Will I ever be able to do Side Crow?

In life,  we all have our nemesis..    The black spy had the white spy.     Sherlock Holmes had Professor Moriarty.      I have Side Crow.

Side Crow requires you to balance your body lengthwise across  your bent arms.  It requires arm strength,  balance and a good degree of flexibility in both your shoulders and hips.    I had never been able to do it and thus avoided it in my regular practice and never gave it much of a chance.  

After a discussion with my Yogi friend Larry about my struggles with this pose,  I decided to spend concerted time working on it to see if I could really do it.    After watching a few videos and taking a few head plants  (you can't catch the gnarly air without taking a few face plants dude) and spending a few weeks working on the pose ,  I was able to finally succeed in holding for a few seconds and now can hold for 5 to 10 breaths (with some difficulty).  It is not easy. 

What is important about this success to me, is that fact that I have again gone back to focusing on working on challenge poses.    For a long time, my home practice has consisted of following pretty much the same two or three sequences and was as much of a workout as a yoga practice.   I now take one practice day a week,  shorten the flow part and then work on something that I struggle with.    In this way I am improving my general crow pose,  working on firefly  (now that would be a miracle) and finally got to do a successful  (though with much room for improvement) side crow.  

Little gains happen every day in a Yoga practice and sometimes big ones happen with some perseverance and a lot of effort.

Namaste.