My Sunday night class at Kate Barnard Correctional Facility was pretty typical this week – a few new and old faces. One fairly new face, Z, was her usual bouncy self. She’s in her early 50s, doesn’t look it at all, and has a tendency to say, “gurrrrlll,” prior to pretty much every other word. Our class is her first yoga experience, and in just a few weeks, her muscle memory is already coming along impressively.

I’m sure this has a lot to do with her attitude. She was in pigeon yesterday, and I had to cue her into it more thoroughly than I normally do, so when she got to proper alignment, I said, “There! That’s perfect.”

Her response was also perfect.

“Well, shoot gurrl, it’s gonna hafta be.”

Exactly. It’s “gonna hafta” be perfect, because that’s all she can give right now. So, instead of looking to what she could do physically when she was younger, or saying that she couldn’t do the pose (things she used to mention regularly), she now understands that what she can do at this point in time is perfect.

That’s mindfulness. That’s presence. That’s acceptance…whether she meant it to be or not.