Helsinki Cathedral in Senate Square.

We Americans aren't known for our propensity to travel much overseas. While some of us have had the courage to venture across the border to Canada or Mexico, less than 5 percent of us travel overseas to Europe or beyond. 

That's crazy.

While on an individual basis, high travel costs can be a stumbling block, in the aggregate, we can't really blame the expense, since we're one of the world's most affluent societies. Hopefully it's not due to a lack of curiosity. Maybe it's just fear.

I love a good wingshot, and this one showing the Finnair logo doesn't disappoint.

I've seen the fear flag raised many times, and I've flown it myself. Yeah, it can be pretty intimidating to travel to a distant land where you might not speak the language or know the customs or rules. I can tell you horror stories about getting ripped off on my honeymoon in Barcelona--or about the exhausted panic that set in when I couldn't find my hotel on a rainy Sunday morning in the narrow, vacated streets of Copenhagen after flying all through the night.

But there's so much to be gained from traveling abroad: a fascination with another culture's food, history, language; a sense that we all come from somewhere; a delight in the commonalities despite our many differences; maybe even a renewed pride in your own culture. This all makes it worth examining the fear--being prudent and careful in your travel plans, of course, especially if you're a woman traveling alone--but choosing to go anyway.

When you fly to Scandinavia from the Midwest, you get to fly over Greenland!

So go ahead plan your first trip to Europe, and let me put in a plug for an easy first destination: Helsinki, Finland. Here are 5 reasons why.

1. English is spoken everywhere. This makes things easy for a first visit abroad, not that later you shouldn't explore non-English-speaking cultures. I just know how we Americans are (75% of us speak English-only): We're not well-versed in non-English verses. While the primary languages spoken in Finland are Finnish and Swedish, and you will see signs, menus, and brochures expressed in both languages in that order, Finns for the most part speak fluent English. They've been studying it since the second grade and consider it a necessity for doing business. Which is not to say that there aren't some quirky takes on English; we submit the below breakfast menu card as evidence.

2. The money thing is easy. Finland has adopted the Euro, and while the exchange rate favors the Euro over the dollar, it's a pretty straightforward currency. Not that you have to do much with it, as you can basically just use your credit or ATM card for everything anyway, just mind any foreign transaction fees, which are dictated by your bank/credit card company.

For just under 130 Euros, you can buy a reindeer pelt. I'm not advocating that you do that, just pointing it out.

3. Crime is minimal. Speaking of money and credit cards, mobile card readers are used universally across Helsinki, so there's no need to have your card taken out of your sight at any time. Waiters will bring the reader to your table for a swipe or chip insert. Beyond this, I have to say I felt about as safe as I've ever felt, walking around Helsinki alone. There didn't seem to be any areas with illegal drug sale activity or the criminal activity that can accompany illegal drug sales. (All street drugs are banned in Finland, including cannabis. I point this out for reference only and not as argument in favor of their approach.) Not that homelessness equates to crime, but just as a measure of the general city atmosphere, we saw only one panhandler during our weeklong visit, and he looked as if he might have had somewhere to sleep indoors at night. Locals tell me the treatment programs for drug addiction are robust and include long-term housing. (It's worth thinking about the Finnish model, and that's all I'll say about that.)

4. It's a terrifically clean city. The sidewalks in Helsinki practically gleam, the public restrooms are surprisingly spotless, and no one seems to litter. We saw little Cushman sidewalk cleaners motoring through like little dust Zambonis, so that's part of it, but I also think there's an industriousness in Finnish (and maybe all Scandinavian) culture that produces on the whole a society of non-littering folk who generally take "clean up after yourself" seriously. It's also possible that the employment structure supports this cultural cleanliness, as it doesn't seem that janitorial duties are borne by low-wage workers and/or undocumented illegals. At our hotel, the desk staff and bartenders took turns attending to the lobby "water closet," which they cleaned thoroughly and frequently. We noted that hotel staff tended to be seasoned employees who'd been in their positions for some time, earning livable wages and benefiting from Finland's strong social services, with free health care and retirement at age 64 guaranteed. Side note: They all spoke not just two but at least three languages, and one of them spoke five fluently.

