Not Flexible Enough for Yoga?

There is no such thing as "not flexible enough for yoga." Young or old, healthy or disabled, one need not be in any kind of physical shape to enjoy yoga's benefits, which can include increased flexibility, strength, and mental clarity, improved posture, and increased regularity of one's sleep and digestive cycles.

Yoga is not gymnastics, and is not a competition. The physical poses (asanas) are used to assess the condition of one's own body, from which point one moves incrementally and intelligently to increase mobility and strength.

Yoga is not a religion. While the physical poses and breathing exercises (asana and pranayama) have many benefits, at bottom they are two prongs of an eight-pronged system by which one might reduce the fluctuations of her/his consciousness, thus calming the mind and increasing one's ability to focus on her/his priorities.

Approached correctly, yoga offers a challenging and dynamic path toward physical and mental well-being. Yoga is an excellent antidote to the wear-and-tear on skeletal/muscular systems that can be caused by traditional methods of cardiovascular and weight-training. And while one might only lift so much weight, so many times, in so many ways, or run so far, so fast, the mastery of each asana, or series of asanas, leads to a new series of more challenging postures.