My yoga journey, going on 3 years now, has been filled with growth and progress in developing the strength, flexibility and coordination to do more challenging poses.
Q. What is a challenging pose?
A. One that I can't do. Yet.
Because each person's body is unique, what is a challenging - even impossible - pose for one person may be very easy for another. So the accomplishment isn't in the body getting into a particular shape. The accomplishment is in the work that leads past previous limitations and expands what is possible.
Yoga is so rich in forms - stretching every part of the body in every imaginable way - that no matter what your inherent strengths are - the qualities that make certain poses come naturally - yoga can challenge you. When the limit is pushed back and a new pose becomes possible, there is immediately a new challenge revealed.
There are yogis who can do things that I find astonishing - things that are far beyond my current limits. But I realize that those things are no harder for them than the things I am working on are for me. And they are no harder than the challenge posed by downward facing dog to a new yogi with tight hamstrings and shoulders.
As I progress, the practice remains the same, and the same impressive accomplishment rewards my efforts as it does everyone who works to push back their limits.
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