A comment that my meditation teacher Martin Aylward once made has always stuck with me.

He said there’s no point in being good at meditation - it has no value, it’s useless. Who wants to be ‘good at meditation’?

He went on to explain that what is valuable is the effect that meditation has on your life while you’re not meditating...

That if you look back on the trajectory of your life since you began your meditation practice, then the value is usually obvious and apparent...even if you feel that your mind is a jumbled mess when you sit on your meditation cushion.

I feel similarly about yoga...that there’s no point in being ‘good at yoga’ - or that it’s even possible to be so (at least in a way that can be externally validated).

One of the world’s most celebrated free climbers, Dean Potter (now sadly deceased), once said ‘I don’t climb to sit on top of rocks’.

In the same way, we don’t practice yoga to make shapes with our body...but to cultivate the state of stillness and presence that the time spent making shapes allows.

Ok, you might become more proficient at making these shapes over time - and you might even choose to make other somewhat more challenging shapes.

But to a large extent what we do matters much less than our intention for what we do and how we approach it.

Because its not in the execution of postures that the value of the practice lies.

The value lies in the time spent connecting with our bodies and breath and simply noticing how our experience of the practice unfolds.

Becoming more aware of our patterns of thought and behaviour and in so doing, loosening the control they have over us.

These are benefits that will last long beyond any physical effects of the practice have passed.

And they are benefits that we can continue to develop away from the time we spend on the mat...once we start to groove those channels of awareness then our ‘mindfulness muscles’ continue to grow across the course of our everyday lives.

This is why the notion of ‘advanced practice’ has nothing to do with our technical ability to take poses, but with our ability to stay present, to act skilfully and to extend compassion to ourselves and others.

I’ll leave you with one more quote. During a workshop one of my favourite teachers, David Swenson, said (in his inimitable style):

‘If you stick your leg behind your head but are mean to the first person you meet after practice you’re not a yogi, you’re just a stretchy a***hole.’ :)

It was very funny but he was making a serious point.

So which are you?