When Yoga Isn’t Practical or Helpful

It’s good to remember that the yoga we know today is not the same yoga of 2500 or 5000 years ago. As a matter of fact, way back then, there were only about 5-7 positions / asanas that were specifically used to set yourself up for hours upon hours of meditation. It was never about exercise or flexibility, the two big (misguided) reasons why most people do yoga today.

How Yoga Became What It Is Today

The yoga we know today stems from the British occupation of India in the mid 1800s into the early 1900s when the army was using calisthenics to strengthen and physically train the soldiers. The British took what they learned from the yogis and mushed it together with their own training practices. On the flip side, many yoga masters started to incorporate some of these calisthenic movements into yoga, creating their own “brand” so to speak.  Vinyassa, Bikram, Kundalini, Iyengar, Ashtanga, etc. are all schools of yoga that formed as teachers added their own experiences and flair to the ancient practice of yoga. And finally, Jane Fonda, decked out in her leotards, began teaching yoga-ish movements in the 1980’s in America and sold it as fitness and exercise. So most of the yoga movements (and Pilates exercises too) that we do today are basically the blended techniques developed over time.

While a lot of the various forms of yoga are indeed helpful, there's a lot about modern yoga that isn't very practical or helpful to the Western human body.

Most of yoga originated in India and from a cultural and biological perspective, the students doing yoga there were young, thin, naturally flexible boys seeking spiritual enlightenment. It was not a practice open to women or “commoners”.  And the people of India certainly weren’t sitting in a chair most of the day, hunched over a computer, working.  

The Western human body is built vastly different from the young, flexible Indian youth. All of the super bendy positions that you often see in a yoga class were created for a body shape, size, and structure that rarely exists now in America. Obesity is an ongoing plague. Lower back pain is the number one ailment and a leading cause of opioid addiction. Then there are athletes that after many years of bodily stress, are having shoulder surgery, and knee and hip replacements. And let’s not forget that a woman’s anatomy and pelvic region is designed differently than male anatomy. So to expect our bodies to stretch, twist, and bend into shapes designed for Gumby-like forms is completely unrealistic and impractical. All this is doing is adding stress to our already weakened muscles and joints, which just leads to more pain and instability.

Ego-Driven Yoga Creates Pain

Most people today gravitate to yoga because they want to be flexible, fit, and so that their butt and abs look good. On the flip side, more people are also using yoga to relieve stress, anxiety, and depression – which is a good thing. Yoga has been scientifically proven to help with all kinds of mental and emotional issues, so I am not saying to throw the baby out with the bath water here. However, a lot of today’s yoga is ego driven. Just look at all the Instagram photos of slim, toned yogis in handstands, headstands, or who have their legs wrapped around the back of their neck, sending messages that this is what a “good” yogi can do.

There was a point in my yoga journey where I too thought I was such an “advanced” student because I could do headstand in the middle of the room without wall support and could almost get my stomach to my thighs in a forward fold. However, it was also a time in my life where I was suffering from horrible knee and sciatica pain and felt weaker in my body than ever before despite my many years of yoga practice.

Is the yoga you are doing actually helping you to achieve your goals?

Therefore, we really need to start thinking about WHY we are doing yoga, and what our goals are. We also need to consider what is going on with our body,  and learn how we are anatomically designed, how our muscles actually work, and what our natural range of motion actually is.

If your goal is to prove to others how flexible and awesome of a yogi you are, then continue doing what you are doing. However, if you are looking for more practical and helpful solutions from yoga (such as mental, emotional, and/or physical pain relief) then I suggest you start to be very selective about what forms of yoga you choose to engage in, and consider what poses are / are not going to work with your body. I will let you in on a secret… There is ALWAYS an alternative movement / adjustment that you can make when in a yoga class and the group is doing a pose that you know is going to cause you pain days later.

I am not suggesting that we go back to doing yoga the way that it was performed 5000 years ago. That certainly isn't practical either as times are very, very different and most of us don’t have five hours in our day to perform asana and meditate under a tree. While it’s a nice goal, most of us aren’t going to yoga class to become enlightened beings. Rather, we are seeking some kind of relief from something more pressing at the moment. Therefore, it makes the most sense that we use current knowledge about the human body, anatomical design, the skeletal structure, and muscle function to make yoga-based decisions that will support our bodies rather than weaken them.

If you have bulging or herniated discs in your back and are allowing gravity to pull your spine down into a rounded forward fold while trying to pull yourself down further by holding on to your toes, you are just exacerbating the problem. If you have hip pain or a full replacement, going to a Yin class and dumping into pigeon pose for five minutes is doing more harm than good. If you have lower back or sciatica pain, resting in child’s pose may feel momentarily good, but ultimately, it’s shutting down all the major stabilizing muscles of your back.

I'm not saying here that certain forms of yoga are bad, but you need to be smart about what kind of yoga you are doing. Just like there is no one-size-fits-all diet, there is no one-size-fits-all yoga practice.

Why Choose AYAMA™ Yoga

The good news is that you can choose what kind of yoga and yoga postures to do that will support your body and leave the rest out. This is what I did when I was looking for a solution to my pain, of which led me to becoming a certified AYAMA™ (Applied Yoga Anatomy & Muscle Activation) yoga teacher. This form of yoga taught me a great deal about anatomy, what muscle tightness really means, the detriments of stretching, how to relieve various types of pain in the body, and how to create more stability and a greater range of motion so that I can do the activities I love.

Come join me for an AYAMA class! Feel the difference for yourself.