Touch Your Toes

Yoga is such a funny thing isn't it? We make funny shapes with our bodies, and we expect some kind of result to happen. Most beginner students are a little shocked at how challenging yoga really is, and I look at it as my responsibility to make it fun, and safe enough, for them to want to try it again. We tend to avoid things that are hard as a rule. No one wants to suck, especially at something perceived  to be as easy as yoga!

I am a very hands on teacher, and I give gentle physical, as well as verbal adjustments to all my students. My reason is twofold: not everyone has the body awareness to feel there way into a posture; and secondly, I think our culture is very lonely and we can all use a kind touch. A few weeks ago I offered a suggestion to one of my students in a seated forward fold to use a strap so he could straighten his legs and lengthen his spine forward by leading with his chest. I explained that he was hunching over his bent legs, and the stretch was currently in his back instead of the hamstrings we were targeting. He smiled at me sheepishly, and said, "I know, but I don't want to." He knew I was right, but he had probably been a runner his whole adult life, and his ego may have been experiencing some bruising over the fact that he couldn't touch his toes.

This scenario is common and happens several times a week. Sometimes people are grateful for the adjustment, sometimes their ego is just to fragile to accept it. But what I find amazing (and all of us do this), is how much we attach our personal worth, or our morality, to what we can and can't do whether in yoga or any other activity. I'm no better of a person, or more moral because I can touch my toes than my sweet student that didn't want to use a strap. It is a familiar theme that most yoga students have faced themselves at some point and then beat them self up for being unable to get into a posture. I've been there too, many times. But what I wonder is: why do we feel the need for externals to validate who we are, and our worth to ourselves and our society? I mean, toe touching isn't even a very useful skill for the betterment of our society.

If you summed up what all the Buddha's taught, it would amount to 3 things:
1) Do no harm
2) Act for the good
3) Purify the mind
Not anywhere did they say, "Touch your toes."

So relax, enjoy your body, whatever limitations they may have. As B.K.S Iyengar said "My body is my temple. The asanas are my prayers," and all prayers are beautiful when they are sincere.