A typical Helsinki street.

5. It's an easy place to get around. People are generally polite, helpful, congenial. Navigation in and around public spaces, from the Helsinki Airport and train station to the average restaurant, seems to have been designed with a user-friendliness we don't often see in the States. Indeed, arriving to a nightmarish O'Hare after nearly 10 hours in the air, I turned to my husband and said, "How is it that we navigated an airport in a foreign country with total ease, and here we are in our own country, and it feels like we've entered some third world madness?"

Helsinki Central Railway Station.

So what are you waiting for? You just don't know what you're missing if you don't go to Helsinki. I can't wait for my next trip to Finland myself, as we left so much still to be discovered. If you go, let me know!

This is first in a 5-part series for "Helsinki Week" here on the blog. Look for the next post, "Heading to Helsinki? Here's What You Need to Know" tomorrow.

This lopsided version of Shirshasana is about as good as it gets, folks.

Over the 25 years that I've practiced yoga, I've struggled with a great many things. I've struggled to harness my breath, and I've struggled to bring my mind back to the room when my thoughts have wandered. I've struggled mightily with my own ego. These are good challenges, the real work of every yoga practice. I have eventually felt a kind of victory or maybe the word is mastery over these challenges--if not permanently, then for gratifying moments. 

But there's one aspect of yoga that never ceased to be a struggle for me--until I wised up and decided to cease with the struggle altogether. That's inversions. 

I've never felt great about headstand and have almost always experienced pain in my neck after performing the pose. I struggled with this for many years. My critical mind kept after me: 'Why can't I do this? I should be able to do this.' After years of trying, the best I could do was a sort of lopsided headstand against the wall, as pictured above. Maybe you've had a similar experience.

For a long time, I thought maybe my inability to get to the impressive level of headstand done with seeming ease by my peers was psychological, as that was suggested to me by more than one teacher, like I had some kind of "block" or "fear" about it. This is quite an accusation, and I now know that no yoga teacher should ever suggest that to a student. It's likely just wrong, and even if it's right, who are you to make that diagnosis of someone else's yoga practice? Seriously, are you a yoga teacher or a therapist? 

It creates a kind of chicken-and-egg problem, too. A student feels reluctance about headstand, probably for good reasons, and is told she has a "block" or "fear" about the pose, which could actually create a block or fear that wasn't really there before!

Later I realized how wrong that assessment had been, and how it might have only served to give me yet another point of self-criticism that I didn't need. An odd thing happened when my husband and I took acroyoga classes together. I found out I had no trouble with inversions when supported on the floor by my base. As a flyer, I took to the upside-down poses with ease, even delight. Nope, not a single feeling of being "blocked" or "afraid" of inversions.

I love this pose!

Still, the critical mind likes to criticize, so I thought maybe my block or fear went away in acroyoga because I had the "support" of a base--in the photo above, my husband. Yeah, I found a way to beat myself up about it, like I can't do headstands "on my own," like I'm a weak person who needs "help."

Raise your hand if you talk to yourself like this, too. OK, now let's pledge not to do this anymore.

It wasn't until my teacher training this year that I figured out why I had always struggled with headstands on a mat. As it turns out, the real reason isn't psychological; it's anatomical! My humerus (upper arm) bones are relatively short compared to the span between my upper torso and the top of my head. What this means is that I simply cannot get my forearms under my head enough in a headstand to use them as support. You can see this in the first photo above: My upper arms don't extend far enough to give me clearance. The result is that a) my scapula have to come away in a destabilized position in order for me to get my arms flat to the floor and b) even with this unstable attempt to reach my forearms above my head, my neck still bears my full body weight.

