Last night I threw in a Half Moon pose at the end of a flow with my Power Yoga class. And I could tell everyone was going into “oh no, this is a hard pose and I’m going to really suck at it”. And I looked around at the class and there were 9 professional women who are busy achiever types, most have kids and spouses. They’re beautiful, talented and wonderful. And they’re pretty much used to doing everything well.

And it really struck me how a challenging pose like Half Moon can be a great opportunity to beat ourselves up or be playful. It can be an opportunity to demand perfection and be cheesed off at anything less. Or it can be an open field to just see what happens.

It’s interesting because we always want to *do* the complete pose. But if we’re trying to find ease in each pose, if we’re trying to find a place of not striving and efforting, then that means being ok with not doing the pose 100%. It means being OK with not looking like the model in Yoga Journal, or like your teacher or like the picture in your head.

Sometimes you have to hack the pose. So rather than telling the class how to do the pose perfectly, I suggested the steps to getting into to. I suggested putting the limbs in position first, turning the torso open next and straightening the standing leg last. And I suggested they stay at any of those places just to hang out.