First steps toward learning prayer

Assalamu alaikum,


I will put up some links to learning to pray videos. But not right now.


Here are my first steps to breaking prayer into manageable, unintimidating bits.


1. Become aware of the time. Personally, I lose track of time easily. Salaat is supposed to be done 5 times a day. It is best to pray on time. Find a list of prayer times. One source is http://www.islamicfinder.org There are also programs you can put on the computer or your cell phone to remind you of the time. So an important step is to get used to keeping track of the time.


2. Learn the terms related to prayer - . You can skip that if you have sources that you already understand. There are some sources that use the Arabic terms when teaching you, but that's not very helpful when you don't know what they mean or you aren't used to them. It's an unnecessary barrier to learning.


3. Clarify the order of parts cleaned when making wudu.


4. Get used to making wudu, even if I don't follow it up with prayer. Getting wet like that 5 times a day is something that takes me some getting used to. At first I take time to get the water a good temperature. Later when, when a habit has been formed, then we'll see about not being so picky about temperature.

Nora