Now some yogis can handle headstand even with short upper arm bones because they have muscle strength in their necks that allows them to take on their full body weight. But I'm not one of those people. Due to scoliosis and multiple car accidents, I really should not ask my cervical spine to bear my full body's weight.

It's liberating for me to gain this anatomical understanding of a limitation my body has known of intuitively for years. All credit to Paul Grilley and his amazing yoga anatomy DVD for this wisdom, not to mention my teacher Pam Schulte, who calls this kind of anatomical difference "the snowflake principle," meaning no two bodies are ever the same.

I'm not the only one rebelling from the headstand/handstand pressure we yogis feel. 

Here's Instagram's @hippiehealthfreak reacting against the expectation in the yoga world that teachers and students alike should be able to pop into these poses regardless of anatomical limitations. Forcing ourselves into these poses can do real damage. Here, it's wrist injury from handstand, which could come from anatomical differences in the rotation at the elbow, wrist, and shoulder joints as well as the compression angle of the elbow.

Note this doesn't mean inversions are off-limits to me--or anyone else with similar anatomical limitations--forever. Remember, I have no problem with them in acroyoga. When my shoulders are supported, as on my base's knees in the acro photo above, and my neck is simply hanging free, I feel great. 

Perhaps this is a good time to talk about another weird misperception in the world of yoga, and that's the one that causes an aversion to props. A lot of yogis won't use them, often because they've gone to a class where the teacher pooh-pooh'd them as a "crutch" or "training wheels," I guess. But that's not a logical way to look at props. They can literally make up the difference in an anatomical limitation, enabling you to do a pose that is otherwise off limits. In the acroyoga photo above, aren't my husband's legs, in effect, a prop?

What happens if we substitute a physical structure for the human prop in this instance? Well, you get something like the below. I haven't tried any of these products yet, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and recommendations. Would you use any of these? Have you? Which would you suggest I try?

1. Desire Life Yoga Headstand Bench

2. Sisyama Fitness Yoga Chair and Inversion Bench

3. The Original FeetUp Trainer

Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!

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A curious thing happened this spring here at the Dragon Flower Farm. All manner of daffodils sprouted up and rung their little bells to signal the change of season. It was curious because this is our second spring here at the farmhouse, and last year, we didn't get this kind of show. We think the latency might be because the year we bought our house, the developer who flipped it had basically razed the grounds down to nothing but short grass and nubs. Since bulbs won't flower again if you cut their leaves too early, they might have gone into a bit of shock from that defoliation and needed time to recover. The neighbors told us the yard used to be full of flowers every spring, and now we can see it for ourselves!

Daffodils are of course a classic harbinger of spring, and that's definitely true in St. Louis, where they grow in abundance. Living here again and experiencing the full four seasons in all their extremes has put me back into that mode of feeling a rare joy to see them as winter gives way to spring. To have them suddenly come up like crazy on my own property amped up the good feelings considerably.

The orange-tinged beaut pictured above is growing in huge clusters near the front stoop and in the back where we tore out the old chainlink fence in the fall. I'd never seen one like it, so I took to Instagram for some ID help from our followers. Jason Delaney of @phsdaffodils informed me it's a double daffodil called Narcissus 'Tahiti.' Hybridized by the great Irish daffodil breeder J. Lionel Richardson, 'Tahiti' was introduced in 1956 and is "one of the most awarded double daffodils in the garden and exhibition sectors," according to Delaney. So we have a prestigious daffodil growing right here on the farm.

Delaney's Insta feed will make any daff lover salivate, by the way. In addition to his own version of the 'Tahiti,' he posted THIS INCREDIBLE FREAK OF A FLOWER whose name 'Sunny Girlfriend' doesn't even begin to do it justice.

I. Want. That. Flower.

It's a really gorgeous spring here in the River City, so let me show you more from out and about. My brother Jason is over in Illinois (St. Louis is a "bi-state area," for those of you who don't know. We're on the Missouri side, but Illinois is just across the Mississippi River, so our culture hugs the riverbanks on either side.) He sent this pic from his own yard, the classic yellow daffodil.

