There’s no end to the numerous ways in which one can be humbled. It is often in my yoga classes that this happens, very often unconsciously. This was the case when, last Friday, for the first time in my five years of teaching, a blind student showed up.

Obviously there is nothing odd about such a situation. It was, however, the first time I had personally experienced it, which takes the idea from being an idea into being reality. Add to this that I do not always use the “traditional” names for some postures, pulling movements from other disciplines and utilizing them in my class. While I’m not a teacher who spends the whole time demoing postures or creating esoteric sequences, there are always those intense moments in the movements that require that extra something.

There’s always that moment of enlightenment during these sorts of times, and it came for me roughly halfway through class. We were going through a series of challenging balancing poses, using movements that cannot be found in Light on Yoga, when I gazed over at my new student. She was a bit confused, yes, but more importantly I noticed her reaction to the uncertainty: she was smiling. In fact, for the entire hour, she was having the best time, which unfortunately I cannot always say about others. And if there’s any one reason that I practice yoga myself, it is because I enjoy it.

Now, I have to tell you, over my half-decade of teaching I’ve seen a fair amount of very flexible, very fit people walk into the studio, and spend half the time playing with their toes, looking at the clock, or outside the door. I’ve had students pick up their phones in the middle of class and check their texts — I even had a student pick up once and start talking. Mostly, I’ve had people who allow their frustration and anxiety to override all other emotions, so that they appear like being in a yoga class is the last place in the world they wanted to be. And maybe it was.

There’s an old mythological motif that the hero begins his or her journey through an injury — that very ancient idea that freedom is in the wound. For many of us — myself included, as an ample amount of hospital time during youth began my quest of healing that led to yoga — this is true. Yet it doesn’t have to be. Focus, presence, attention, ekagrata — these are the higher states of yoga, not doing a perfect handstand or split pose. Being flexible and strong is one thing; being present, quite another.

And that’s what the new student (re)taught me last week. Nothing mind shattering or evolutionary; just a constant reminder to remain aware of my surroundings at all times. Being in a posture — in an asana, or the art of posturing in life — requires a complicit and enduring attention to detail. Wishing you were somewhere else or somebody different, that perpetual landslide of “what ifs” that could constantly change your life is only if, does not serve anyone. Wiping the mirror and seeing what’s in front of you, and, most of all, being present with the situation — that is the stuff of yoga.