Yes, it’s true. My legs were bound and I was hung upside down.

But before you start imagining the worse, my “torturer” is none other than my yoga teacher, Pio.

Thursday evenings are special for our yoga group of “addicts”. This is a class when Pio challenges us to another level of difficulty in our yoga practice.

For 2 Thursdays now, he has intensified the workouts, going from one pose (asana) to another with hardly any time to stop for rest. He lets us do more difficult asanas not normally done in the other classes.

The climax of this class comes when he brings out the yoga straps (cotton straps about 6 ft long with buckles). He makes us assume a full lotus position (sitting with both legs crossed, heels placed close to the thighs). Once we are in that position, he wraps the strap around both legs, asks us to take deep breaths and with each breath, tightens the straps in order to bring our knees closer together. Aray!

With knees bound, we try to lie down on the floor on our backs while keeping our bound legs as close to the floor as possible. We stay in that pose for a few seconds, then when we sit up, he places 2 foam blocks beside our hands. We place our palms on each block, then lift ourselves (still bound) a few inches off the floor. This is supposed to strengthen our arms by letting us carry our body weight.

Lastly, he makes us place our mats perpendicular to the wall and we do the headstand. This is not as difficult as it sounds, actually. I am able to do this on my own. It just sounds daunting for many, including myself, until I tried it and realized my difficulty was more mental than anything else.

There are lessons we learn along the painful way — that sometimes we think we have reached our physical limits — until we are challenged to raise the bar. Then we realize that there is more to what we can do than we ourselves realize.

This goes beyond yoga. This is a lesson we can very well apply to everyday life.