Yoga should not be painful. One of my favorite quotes is from B.K. Iyengar's Light of Life.
"Pain is your Guru". If you feel pain you are doing something you should not be doing. Your alignment is off, too much strain is being put on your X, your pushing well beyond your body's capabilities, etc. Pain is the warning that what you are trying to do or have just done is not a good thing.
We are a competitive species. We compare to others, to ourselves, to who we wish we were. It can be a motivation to perform; challenging yourself to push yourself onward. I once took a yoga course with multiple family members. My dad is not flexible; his hamstrings are so tight that sitting on the ground he can't straighten his legs. He had never taken a yoga class before but his mind was set that he was not going to step back to plank, he was going to jump. No building up, not even fully understanding the mechanics and weight shifts. He jumped back... broke his big toe and lost the nail. My dad did not acknowledge that something might be wrong. It was just a sharp pain followed by throbbing and he spent the next 90 minutes following along with the class. I have done something similar. I once broke a big toe during warm-up for a roller derby bout. I skating in almost every jam (we were short players that night). If it had been a practice or a scrimmage I would have taken off my skate and started icing.
But yoga is not a full contact sport. It is a philosophy, a mode of living. You could be doing asana practices for exercise alone and not interested in the other 7 limbs. Nothing wrong with that. Bending, rotating, engaging, isolating different parts of your body in new ways as you work your way into new positions, it can be tempting to push your body further than your capabilities. We say that yoga is not about being a contortionist but we all love those photos of people getting their body into these "advance" poses. There will always be those "I would love to be able to do that" moments.
It is not always about flexibility. When I was in high school I had the back flexibility to do a variety of poses but did not have the strength to keep myself in them so I would collapse further, past where I was meant to be and the possibility of injury was very real. Yoga is unity- mind, body, spirit. Yoga is balance. Strength and flexibility. Self-awareness and desire to push further.
Pain- it is not something that should not enter your practice but it is a great teacher.
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