Taking a Step Back

One of the biggest hurdles in yoga can be the Ego. When your body is telling you to take it easy in your physical practice, your Ego is sitting on your other shoulder whispering, "Don't be lazy." The Ego tells you to bind your arms in a pose when that means collapsing your torso. It wants you to sacrifice alignment to grab your toes. It lets you think it's okay to dump your weight into your lower back in order to nail that inversion and get that Instagram photo.Over the past few months, I've made myself step back from a lot of poses and work on my alignment and proper posture. No longer binding in some poses, I feel my body opening more than ever. Observing classes, I see people throwing themselves into poses without first gaining the strength needed to sustain the asana long-term. I did that myself, and I think sometimes that's how you learn--by taking risks. However, now that I have felt the more proper form of many of these poses, I would never go back just to get a good photo.