They're audacious and a little surprising, the way they pop up after months of cold.

Jason and I also went hiking one afternoon recently, and we came across a cluster of daffodils that had naturalized in the middle of the woods. This was on a hiking trail on the grounds of the World Bird Sanctuary, which is worth a visit even if you can't manage the two-mile hike through the hills around it. These daffodils are pure white with just a small red rim on a yellow-centered corona. Gorgeous, no?

Here's one growing in shade behind our house, a smaller flower than Jason's but still in that classic style. There are more than 14,000 daffodil cultivars, so I don't have the ID on this one nailed down, but it could be Narcissus 'Akala.'

Narcissus 'Akala'?

This weekend, my husband and I met my sister and her family at The Butterfly House, where they were having a native plant sale. Speaking of natives, of course daffodils are not native to Missouri, but... what can I say? It's springtime, and they're beautiful. We have a quarter-acre to fill, and if there are already some daffodils (and other bulbs) taking up a few slivers, I think that's OK. We're not purists. Anyway, both my sister and I bought a few native plants, and I'll talk about those selections in a later post. But for now, the garden around the Butterfly House was in full spring glory, and that meant bulb flowers.

At The Butterfly House.

The subtle pastels put us into an Easter-y mood, especially with my nieces, aged 5 and 7, along with us. The five-year-old is all unicorns and ballet tutus, but the seven-year-old prefers a fire-breathing dragon, or Darth Vader if we're really getting into it. So pastels for one and bold primaries for the other.

Also at The Butterfly House.

The Butterfly House is part of the world-renowned Missouri Botanical Garden, and it shows in the grounds, which are a lovely frame for the butterflies within. If you visit St. Louis, you have to check out both these places.

Back to the scope of farms and yards... While we're amazed here to have a few clusters of 'Akala' and her showier cousin, 'Tahiti,' some of the people I know are being treated to vast swathes of daffodils on their land, such as this array in the suburban property of my friend the mystery writer Pam De Voe.

Photos courtesy Pam De Voe.

Says Pam of her yard:

Ours is not the typical suburban manicured backyard. We do keep the front yard neatly mowed, etc., for our community, but I like a more natural look, and we can get away with that in the back.

If you like mysteries, you should check out Pam's work. She has a new one out in her Ming Dynasty Series called No Way to Die, and this Easter weekend only, the ebook version will be 100 percent free at this link.

What's getting YOU going this spring? We never tire of flower shots, and we love to hear of folks' struggles and triumphs in the dirt. Feel free to share below.

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Our house turns 115 this year, and that's something to celebrate. Built in the year of the iconic St. Louis World's Fair, she's a solid, sturdy old gal with a few frills and flounces that tell you her history. Let me give you a tour.

The first thing you notice are the ball finials flanking the front porch. They're original to the house; in the above photo you can see them in relation to a hot air balloon, as I took it last fall during the Great Forest Park Balloon Race. The finials are definitely conversation-starters. Recently I was out front conducting spring yard cleanup and a passerby started talking to me about them as if she were continuing a conversation we'd left off previously. They're painted white to match the white vinyl siding, and let me speak on that topic for a moment. We hate the vinyl siding, though it's conveniently maintenance-free, and the porch itself is recycled plastic. Since we can't paint either of those, the big white house will remain so, but the wooden ball finials can be painted, and painted they shall be, along with the front door, which for now is brown.

Yeah, there's a lot of brown in the Dragon Flower Farmhouse. If this were the brown of wood, either left natural or stained, we wouldn't mind at all. But it's brown paint.

Someone--a previous owner or perhaps the contractor who flipped the place--streak-painted brown on top of a dark (and from the looks of it, ancient) wood stain. The overall effect isn't good.

