How to relax about being tight

“I can’t  do yoga – I’m not flexible!”

I hear this complaint a lot from would-be hot yoga students. I try to explain that hot yoga is the antidote to inflexibiity. In fact, the tighter you are the more quickly you may notice the before-and-after of your hot yoga body.

But hot yoga is more than skin deep. 

While you're busy twisting and turning and stretching, yoga is expanding you on many other levels, loosening your mind, for example

Is there such a thing as too tight to do hot yoga? 

If you believe you’re inflexible,  you are likely to think so. Becuase a tight mind is even more painful. So loosen up your old ideas about yourself and come in closer...

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Who's that wimp in hot yoga class?

There you are, smashing through Standing Bow Pulling.

The mirror confirms how rockin' you are today - finally, these asanas are easy.

This hot yoga is a snap. Your Cobra pose is hissing. Your Standing Stick is straight on. Even your Camel doesn't make you want to puke.

Meanwhile, that poor guy next to you is wheezing and gasping on his knees, trying his best to breathe in and out through the nose. And, hey, isn't that your teacher in the back in secret Savasana?

Guess who's the wimp in hot yoga class today? You are.

The key to hot yoga is to try 100% correctly, folllowing the teacher's detailed instructions for every pose. A Whatever-It-Takes attitude is the yoga of this yoga. And that may be exactly why that guy beside you is down for the count for now; he just gave it up at hot yoga class. while you're sitting - or standing pretty. To the untrained eye, it may just look like he's the one who wimped out, but...

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You're good at hot yoga? Too bad.

At Riverflow, we love it when you're bad at hot yoga.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

I don't know who wrote this poem but isn't it a relief to hear that you don't have to be good? It really speaks to the child in me who still remembers how GOOD it felt to write on the walls with crayons and flush toy trucks down the toilet (I had a very lively childhood).

Aren't you tired of trying to be good at hot yoga?

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