Sun Salutation

I pretty much agree with what's already been said. I started yoga for mental health and to improve my flexibility after years of frustration as an inflexible dancer. My hope is that at 35 I'll be more flexible than I was at 20--but I also don't want to get to the really extreme poses. I'm sure those can be done safely with a good teacher checking your alignment, efc., and I admit sometimes they're tempting to reach for as an eventual party trick, but of course there are dangers. I think a lot of the problem here is rushing. In most yoga download classes, for example, in standing forward bend the instructor isn't clear that you shouldn't bend your back. The instinct is to reeeeach for the toes, but I learned from Cool Yoga Tricks after someone here recced it that you should keep your back straight until you can stretch all the way forward. When I do the pose you'd have no idea that I'm stretching from looking at me, but I've commited to a very gradual forward trajectory. Similarly, I know that I CAN get into plow, but there's no reason to at this point.