Experienced Yoga practitioners often feel discouraged when a naturally gifted dancer, gymnast, or martial artist, performs an advanced asana with little effort. As I have mentioned before, there are people with elongated joint capsules and their extraordinary range of motion is a gift. You and I may have to work at it, but the many rewards of Yoga practice are still there.
Yoga consists of many facets, and Asanas, are just one of the many parts of Yoga. Many students who have extraordinary flexibility admit they struggle with another part of Yoga – such as: The student who just can’t calm down to meditate, balancing in asanas, Pranayama, Yogic Philosophy, and so on.
Unfortunately, I have seen many promising Yoga practitioners quit practicing Yoga, due to a competitive mind-set. Within their own minds – they were in competition with every student in the class and, possibly, their Yoga teacher too.
Remember that Yoga means “union.” In simple terms, we can say union of mind, body, and spirit. There are many more explanations about union, but that could be a separate article. There are also many branches of Yoga and, therefore,...