On of my favorite instructions from the Y ( for the kids in lessons, learning backstroke) was "Tuck your butt up! Like you're holding in a poop!" It works!

See, I have a problem doing yoga when the instructor says stuff like "broaden your collarbone." Seriously, I really have a yoga DVD where the instructor says that. And for years I've done that routine and gotten to that point and thought, "What the actual FUCK? Do you eventually achieve some state of Yogic Enlightenedness wherein you can make your BONES GROW?" Because otherwise, the collarbones can't actually broaden. They physically goddamn can't. Not the BONES.

I mentioned it one night to my SiL, who said, "That just means to squeeze your shoulderblades together." And I almost had an embolism, because -- WHY NOT JUST SAY THAT?!?

Which is when I started to suspect I was possibly somewhere on the spectrum. Seriously. I just took that "collarbones" thing so literally for YEARS and it made me so mad. It never occurred to me to NOT interpret it literally. Because...why not just SAY what you literally mean? Why not say "squeeze your shoulderblades together?" Is that considered tacky in yoga circles?

I'm really a very simple girl, when it comes down to it, apparently. A little *too* simple, it seems.

Spain! That's awesome, sara.

Becoming bendy is actually easier than starting bendy and becoming strong.

Damn. Because I'm already weirdly bendy, but I have the approximate strength of a wet noodle.

Well, I have teachers who will say things like, "lengthen your bones" and I'm like, whatever. Ignoring you. If there can be cafeteria catholicism, there can be cafeteria yoga.

(Also, I'd think broaden collarbones is less sqeeze shoulders and more of trying to isometerically/simultaneously push the shoulder tops down and the under the armpits, but on the torso muscles to move out. I'm describing it badly).

I think I have too much belly for that.

I have way more belly than you and I can do it! So you could too. It's not a belly problem, it's a shoulder issue.

(Also, I'd think broaden collarbones is less sqeeze shoulders and more of trying to isometerically/simultaneously push the shoulder tops down and the under the armpits, but on the torso muscles to move out. I'm describing it badly).

That makes me cry. (Okay, not really. But honestly, I read that and my brain goes fuzzy. I think I have a physical learning disability. Which is a real thing. I cannot being to enumerate the ways in which other people just *do* physical things, or how they can just *learn* a new physical thing in 2 minutes and then do it without having to break it down into its smallest components and then practice the components at very very VERY slow speed and then put them together and eventually get back to normal speed.)

I am totally going to try bakasana with blocks, kat! Thank you!!

My big quad muscles, which get bigger when I'm riding a ton in the spring, definitely get in the way of my flexibility.

break it down into its smallest components and then practice the components at very very VERY slow speed and then put them together and eventually get back to normal speed

Actually some of the best yoga classes I've had have been where the teacher does exactly this for common poses.

Thanks a lot, poopyhead who scraped my rental car while I'm on work travel.

I don't think it will be a big problem, but still.

BOO POOPYHEADED SCRAPER

Hey, are we talking about the show Revenge anywhere? I just watched the last episode, and man is that some messed up shit. LOVE IT

Yay Spain! I loved my half a day in Barcelona.

See, I have a problem doing yoga when the instructor says stuff like "broaden your collarbone." Seriously, I really have a yoga DVD where the instructor says that. And for years I've done that routine and gotten to that point and thought, "What the actual FUCK? Do you eventually achieve some state of Yogic Enlightenedness wherein you can make your BONES GROW?" Because otherwise, the collarbones can't actually broaden. They physically goddamn can't. Not the BONES.

God, seriously! I've had several instructors tell me to breathe through my eyeballs, which definitely kills any zen I might be maintaining.

I'm pretty flexible, when the fat isn't getting in the way. My problem is usually around balance.

I must have hidden all the right people on Facebook, or it know me well, because the only political comments on my feed were a campaign poster featuring Bruce Campbell and George Takei for 2012 and a joke about Joe Biden looking sleepy.

break it down into its smallest components and then practice the components at very very VERY slow speed and then put them together and eventually get back to normal speed

I used to think I was clumsy until I took a very traditional karate class where we practiced the simplest moves a couple hundred times in a row. It turns out that I'm a slow kinetic learner. I need to give up on consciously processing the commands and learn them by moving in the pattern enough times that the non-verbal part of my mind picks it up.