GINA KENNED hether you're just beginning to practice yoga or you've been practicing for quite some time, it can really enhance your practice to use yoga props. Props such as blocks, straps, blankets and bolsters. When you use props in your yoga practice, it allows you to come into a much better alignment with the poses. What we're doing yoga for is to be able to direct the energy through our body. And if you're using the blocks and the straps, it allows you to come into the proper alignment so that the energy can flow freely. Sometimes this is met with resistance and people feel it's a crutch. But I think if you find that if you just take a few steps back, you can make a giant leap forward in your yoga practice and come into poses you never thought you would be able to do before. If you don't have any blocks, you can always use a phone book or some sort of big dictionary or a big book or just something else that's in this exact shape. Or you could use--for your strap, you could use a belt, a scarf, maybe even a towel to use as your strap. And a couch cushion would work perfect for a bolster and I'm sure we all have blankets. But I think if you just try to use the blocks, what happens is your body remembers the moves and then the next couple of times you try that pose, you're able to do it without the use of props. And in that way, it can really help you move forward in your yoga practice.