Yoga & Flexibility
One of the most common things I hear when I tell people I practice yoga is, “I’m not flexible enough to do yoga.” Guess what? You don’t have to be flexible to practice yoga! This is such a big misconception.
If your goal really is to become more flexible, that’s exactly why you should start a consistent yoga practice. If you were thinking about starting a running routine, you wouldn’t say, “I can’t run 2 miles, so I can’t run.” You’d start out running a short distance and build up from there. Yoga and flexibility work the same way. As you come to the practice more and more, your body begins to release built-up stress and tension, allowing your muscles to open and become more flexible.
Yin yoga is an excellent place to start when it comes to building flexibility. The long, deep holds allow your body to move into the deeper fascia, stretching and increasing flexibility over time. Adding props to your practice allows you to start where you are and makes just about any pose accessible to all levels.
When I first started practicing yin yoga, I was not flexible… AT ALL! In order to do a forward fold such as Caterpillar, I found myself reaching for a bolster and two blocks, building up a support tower to rest my head on—and if you’re picturing someone struggling to fold forward more than a few inches, that was me! Leaning back in Saddle pose wasn’t even on the radar. I started out sitting on a block and eventually was able to lean back onto a bolster with a very thick pillow stacked on top. After about six months of practice, I was able to recline fully onto the floor, and it is now one of my favorite poses. People often ask me, “Have you always been this flexible?” My response is always laughter followed by, “No—it’s the yin!”
Of course, it doesn’t matter if you are ever able to lean all the way back or touch your nose to your knee in a forward fold. The point is that if you desire flexibility, you’ll gain it by coming to your mat and sticking with the practice.
It’s important to note that while yoga provides many physical benefits—flexibility being one of them—it is not the main purpose of coming to the mat. Yoga teaches you to pay attention to your body in a whole new way. I used to hear the phrase “just listen to your body,” and it never made much sense to me because, prior to yoga, I had never paid attention in that manner. Practicing the stillness of yin taught me how to hear what my body was saying—sometimes it was, “I can go a little deeper here,” and sometimes it was, “We need to back off in this one.”
Beyond the body, yoga settles your mind and allows you to move inward through all the layers that cover your true self. As you travel through those layers, the practice becomes a way of remembering who you truly are without all the outside labels. Every time you step onto the mat, it’s a new opportunity to let that inner light shine.
So, bottom line—you don’t need to be flexible to start practicing yoga. You just need to be open to discovering your true self, and the flexibility will come along as a bonus!