It is quite amazing how powerful our attitude and belief can influence the success or failure of a yoga posture (or anything in life, for that matter). I hear a lot of times (particularly when it comes to arm balances, like headstand or crow posture) that he or she is “not strong” enough. While this may be true in some cases, most of the time it is not the lack of strength but the lack of conviction and understanding of the mechanics of the body. The mechanics can be learned but the conviction has to come from you. To that regard, I can recall a workshop with an exceptional yoga teacher: He was teaching us a particular difficult posture where we had to get our elbows to the floor while bending backwards over a yoga chair. We were all struggling and silently cursing him and thinking “Elbows to the floor? No way!” And then he said “And if you can’t get your elbows to the floor – do it anyhow!”. And guess what happened? We all dropped our elbows to the floor! I’m not saying that it was easy but we did it and it felt like a shadow of failure, tiredness and low confidence had lifted from us.
So, next time the little voice in your head or some self-proclaimed expert tells you that “It can’t be done!”, smile – and do it anyhow!