We think this persistent brown paint situation is partly why we were able to get the house for a good deal in a neighborhood that has strongly appreciated since the real estate recovery. Since there are no windows on one whole side of the downstairs due to the close proximity to the neighboring four-family flat, and the hardwood floors are also a dark hue, the brown paint makes for a dim living room experience. 

It's everywhere on the first floor, except for the kitchen, thank goodness. Some of the previous reno upgrades were good choices, as kitchens really make or break a home.

A pic I snapped during our viewing tour, so not our decor, but the dark floor is a great contrast to the white here.

The other reasons we got a good deal? 1) We purchased in November, when the market starts to cool, 2) the basement showed signs of serious leaking, 3) there are train tracks across the street (we see this as a plus, honestly, but others might not), and 4) there's an apartment balcony overlooking the yard, which I've already discussed here a lot when talking about the big fence project.

Besides the potential for a good deal, which was really important to us when buying a house here in (late) middle age, the house captured us with her charm. Her issues could be solved. But the period details and overall great shape she was in despite her age drew us in. My husband said, "This feels like an old farmhouse," and that was it.

You already know about the outside victories--the fence and the French drain. We haven't had a lot of time for the inside, but honestly, we're lucky in that there's not that much to do, and we've already begun to tackle the brown problem. Here are before and afters of the front door and living room windows.

Before... And after!

Before...

And after! Yippee! Side note: The drapes are better, too, because they're no longer high-watering at the sill. But we hung them just a bit too low. I'd rather see them just "kiss" the floor.

Other than that, we've been enjoying decorating both generally and for the holidays. The old girl lends herself well to holiday decor, and even though that's not something I did very much during my long sojourn in the Pacific Northwest, I've picked it back up here in the Midwest and might have even gone a little bit berserk (at least by my standards) this past Christmas.

My decorating style is what you might call "eclectic." I love mixing old and new, and I love color. Apparently, I can never get enough turquoise, and orange is firmly in my wheelhouse. I once painted the entire exterior of my house orange, back when I lived in Tacoma. I never could figure out why people insisted on drab house paint when the drool-y grey skies made me ache for something more vibrant. The coup de gras was the sunburst pattern on the mid-century modern ranch home's garage door.

This might not be your cup of tea, but I still think it looks fab. And check out the thrift store lantern I repurposed with copper paint and a bamboo pole!

My husband Anthony is present in all of the home decorating decisions. He often comes up with spot-on solutions I can't see. I believe our styles have come together and melded into a new version that is very collaborative. One of my pet peeves is going into someone's home and seeing one half of the couple totally absent in the decorating presentation. Usually with hetero couples, that's the guy. It's not always her fault; dudes tend to check out when it comes to how to make a home. But I've also seen the male vibe completely squelched by too much lady vision. Maybe it's cool; he's got the man room and doesn't really care, but I think it's a little sad? I just prefer to engage with the person I'm planning a life with and really make a life together. My ex-husband (of the orange house era above) and I did this, too. He's an artist, and in his case it meant taking some colorful risks that didn't always work out, like that time we painted a ceiling slate grey and the walls marigold yellow. :) But that's OK. You gotta try, right?

My current evolution is considerably more restrained, as evidenced by this pop of orange in the stairwell.

Anthony and I are a much more mature (and, um, compatible) couple, and the Dragon Flower Farmhouse reflects that. He's encouraged my more historic, classic, antique-loving side, and I've opened him up to exciting color combinations and a general modern aesthetic. I love introducing a few more pieces with a fantasy feel to appeal to my beloved gamer geek, such as an antique brass candlestick shaped like a cobra or an original ink print of a raven queen. I won't insist on anything he totally vetoes, and he will defer to my judgment about design rules when they're important.

