Life Is Not Meant to Be So Hard When You know What Drives You!
Instead, it becomes efficiently productive on and off the mat. You can enjoy any kind of yoga you like even power yoga, yet you are safe from promoting injuries and you get the best out of your practice.

Overstretched back and compressed neck
Overdoing can be easy to change when it is not intertwined with cultural and emotional attachments to doing things the hard way. And when intertwined, this underlying motivation interferes with your best practice of yoga and your general well-being on and off the mat.
That is why overdoing is not as clear-cut as it sounds!
1) You may choose to overdo because you see it as pushing your limits in a good way. When practicing yoga, you may even consider pain something to ignore to build mental strength and to better your practice. This way of practicing and teaching comes from an old interpretation of the yoga teachings that have come to you from teachers who learned from teachers who jived with extreme asceticism. However, many new and experienced teachers are totally letting go of this approach to yoga, others are in the process of letting it go. Buddha himself had to overcome that way of thinking before he could get to enlightenment. Where are you at on that journey?
2) You may strain without wanting to but you do not know how to not strain in a given pose. That often comes from the way poses are still currently cued to you in your yoga classes or yoga books. Any encouragement to willfully “engage” specific muscles or body parts is overdoing because it is interfering with the natural movement design of your whole-body. Instead, learn to let your whole-body intelligence handle the muscle engagement of your whole-body for you within each pose or movement you chose to do. And till you learn, stay present to your whole-body whatever the pose you are in, it can help already. Nature works as a whole, not in parts.
3) You may strain your body without even being aware that you are doing so due to “unconscious habits” you have brought from your daily life onto the mat. The thing is that your mind may have pre-conceived ideas around what it means to “lengthen the spine” for instance. Mainly, your habitual way has come to feel more natural than the natural way. So as you are straining, it “feels right” to your habit even though it may not be natural or beneficial for your body at all.
And these 3 ways of overdoing are often combined or overlapping in various ways.

Over-arched back and over-tensing of the quads.
Most likely, excess tension brought you to your first yoga class. And am with you, it does feel good in the moment to stretch the tension with various yoga poses. Or it feels good to strain some if you associate straining with positive effort to gain strength.

Overstretched back, locked hip joints sockets, over-tensed calves and compressed neck!
The truth is that if you are straining, you are not letting your postural mechanism do its job. And it is designed to handle your best balance, coordination and posture with no strain and with vitality. Instead, you may compensate for it by creating unnecessary muscle tension or by overstretching your muscles to the point you meddle with your muscle tone just because it “feels good” in the moment.
When you learn to let your whole-body intelligence be in the driver seat, you can regain accurate perception of your “feelings” and your yoga practice can be most efficient without straining. How do you do that?
The Body Intelligence Activation Process activates your postural mechanism so you receive reliable guidance from your whole-body intelligence 24/7. Each time you consciously activate it, and progressively more so over time, your feelings become increasingly reliable again, your balance, coordination and posture improve organically in the process. Anyone can do this and you can too!
Want to explore this further and learn more about this amazing natural skill that can be regained? Read more of the posts on this blog-site, sign up to my free email seminar or join my free live interactive webinar series which will be offered a few more times before I start my 90 Day Live Interactive Program in May.
1) Free Email Seminar 2) Free Webinar 3) 90 Day B.I.A. Process Program.
Cecile Raynor has been teaching the Alexander Technique for over 25 years out of which came her B.I.A. Process to assist yogis enhance their practice bypassing the intellect. She is also a Thai Yoga Massage Therapist and a Reiki Practitioner. Faculty at Akasha Yoga Teacher Training, she runs a 12 months Mastermind for Yoga Teachers with a Vision, and a 90 Day Virtual Program for trainees, new teachers and committed yoga practitioners interested in using their body more efficiently on and off the mat. She is currently writing a book on her personal and professional experience to be published this year with BlissLife Press, San Diego California.