I like listening to my body when I do yoga. I don't always do it very well. The listening that is. I am never interested in doing yoga well. That is the wrong approach.

I have found that the best way to do yoga is to have a minimum of instruction on the posture. Just the idea of what it is. Then I try to listen to my body and watch myself in my mind as my body walks me through the asana. I particularly like it when my body does the pose crooked or inelegantly. That gets me to listen and pay attention.

I remember when I was 13 I would do yoga on the lawn of the Aurobindo ashram in Baroda, India. I would try a new pose with no effort whatsoever and no intention to get it right. I would play with the pose for weeks, trying to listen. One day my body would speak to me very clearly. And I would listen. Outwardly I probably looked just as crooked and silly as I did before. But inwardly I had listened.

After all these many years yoga to me is still the act of listening to my body.