Don’t Make Your Yoga Practice Another List of “Things to Have”

The other day, I was in a yoga class, and I overheard the teacher say to a student, “Emily, you have your split, right?”

I paused and thought, “oh no!! Please don’t make this student think of her yoga practice in terms of what she “has.”

Yoga is not a list of poses to master in a particular order, each progressively more challenging than the last. It is not like weight training, where you start with five-pound weights and graduate to ten and then 15.

Yoga is a process of getting to know who you are and what your purpose is.

We do the poses to gain physical benefits, yes, but we really do the poses to prepare our bodies for sitting still, in silence - to meditate.

Whether you can touch your toes or get into a split or do a handstand, please don’t think of yoga in terms of a checklist of poses “to have” because it is so much more.