Yoga Doesn’t Require Flexibility

Yoga doesn’t require that you get into seemingly impossible positions, such as with your foot behind your ear. The only flexibility you need is flexibility of mind. Simply let go of preconceived notions and open yourself to new perspectives. That’s all it takes.

Yoga Does Not Take Time from Your Already Busy Life.

The length of time you spend at yoga is less important than practicing it regularly. If you practice only one posture (body position) with close attention to your physical sensations and your breath, your mind and body will benefit. And because yoga creates a powerful sense of connection to your body, you just may be motivated to try one more posture, and maybe two more tomorrow, and so on. For now, just commit to what you have time for, and try to do it daily.

Yoga Works for Every Body

Yoga is accessible and beneficial to you whether you’re round or slim, old or young, male or female, athletic or sedentary, a hippy or a buttoned-up exec. Yoga is a practice that accommodates you no matter what your starting point, and it challenges you only as far as you let it. Yoga does not require any sort of belief system either. Its purpose is to engage the mind, awaken the body, and stir the spirit. It always meets you wherever you are and then helps smooth out the rough edges.

Yoga is No Pain and All Gain

Many people still believe that a healthy, strong body requires killing yourself at the gym or going on a painful, grueling jog. Research has shown that’s just not true. In the end, the tortoise beats the hare.

With yoga, it is important not to exert effort or stretch to the point of pain. The word asana refers to yoga postures, and it specifically means “steady seat.” With a steady seat, you push only to the point where you can maintain steadiness and equilibrium while holding the pose. You do want to challenge yourself as you can, but never to the point of pain.

There Is No Judgment in Yoga

An essential aspect of yoga is the practice of letting go of self-judgment. Rather than comparing your abilities to the abilities of others in a yoga class, you maintain your focus upon how you feel as move and stretch. Your attention turns inward toward your bodily sensations, your emotions, and your breath in each moment.

It’s also important to let go of any preconceived notions of how quickly you should advance towards more demanding postures. By learning to listen to your body, you improve at a natural pace that is the most beneficial for you personally. You are developing an all-important mind-body connection. How far you can extend yourself in a yoga pose is much less important than how expansive you allow your mind to be.

Yoga Is for Everyone. Yes, Everyone!!!

Anyone who is willing to try to yoga is able to do yoga. Age, fitness level, body type, and flexibility are not limiting factors. The brilliance of yoga is that every pose can be adapted to your needs, and a good teacher will customize your practice to what works best for you. The media presents yoga as a domain for young, white, stupendously fit young women who perform backbends with a smile. But that is the media for you.

Yoga originally arose as a means to still the mind. Yoga’s true purpose is to bring us back home to ourselves. By intimately tuning into our bodies and minds, we free ourselves from a limited mindset and become at peace with things just as they are.

“Yoga is the removal of the fluctuations of the mind.”

– Patanjali, (Yoga Sutras: I, 2)