(when it feels like you can’t for all the reasons)
January 2026
Four years ago, I took a RYT 200 Yoga Teacher Training Course. I have never wanted to be a teacher (of anything, yoga or otherwise). Still, for some reason, I had this feeling that this was what I needed to do with my time (and $$) that summer. So I spent almost every weekend that summer in a yoga studio, taking a comprehensive yoga teacher training course.
I have always loved and attempted to practice yoga and started when I was in college. Back then it was VHS. Then I moved on to DVD’s, sometimes I would go to a studio and now it is YouTube videos.
But nothing ever really stuck.
While practicing yoga, I always felt awkward and weird in my body. When I thought about it, it wasn’t just when I was doing yoga. But I couldn’t run away from it (as much) during my practices. Even my savasana felt wrong. How hard is it to lie down on the floor and do nothing? Very hard, I found. Simple stretches left me wobbly, falling over and out of breath. Forget vinyasas or flows – though I did my best to follow. Nothing moved in the way it seemed it was supposed to or even close to it. None of it ever felt right.
Keeping all of that in the back of my mind, I did my best. I would hear the cues of the pose and try to understand. Turn my thigh inward? Really? How does one do that? Balance on one foot? Are you sure?
I never minded being the awkward, clumsy and modified one. However, I did want to know what I was missing out on. I wanted to know how to modify these poses for my body. I figured I was missing something for it to be such a stressful thing for me. All of my teachers always did their best trying to help, guide and assist in moving my legs and arms to try to get a feel for the pose. Still, I felt like I could never get my situation across and/or I felt bad that they didn’t have any idea of how to get me as close to the pose as possible.
So when I took the teacher training course, I took it for myself and my body. I learned all the cues and all the notes for lots of poses, which gave me a better understanding of how my body could actually do them. In some cases my guesses for my modifications were pretty darn close. In others, I hadn’t understood or gotten the intention of that pose at all. That was the point of this though, to learn.
I also taught all 3 Sun Salutations (A, C and B!) without even being able to get into my “interesting” version of all the poses. I learned about the balance poses and handstand/headstands. My body will never do any of those but I did learn that I could build my way up to them if I wanted and how to do so. (I don’t want to and imagine I never will.)
Considering how yoga is thought of and considered, this always strikes me as amusing: I cannot do a downward dog pose. Well, I can but I absolutely hate how it feels in my body. (Which is funny because it’s essentially my FiA nickname – story for another time). I know that I’m not balanced correctly in the pose so I don’t like doing it. Even using blocks, while helpful, don’t fix it.
I do a lot of my poses supported by my hands on my bed. Low lunges, my version of Downward Dog, Forward Bends, Planks and Upward Dogs. Or I just don’t do the pose at all. The list of poses I don’t do is longer than the ones I do. I’m okay with that.
My downward dog (when I don’t have my bed) is table top. I don’t flow. I move slowly, clumsily and jerkily between the poses. Because that’s what my body can do. It feels great though it doesn’t “look like yoga.” I still get the balancing, strengthening, and mind calming benefits of those who move fluidly and easily.
I found more support and understanding in the philosophy and science beyond the postures (though it is still wildly painted in Western style and understanding which gives me pause to take it all seriously.) I don’t have to know and understand how it all works because I know it does. And I confirmed (though I always sort of knew) that the way I did yoga wasn’t harming me at all. It was the pressure to be in the pose (or the exact phase of life, or job or event for that matter, if we want to get philosophical) that was what was causing the physical and mental pain.
I was and am fine the way I was and do move.
Now I have the daily practice I dreamt of for my entire adult life. Usually 10 minutes twice a day, right out of and right before bed. Some cat/cow, child’s pose, seated forward bends, hip stretches and some side bends lying down and I’m on my way into the day or into sleep.
At night, I listen more to what was tight over the day and needs attention. I’m more likely to “challenge” myself in the evening than in the morning.
Right now the answer to what is hurting more is everything. I went from no miles a week to 14 miles a week with no rest days. My feet, my calves and hamstrings are locking up and singing to me daily.
It’s taken all these decades and some missteps along the way but I now have a daily practice that I can’t imagine not doing. Mostly because I skipped 2 days over the holidays “bumping on log” (as I call it) and the tension in my body told me that I can’t skip. Sometimes things happen from the positive and sometimes it’s just to avoid the pain.
By the time this posts, I’ll be over halfway through the 2 miles a day walking outside challenge for January. Not surprisingly, I’m finding moving outside means moving inside and vice versa. More writing, more insight, more clarity while trying to fit in into the day.
But really that’s all I need for January – to support me through the winter. I can call it a success even now.