This pink-themed mantel in the photo below is one triumphant example, as it's built around a painting his mother, A. Grace, bequeathed us when she died. The '60s glass holding feathers is from a thrift store, and it bears Anthony's sun sign, Capricorn. There's the cobra candlestick I gave him for his birthday, which, second-hand, cost me less than $45, but I've seen it in a pair on eBay for $500. The green vase was an antique mall find and is signed by the sculptor, and the mounted print block on the far right I got for about $10 on clearance at World Market. The green bowl is a great example of Japanese kintsugi, a treasured gift from Anthony, and the small chest is his. We found the conch shell buried in our backyard, and the pink bloom grew in the front. While I'm styling the mantel according to design tips and principles, what's important to me is the meaning of each piece. 

Speaking of design rules... I feel it's only right to pay tribute to my rule muse, Emily Henderson. I've been fangirling this amazing designer for a few years now, and the bit of balance and good styling you do see in the photos above are to her credit. It's not that I was a total design dweeb before I discovered EHD, but good rules of thumb can really make a difference, explaining, for example, how to style a mantel, the proper way to hang curtains, or what height to place your art. I'm much more into color than Henderson is (she hates orange!), and I at first rejected her blue-trending aesthetic, but everything she says makes so much sense. When I make a point to follow her rules, I get great results. I've even started introducing more blue into my life and am considering painting the dining room some blue hue. It helps that it's one of Anthony's favorite colors.

I first came across the EHD blog through a search for images of "gold" used in a bedroom. I'd found a mint-condition mid-century modern laundry hamper in an amazing gold lamé-like material but didn't quite know how to make it work. Here's the EHD photo that stopped me in my tracks at the time.

Image credit, David Tsay for Emily Henderson.

I tried to use this as an inspiration on my much, much more limited budget. I think the biggest stumbling block was the lack of funds for those gorgeous gold silk drapes. Faux silk wouldn't work because it's unlined and too sheer, and the light-blocking compromise I made ended up looking more mustard-y than the gold I was shooting for. And tragically, the gold hamper that started the whole thing was a casualty in our big move from Washington state to Missouri in the fall of 2017. The best-laid plans... But that's OK. I still liked the room.

It was fun to play a bit with pattern, from the drapes to the artwork to the etchings on that lovely vintage 60s Italian lamp.

It's all good. I didn't want an exact copy of EHD's room anyway and had been using it mainly for inspiration, which is how I feel about the interior design world as a whole. I like to learn the rules and take inspiration from everywhere but then decide for myself what I can do, given my budget, and what I want to do for my own enjoyment.

UPDATE: I sent a draft of this piece to EHD, and team member Velinda Hellen (loved her tiny kitchen makeover) sent me a nice note back, saying:

Thanks so much for sharing images of your home. You've done a beautiful job.

I was surprised to get a reply at all, as I'm sure they receive like billions of emails a day, so that was a graceful, nice thing to have happened. I'm still blushing from the compliment!

We've rearranged rooms to accommodate a home office since I took these photos, so it's changed yet again. I'll show those later on. 

Thanks for sticking with us here as we plant a butt-root in Midwestern soil. We've both had pretty nomadic existences as adults, so we're looking forward to feelings of permanency and seeing the long-term fruits of our labors, both inside and outside.

Where does your design inspiration come from? Please share your favorite blogs, websites, books, and other sources below! We're always looking for more.

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Zander's amazing Pashchima Namaskarasana

Whoa?! My stepson, Zander, must have been practicing yoga since birth to have such an advanced Reverse Prayer Pose, right? He should totally be an Instagram yogi star. #yogapose #yogafit #yogabody #yogafitness #yogaaddict #yogagram #yogaholic

Aaaaactually, no. The only yoga Zander's done in his 19 years were a handful of acroyoga classes his dad and I dragged him to years ago. (His favorite pose was one where his father carried him around like a backpack.)

Zander is what you call "double-jointed." That's honestly a bit of a misnomer, though, as there's no 'second' joint. A better way to describe his structure is to say he is hypermobile, which simply means the range of motion in his elbows and shoulders extends far past the average person's. About 10 to 25 percent of the population exhibits such hypermobility.

