For most of us being asked to touch our toes is a bit like asking us whether we can run the Himalayas blindfolded….

But being able to touch our toes is one of the big mythical yoga requirements. And that’s just the precursor to “I’m not flexible enough to do yoga!”

Yoga has become so mainstream that anytime you turn a corner there’s a yoga studio, someone doing yoga in the park or an upmarket shop selling extremely expensive leggings. Googling yoga returns thousands of pictures of people in poses that only a tiny portion of the population will ever be able to achieve. Making us believe that unless we can achieve these shapes we cannot do yoga.

This is one of the biggest Myths we are faced with today: that yoga is the creation of shapes. It is in fact about learning discipline for the mind.

There are so many ways to do this and only one of these is the Asana (pose) based yoga that we see everyone from celebrities to our dodgy neighbour doing. However, Asana is the easiest way for us to start this journey and there are a couple of key things to keep in mind:

• It’s not about creating the most bendy-est of shapes, it’s about your personal growth
• It’s not how you compare to other people, or even yourself, but about learning to understand and trust your body and mind and finding today’s edge
• It’s about your own journey
• It’s about accepting who, where and what you are today. Knowing that what has past is in the past and what is still to come is in the future and that all we can do is live to the best of our abilities in the now

Being able to take accept these philosophies is the fist step. The second is finding the courage to attend a class. And remember:

“All who breathe can practice yoga”