You don't need to be flexible to start
Most people don't start yoga because they think they're not flexible enough or calm enough. I had all of those thoughts before I started.
Most people don't start yoga because they think they're not flexible enough or calm enough. Can't touch my toes. Can't balance. Can't be still. I had all of those thoughts before I started. I am so happy they didn't keep me away.
Flexibility is a result, not a requirement
Nobody expects to be strong before they start lifting. Somehow yoga picked up the opposite reputation, and I think it's because of what the pictures look like. Nobody photographs the version with bent knees, or when they're falling out of tree pose. It took quite a few tries to get that picture of me in tree pose.
In reality, most people are in a version of the pose that fits their body at the time, and that will probably look very different from day to day and from person to person. A forward fold with soft knees and your hands on your shins or blocks is a forward fold. If you're feeling it in the back of your legs, it's working. Going further doesn't make it work harder, it just makes it look different from the outside, and no one is looking at you when you're practising yoga, especially if you're practising at home in an online class.
“Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.”
There's nothing in that definition about what the poses look like, nothing about being flexible. Nothing about balance. There are nearly two hundred sutras and three of them are about posture, and the one that defines it says a posture should be steady and comfortable. That's the whole instruction. Not deep, not acrobatic, not even more advanced than what it looked like last week.
It's not a performance, it's a practice
Yoga isn't about being flexible. It isn't about being able to balance. It isn't only for people who look great in yoga pants. What you see on Instagram and TikTok isn't the practice, it's photographed at the best second of the best attempt. That's a performance. A practice is completely different, the one you do badly and keep doing, in a room nobody is watching.
The difficult part isn't the postures. It's not knowing what to do during the quiet parts. Feeling uncomfortable with the thoughts and feelings that come up as you're breathing. Letting go of the expectations you have of yourself. Letting go of the critic in your head that tells you you're not doing this right, you are not good enough, you should give up.
And the practice is coming back even if you don't believe you can. Even when you have a "bad" practice. And, one day you'll realize you're touching your toes and balancing in dancer's pose and you're not even thinking about it because you don't really care about that at all. What you care about is the feeling of calm as you breathe into the pose. And you know that the next day is probably going to be different and you're ok with that.
And the line I say in every class, which I mean every time: if something I say doesn't feel right in your body, please don't do it. Always listen to your body first.
The pose you did last year isn't the pose you do today. The practice takes the shape of the body that shows up, and that's how it changes you. You don't need to be flexible, experienced, or calm to start.
May your thoughts be kind, may your words be caring, and may your heart be filled with love and gratitude.