When you think of yoga – does a pretzel shaped person in stretchy pants appear in your mind?
The true goal of yoga is linking breath and movement, and this requires zero flexibility.
The beauty of yoga is that it does increase your flexibility (& mobility!) with time and practise.
However, the ability to stand on one foot and bring your leg into a standing split isn’t needed.
(Although, Weird Barbie would be stellar at yoga if that WAS the goal.)
Yoga Poses are in fact, entirely made up – which means adjusting them to better suit your body isn’t blasphemous.
So yes, we can look at alignment and the possible variations of poses, but the true meter is your body.
Not every pose is good for, or even accessible to every body.
If it hurts – don’t do it.
If you need some support in balance poses – use a wall, or a block as you practise. 😊
Being present in your yoga practise prevents injury and tunes your ear to the body.
How does it respond to stress? Is this a stretch or does it hurt?
If we keep the yoga pose goal as: breathing fully and exploring the mobility of each pose – you will get so much more out of the practise, than you would trying to yank or push your body into a position it doesn’t want to be in.
The weekly yoga pose breakdown here at WLE aims to decode the Sanskrit name and show you how the pose could look. It’s like learning a dance move a week. 💃🏽
Every Wednesday is a new #YPB Day – Yoga Pose Breakdown Day. 🎉 We keep it short and sweet with a video showing how to get in and out of the pose safely. We even get a little fancy and string a few poses together.
As you learn more and more poses or “dance moves” – you will find you can string together poses that you want or need, on your own!
As one final note – you don’t even need stretchy pants to do yoga. 🤫
Wear something comfy, slide off the couch as you watch your fav evening show – and try a few stretches! I’m sure you’ll like the results: better mobility & flexibility? Yes, please!
Wishing you an amazing weekend.
With Love,
Esta
with love , Esta 