The perfect yoga pose

A friend and I took a break in our Sunday beach run to do a few yoga stretches today. Here is one of the pics.

When I look at this photo I see a woman being goofy, maybe dancing in the rain, but what I’m actually doing is falling out of a yoga pose. A pose that I couldn’t quite master, no matter how hard or how many times I tried. I remember thinking, after failing again and again, that I had two options, get angry with myself or laugh at the situation. Clearly I chose the latter.

Thinking back to when I started practicing yoga about 15 years ago, I approached my practice with a humourless quest for perfection ~ hyper-extending my legs and frequently checking my neighbors with a sideways glance to see if I was doing better than them. I couldn’t have been more misguided if I tried. It took years for me to realize that yoga wasn’t at all about perfection or even form sometimes. It was about showing up regularly and making a commitment to starting a journey with myself. It was about relaxing into and accepting myself ~ my body, my limitations ~ and even laughing at and learning to love myself. And when I realized this, that is when my yoga practice finally opened up and became a source of joy for me. So here’s to falling out of crooked, imperfect yoga poses and loving it because every stumble is an important part of the journey. Your journey. Namaste.

She’s Got Legs

Anyone who knows me knows that I love, love, love yoga. I may put it on the back burner every so often but I always come back to it.  And there’s nothing I like more than a really good yoga challenge.

I stumbled on #shesgotlegs on Instagram a few days ago and was intrigued. Basically you follow the graphic below, practicing each daily pose until you master it and, theoretically, by the end of the month, you’ll be able to put your legs behind your head. I did say theoretically lol.

I’m definitely feeling up for a challenge so I’m going to go for it. I realize that I’m a couple of days late to this party but catching up shouldn’t be too hard as the early poses are relatively easy. I’ll record any interesting/challenging/bizarre happenings in the comments below as I yoga my way through August.

I’m also inviting anyone who wants to stretch their yoga practice come along with me in a quest to put our legs behind our heads. How bad could it be? Right? And what a great party trick…