A student once asked me whether a quadriplegic could do chaturanga. She meant it as a trap — obviously not, so stop being precious about “functional” versions and admit some poses require certain bodies. I said: it depends on what chaturanga is for. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Chaturanga is that low push-up position. Four limbs, chest hovering above the floor, elbows at ninety degrees. Everyone knows what chaturanga looks like. And that’s exactly the problem. We’ve confused the pose with the picture of the pose. Chaturanga creates specific joint actions: shoulder extension, elbow flexion, scapular protraction, trunk stabilization. That’s what it’s for. The aesthetic — the specific arrangement of limbs we call chaturanga — is one body’s solution to creating…

“Listen to your body.” If I had a dollar for every time someone said this in a yoga class without explaining how, I could fund a retreat center. The problem isn’t the sentiment. Your body does have things to say. The problem is the advice assumes your body broadcasts in real time, in plain language, and that you already have the vocabulary to understand it. Most people don’t. What they experience is blur: something hurts, something doesn’t, something feels okay. That’s not body literacy. That’s just having a body. Body literacy is learnable. But it requires pattern recognition, not tuning in. Not a single session. Many sessions. Here’s what’s happening under the surface. Your body compensates constantly. When one part can’t do something, other parts…