But here's the thing—I did it again Tuesday. And Wednesday. Not because I suddenly loved it, but because I'd already cleared the space and it seemed wasteful not to use it. That's how I trick myself into things: make it slightly more inconvenient to quit than to continue.

By Friday I noticed something strange. The video instructor did the same routine every time, obviously, but my experience of it kept changing. Poses that were impossible Monday were merely difficult by Friday. My downward dog still looked like a disaster, but it was a slightly more stable disaster.

Sarah caught me one morning. She was heading out early and saw me through the window—tangled in what was supposed to be warrior two, Miso sleeping on my rug. She texted me later: "Nice practice this morning!" with a little heart emoji. I wrote back: "If by practice you mean flailing while my cat naps, then yes."

She replied: "That's what practice looks like. Nobody starts graceful."

Yoga in your living room doesn't look like the Instagram version. It looks like you in old sweatpants, losing your balance, trying again. —  Rachel Kim

Three weeks in, I upgraded to an actual yoga mat—found one at a thrift store for eight dollars, slightly used but perfectly functional. I tried a different video, harder poses. Failed at most of them. Kept going anyway.

Here's what I learned from those first awkward weeks: yoga at home is weird. You have no teacher correcting your form, no other students to compare yourself to, no accountability except what you manufacture for yourself. It's just you and your stiff hamstrings and your judgmental cat, trying to remember which foot goes forward in warrior one.

But there's also freedom in that. Nobody's watching when you modify a pose because it hurts. Nobody cares if you skip the hard parts and just lie in child's pose for three minutes. Nobody judges when you pause the video to check your phone or get water or convince your cat that no, this is not a new game we're playing.

I'm not good at yoga. Two months in, I'm still not flexible. I still can't do a headstand or bind my hands behind my back or balance in crow pose without immediately toppling over. My practice is messy and inconsistent and nothing like the serene Instagram posts that probably inspired me to start in the first place.

But most mornings now, I roll out my eight-dollar thrift store mat. I play a video or just make up my own stretches. I wobble through some poses. Miso supervises, occasionally participates by sitting on the mat exactly where I need to put my hand. And for fifteen or twenty minutes, I'm practicing something. Not perfecting it. Not mastering it. Just practicing.

That's the real beginner's guide, I think: start awkward, stay awkward for a while, keep showing up anyway. Your downward dog will always be a work in progress. Your cat will always judge you. And that's fine. That's yoga too—the imperfect, ungraceful, very human kind that happens in Victorian living rooms on old rugs with cats underfoot.