5 Misconceptions of Yoga
#1 Misconception – One of the main reasons to do yoga is to be more flexible.
There is nothing written in any yoga Sutra or the ancient texts anywhere that mentions flexibility as an aspiration for doing yoga. I hate to break it to you, but you don’t really care about flexibility anyway.
What you DO want is:
To find relief from muscle tightness.
To be able to bend down and pick your keys up off the floor without throwing your back out.
To not have sciatic, hip, shoulder or lower back pain.
To have a decent range of motion so that you can garden, pick up your toddler, play golf, run around with your grandchildren, get something off a higher grocery store shelf, and turn and grab something from the back seat of the car… as examples.
Stretching to become more flexible won’t get you any of the above. It actually weakens already compromised muscular systems and makes you more susceptible to injury and pain. Think of a wet noodle. How on earth can that hold anything up?
If people say they’re doing yoga to be more flexible, and you ask why, many don’t know, say they want to be “healthier,” or they give one of the answers above (which is not about flexibility, rather range of motion).
If you feel strong and stable in your body, and do all those things above without pain, who cares if you can touch your toes with straight legs or wrap your foot around your neck?
#2 – Yoga is a form of cardio exercise.
Sure, you get a good workout in a general Power Whatever yoga class. Add a lot of movement, difficult poses, jumping, and gyrate to anything and you can make it cardio.
Sometimes in my classes we do a yogi march and that gets the blood pumping a bit. But that’s not what yoga is. That’s how Westerners modified yoga so it fit the mental framework of said culture, which is hustle, do more, burn calories, and get the heart rate up.
We can thank Jane Fonda for bringing yoga and the tighty-tights apparel to much of the mainstream population. We have to remember, though, her schtick was physical fitness and aerobics. And that’s how she presented it.
Historically, yoga was practiced so people could prepare their bodies to sit in meditation for a long time with the ultimate goal of achieving enlightenment.
That brings me to #3 - Most yoga poses aren’t really “yoga” poses.
The 100 yoga poses and variations out there? Most are taken from other forms of fitness and then created by students of the students of the masters to bring something “new” to the table or to create their own brand.
Yoga originated with about 10 positions max. There is nothing wrong with having a wide variety of new, more modern poses. But I caution you… many can put the hurt on you because they were created by naturally flexible, young, Eastern Indian, male yogis.
Sorry, but the average American woman is NOT built like that. So aspiring to get in a pose like them is super unrealistic and not physically possible in most cases. It’s better to know the handful of poses that will maximize results for you than trying to get fancy.
Which brings me to #4 - Alignment is everything.
There are a couple reasons why you DO want proper alignment in position.
One is so that you are reaping the benefits of doing the pose. For example, Trikonasana (triangle) is a side bending pose. However, many are so fixed on getting their hands down to their ankle (to show how awesome flexible they are) that they make it a forward fold. Um, no longer side bending…
Second, you don’t want to injure yourself. In some movements popular to Power and Vinyasa flow classes like Chaturanga Dandasana, it can be very easy to hurt yourself when your muscles aren’t activated, and your shoulders aren’t in proper alignment.
There are schools of yoga that are all about alignment, Iyengar and Ashtanga to name a few. And it’s taught that mimicking the form of the great masters is the utmost goal.
However, what is MOST important is having proper alignment within your natural range of motion so that you are benefitting from the pose and not risking injury. And circling back to #1, proper alignment has nothing to do with greater flexibility. You can actually be more in alignment in Trikonasana with your hand only resting at your knee versus trying to get it down to your ankle.
#5 - Yoga is just asana.
A lot of what makes yoga, yoga, has been removed by Westerners out of the fear of it seeming weird, or offending somebody’s religious beliefs. Because then who would come to class? So the mantra, meditation, chanting, and even some of the breathwork was removed to make it more “user-friendly“. Yoga became a movement-only class.
But dumbing down yoga has taken out some very essential elements and tools for overall wellness and healing. The breath helps to increase energy levels and distribute nutrients to your cells. The mantra and chanting help to steady the mind and promote greater focus and self-awareness. Meditation brings us closer to who we truly are.
I once had a potential student ask me if I could share in detail how my yoga classes are run because she doesn’t want a class that’s “spiritual”. She said it might go against her beliefs. I told her that yoga is spiritual (not religious) and any yoga class that does not have any of the “spiritual” elements in it, is honestly just a general exercise class. Therefore, she could simply go to Zumba or aerobics and not have to worry about it. The look I got was priceless! Omg… how I just LOVE these conversations!
Join me for a full yoga class that won’t put the hurt on you, that will teach you YOUR proper alignment, and that will create strength and stability so you have the range of motion you need to live your life. CLICK HERE to view the schedule.