I got to Puerto Galera before the long Easter weekend and, as soon as I saw my friends, still on my yoga high, I announced that I was going to take it easy on the partying. I told them that the lives of my last three surviving brains cells – Moe, Larry, and Curly – depended on it. And, with that said, I proceeded to torture and maim the poor Three Stooges in my head.

By the time I got back to Manila, five days later, I was near collapse. I resembled the Walking Dead and my body clung desperately to any sleep it could get.

The next day, bleary-eyed and half human, I was back at yoga.

“Good morning,” the peppy instructor chirped. “Today, we are going to continue with our balancing series…” Fantastic. I was possibly the only one there pretending to be alive, toxins oozing from every pore, devoid of any semblance of balance within and without.

There was a lot of shaking, tipping over and gnashing of teeth.

I still did two classes that day. And the next day. And the next.

I think we’ve already established that I have zero expectations of myself and am not really deterred by failure. The only thing that stops me from doing anything is a loss of interest.

When I signed up for yoga at White Space last month, it was with the intention of doing Ashtanga Yoga so that I could re-familiarize myself with the practice, to make it easier to follow a video when I return to Siargao. Except that White Space only does Mysore-style Ashtanga, which means that it isn’t for slackers like me who can’t even remember what month or year it is. They only do a Led Class on the last Thursday of the month, so I caught the one in March and the one in April.

In between, I signed up for Yoga Basics, Hatha Yoga, and Vinyasa Yoga Chill (- I didn’t dare try Vinyasa Yoga Plus), none of which I had done before which, in the end, worked out perfectly for me because they turned out to be the kind of gentle yoga that I needed.

Even with Moe, Larry, and Curly in intensive care, this week, I did an assisted forearm stand, an assisted headstand, and a one-legged chaturanga , stuff I never thought I’d be able to do before.

I also appreciated the different approaches each teacher had to different poses and, for the first time, understood the need for a vinyasa and a downward dog.

When I was in India last year, one of the students taking the class with me was a yoga instructor. She said she had been diagnosed with scoliosis and, because she did not want to be a victim to her condition, she chose to fight it by learning about the body, through massage and yoga. She stood very tall and straight and it was only later, when I had a chance to work on her body, that I noticed the defect in her spine and body symmetry. Every time I get “stuck” in a pose, I remember her and draw inspiration from her strength.

My body is wrong in so many ways. My spine is crooked so that one of my ribs sticks out while the other one curves in. My knees are so bony that I can’t apply any weight on them, my legs are curved so that I cannot hold certain positions for very long, and my elbows and wrists just aren’t right. So every inch that I gain in a yoga pose, in a forward bend or the rotation of the torso, is a victory over my body and its limitations. I want to surpass my physical boundaries so that, in the end, there won’t be anything I cannot do.

I’ve already signed up a yoga instructor to work with me when I get back to Siargao next week. Although I won’t be able to practice twice a day, three to four times a week of intense one-on-one training is better than nothing. I’m still doubtful about my capacity to cultivate a self-practice, but it is on my mind.