Who came up with this?

The Eagle Pose...As someone who is miserably inflexible, even compared to most westerners, this one is sheer torture...

Here is how you go about it...

1. Stand with the feet together and the arms by your sides.
2. Draw the left foot upward bending the knee and wrap the left foot around your right leg as you rest the back of your left thigh on the right thigh.
3. Cross your arms at the elbows, left over right.
4. Join the palms of your hands together keeping the fingers pointed upward.
5. Inhale and hold the posture for the duration of the inhaled breath.
6. Exhale and return to the tada-asana.
7. Repeat the posture on the opposite side, wrapping the right leg over the left and the right arm over left.

To start with...I cannot balance on one leg. So I guess all troubles begin there. Wait, no...even before...the "Cross your arms at the elbows, left over right " gets me too...I can barely cross them...
ok...so once you've kinda-sorta got that, you bend a little, swing one of your legs high over the other and...wrap that leg over and behind...all the while balanced on one leg....!! what craziness is this?!
I mean who were these people who decided to invent all this? What levels of flexibility did they assume men could have...? I can barely sit cross-legged on the floor...sigh...