One of my teachers describes the ultimate expression of a pose to his mostly beginning students with the phrase: in a perfect yoga world. For instance he might say: in a perfect yoga world, your head would meet your foot.

On good days in a perfect yoga world helps me see how even with my head meeting my foot there is always a deeper place to travel to in a pose. But on bad days I can’t help but think: in a perfect yoga world I wouldn’t even be in this class.