A year ago, or close to a year ago, I realized just how UNFIT I was. Having studied ballet until my teen years and even getting to the point of being able to dance on toes, I knew the kind of poses I could do as a flexible kid. But last March 2006, I bent down and could only touch the floor with the tips of my fingers — barely. Yikes!

Years of sedentary lifestyle had taken its toll, especially since most of my work had me either sitting at a desk, sitting in front of the computer, sitting in meetings. Whatever it was, it was SIT, SIT, SIT! So my joints were frozen in just one position….for sitting down!

Fortunately, yoga is slowly reversing this and I find myself surprisingly being able to do poses (asanas) more easily now than I did in that first yoga class.

So to celebrate my upcoming yogini 1st anniversary in March 2007, here is a pose I can now do. Wait for my next blog to find out which poses are still MAJOR, MAJOR challenges up to now and which I look forward to doing in the future (near future, I hope!).

For other wanna-be-yoginis like me, if this pose is still an impossibility, don’t lose heart. As our yoga teacher, Pio, says: we have to accept our bodies and their limitations and continue to rejoice in the progress we make. We need not compare what we can or cannot do vs what others can but be content with our own bodily progress.

(picture taken from Yoga Journal — www.yogajournal.com)