It’s normal to compare ourselves to others in a yoga class, to become frustrated that you can’t get into the same shape as your neighbour, or to force ourselves into shapes that are not right for our body at that moment. It’s also normal to feel proud when we’ve got ourselves into a pose we have been unable to do before. In yoga, we want to avoid this judgement, instead focusing on the journey to the pose rather then the end result. It’s important to empty the mind of all expectations of what the pose should look or feel like. Instead of thinking, ‘what does this pose look like?’, think, ‘how does this pose feel for me?’ Don’t force yourself in what you think the pose should look like -let the body guide you and accept the pose the body finds as right for you at that moment.
‘To be proud of our yoga positions is bad taste. To be able to do the poses “successfully” means nothing, nothing at all. Yoga should not become a circus. It must be done as a refuge from life… [Yoga] should instead help us to purify the body and the mind, bringing us back to that blessed state of receptivity from which we can start to learn.’ Vanda Scaravelli, Awakening the Spine’
Image from here