When people first meet me, often they emphatically inform me, "I can't do yoga!" I get a kick out of it - they think they are supposed to walk into their first class as expert yogis!
Recently I was watching a documentary on top Russian Ballerinas. As they stretched they displayed incredible flexibility - the foot way above the head, with little thought, breath, or sensation. Natural yogis? Maybe, however yoga has much less to do with natural flexibility than you might think. In fact, people who are extremely flexible often have a harder time with yoga. When it is very easy to get into a pose, the mind and breath need not enter into the pose. So, popping in and out of crazy flexible poses with little thought is not yoga!
In fact, those who are less flexible - where moving into a pose slightly, results in intense sensation and hence the need to watch the mind and feel the breath - now that is yoga!
From Karoun Yoga Newsletter #13, 8/31/2009
Photo by Avrielle Suleiman on Unsplash
Add comment
Comments