If at first you don’t succeed… (find the right class for you)
When most people think of yoga, I expect they think of the physical postures (or asanas). They might picture a young, flexible woman in expensive exercise clothes in downward facing dog or triangle pose. I suspect I had this at the back of my mind when I first tried yoga back in the mid 2000s at my local gym. The class I joined was one for beginners, the teacher was older, and I didn’t find the postures to be a good work out. Because the class didn’t meet my expectations, I found it boring and dismissed it as a form of exercise that wasn’t right for me. I didn’t try yoga again for another 5 years or so.
It wasn’t until a friend of mine convinced me to try a Bikram hot yoga class with her that I found the physical challenge I was looking for from both the postures and the heat of the room. Instead of being put off by yoga, I found myself drawn into the challenge and hooked on the competitive nature of Bikram - with its full wall of mirrors and the teacher’s instructions to watch the other students in the room as examples of how to do the postures. This was high-powered, Type A personality yoga which encouraged us to push our bodies beyond our limits and “lock the knee, lock the knee, LOCK THE KNEE!”
However, now, after many years of practice, I have come to believe that none of this is really what makes yoga yoga.
It was just what I personally needed at that point in my life. And it was just the very beginning of my yoga journey…
The essence of yoga for me
The shift in my understanding of yoga has been a gradual process, but even during my early Bikram years I began to appreciate the positive impact that yoga was having on my mental health and emotional regulation. After a few weeks of consistent practice, I became interested in the interplay between mindfulness, meditation and breath control (called pranayama in yoga). I began to spend the 10 minutes before the start of class sat on my mat in gentle mindfulness, and I tried to always spend a full 15 minutes in savasana at the end of the class doing my best to meditate.
In this way, the yoga poses, breath control, mindfulness (being present in the here and now) and meditation (actively directing concentration and clearing the mind) have become intrinsically linked for me, to the point where now I don’t think I could tell you where the boundaries between these practices lie.
To me yoga is all of these things: asana (postures), mindful co-ordination of breath and movement, and meditation.
Often, the effect of these practices is to make us reflect. For some, they may be inspired to learn more about yogic philosophies and traditions. Some people might argue that these things are the real yoga (and I very much enjoy learning about these things and have respect for both the ancient and modern wisdoms of yoga).
However, I also believe that the truths and morals of yoga philosophy and tradition can be found within every one of us, and that we can recognise and understand them through these three practices alone: asana, mindful co-ordination of breath and movement, and meditation. That is, just by doing yoga.
Just do yoga, any yoga
So what does this mean for our friend the young, flexible woman in expensive exercise clothes in downward facing dog? Is she really doing yoga?
Absolutely she is.
The point is that she is practising. Who am I to judge her level of mindfulness or her morals? Who are we to say that her practice isn’t exactly what she needs it to be for her right now, or where it will take her in the future?
And my younger, competitive self in her first Bikram class, trying desperately to touch her forehead to her knee? She is doing yoga too, as she will soon discover.
But I think we need to recognise – and more importantly, shout about – the fact that this is not the only way to do yoga. If you are an older person with mobility issues, a person living with disabilities, injury or ill health, if you are neurodivergent, or can’t afford the £80 yoga pants and £70 yoga mat, you can still do yoga.
The octogenarian man doing chair yoga in his trousers and a t-shirt is also doing yoga. The twenty-something rugby player with a rotator cuff injury doing asanas with his personal trainer is also doing yoga. The child with ADHD following a Cosmic Kids Yoga YouTube video followed by belly breathing to help with emotional regulation is also doing yoga. The woman in her fifties sitting in black cotton leggings and a baggy jumper focusing on her breathing is also doing yoga.
Yoga is not the glossy images we see on social media and athleisure brand marketing campaigns. If that’s what draws you to yoga, if you find joy in the expensive clothing and equipment, then I believe you should use those things without embarrassment. But just know that that part isn’t the yoga. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something and doing a huge disservice to yoga itself.
Yoga for all
You do not have to agree with me that yoga is asana (no matter what that looks like or how much it is modified), mindful co-ordination of breath and movement, and meditation. What yoga means to you is just as valid as what it means to me, and this will probably change throughout years of practice - this is as it should be.
What is inarguable, in my opinion, is that yoga is for everyone.
This doesn’t mean that every class must cater to everybody or provide the same offer. But it does mean that everyone should be able to find a class and a teacher who meets their needs. Perhaps if I had known this back in the mid 2000s, I wouldn’t have been so dismissive of yoga as a practice. I might have just said to myself that this wasn’t the class for me and tried a different teacher without waiting quite so long.
All these years later, I am very grateful to my friend for persuading me to give yoga another try.
So, what does yoga mean to you? You’ll have to do it to find out.
