Many years ago (many? errr it was long enough!), I accompanied some of the people I knew to a photo shoot for a book on yoga.

They needed some photos for back bends and asked me if I could do the modelling. I said sure! I thought I had a flexible back, (cue narrator voice, “she did not have that flexible a back“) no worries, what do you need. I thought I was helping. Helping who?

Can you guess how this ends?

I got into wheel pose, fresh, not very warmed up as practice was already a few hours ago. All fine, do this do that, ok we got the pictures. Man did I feel twingey that night! And I never had back problems so it was pretty alarming.

Pride comes before a fall but also before a backbend before you are properly warmed up. A little wordy but it gets the message across.

To this day, I don’t even know if the book ended up getting published and if the photos were really used.

I’ve learned since that jumping to attention and trying to people please is not the wisest move. You can pause and work up to it.

Something for me to laugh about.

Have you had this type of lesson?