We’ll start today at the top of our mats. Or, in my case, a towel, since I had to staple my mat to the wall to soundproof the room, because the childless Fryes next door, in B4, are comfortable with sharing my Netflix password but not with the “sound of a pig leaving her children to go to slaughter,” which is an unfair way to describe the tiniest bit of ritual night-crying. We’ll begin in prayer pose.
Day Seven: somewhere between zero minutes and eternity, I guess?
You’ll need: honestly, nothing—what is anything anymore?
Lay down and play dead. This is technically called shavasana, or corpse pose, but it is also an act of survival. To sleep, perchance to dream that these monsters whom you made with your body can find their own goddam Nutri-Grain bars. Namaste.