Hypermobility is a huge advantage in advanced yoga poses, as it can enable a beginner like Zander to pop right into a visually stunning pose like Reverse Prayer, without years of practice and the stretching and strength-building that come with it. If you're hypermobile, think of it as a gift. 

But if you aren't, and most of us simply are not, don't compare yourself to those who are. Try to do Reverse Prayer yourself, and maybe your hands don't touch together, or it's best for you to grab your elbows behind your back instead, as trying to force your arms and shoulders into what Zander's got going on leads to pain.

Here's my take on the same pose. I've been practicing for 25 years and have done Reverse Prayer probably thousands of times. At first, I could only reach behind my back far enough to grab my elbows. Eventually, I was able to touch the fingers together, and then finally, more of the hand. But this is about as good as it will ever get for me. Because of limited range of motion in my shoulders and relatively short humerus (upper arm) bones, there's simply no way I will ever get my hands up between my shoulder blades as Zander was able to perfect on day one.

And that's OK. The important takeaway here is that Zander didn't do anything to earn his stunning Pashchima Namaskarasana. He was born with hypermobile joints. So why would I hold him up as an example by which to judge my own pose? Ditto a lot of the yogis in photos you see that show some impossible pretzel-twisting feat. Their poses may take your breath away, but they might be impossible for your body's structure, no matter how dedicated a yogi you are. 

Here's another way to look at this whole thing.

Jalandhara Bandha, or as I like to call it, Double-Chin Pose.

Compression of my cervical vertebrae prohibits me from closing the throat bandha any more than this. I simply can't touch my chin all the way to my chest. No amount of yoga will ever change this. It's how I was born.

Compression is pretty much bone hitting bone, and it can't be altered through yoga or any other exercise. In the photo above, it's the compression of my vertebrae that won't permit flexion any further for me to get my chin to my chest. 

In the other direction, however, I have much more range of motion, slightly more than my husband, Anthony.

If I were warmed up, I could probably go a bit further, but here you can see I have a wide range backward in my cervical spine without even bending the rest of my spine.

So just because you have a limitation in one area doesn't mean you have it in all areas. Quite the contrary! I have a really wide range of motion in my femur (upper leg)/hip socket joint, allowing me to get my femur parallel to the floor in Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I), now that I've also built up the strength to support it. I can also touch my chest to the floor in Seated Angle Pose, at least most days, when I'm fully warmed up. Some of my fellow yoga teacher training classmates will never be able to do this, and that has nothing to do with their effort, dedication, or desire.

This whole bone structure difference thing isn't limited to yoga, either. It has bearing on other exercises as well. My friend Allyson Miller, who loves herself a gym workout, says:

Recently I came to understand that my long thighs/femurs are the reason I struggle to do squats in a narrow stance. I found a video where a professional trainer explained it, and I felt a lot better. For years I thought I was just clumsy, but certain exercises are borderline impossible for me. I have to have a wider stance to maintain good form.

She shared with me this article from the Glute Guy on how femur length and other structural factors affect squat mechanics and this one from the Barbell Physio on how to adapt the squat technique to better fit different body types.

I hope these examples will help you understand your own body and its built-in advantages and limitations. If you're interested in learning more, I highly recommend the Anatomy for Yoga DVD by Paul Grilley. We're studying it in my yoga teacher training, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's blowing my mind. If you teach yoga, YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS VIDEO. 

Before I sign off here, let me remind you not to compare yourself unfavorably (or even favorably, for that matter) to anyone else, whether Insta yogi star or the person on the mat next to you in class. Chances are they've got some bone-length or other I-was-born-this-way advantage you don't have, and vice-versa. I leave you with these side-by-side images; remember, Zander on the left has less than a year of yoga experience, and I've been practicing regularly for 25.

Zander's natural-born gift vs. my quarter-century of practice.    

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