I have been an avid yoga practitioner for three years now, going so far as to attend and complete teacher training.

I teach, as a passionate hobby, and I like to pass on what I have learned. While on this journey it is a very simple and sad thing to say too many yogis and yoginis whine way too much!

These are individuals who claim to live the yogic life, of course, if that means you practice hot yoga every day in your new Lululemon.

Yoga blogs are filled with article after article of:

What you shouldn’t do in a yoga class.
What a yoga class should be like.
What annoys them in a yoga class.
What not to wear to a yoga class.
What they hate about yoga teachers. Hate—can you believe it?
How you shouldn’t breathe loud in a yoga class.

As the old saying goes, opinions are like ass holes…

The very first statement to make, Yoga is about you! Even if the person next to you is talking like they are at a rock concert, or the guy next to you sounds like the biggest bellows in the world, or there is a  guy/gal who decided to wear shorts three sizes too small, it should not matter to you. Your attention should be on yourself, and what you are doing.

It should be looked at as a part of your practice to remove all external stimuli during your practice and completely focus on what you are doing, regardless of anything going on around you. I challenge you to not think one bad thought during your next class and focus on you.

That is when your practice is yours, when you can be in the middle of chaos, but your practice is spot on, which is one of the goals every yogi should be striving to achieve—more so than any inversion or hand balancing.

Teacher hating—I cannot even believe this one has to be stated. A yoga practice is a personal choice and the teacher you go to is your choice, even if it is a total inconvenience. If the only class you can make is on that Monday with that instructor that seems to rub you wrong, do not blame them, blame yourself for allowing your own ego to shatter your practice. Or better yet, make your effort to find another teacher.

The teacher-student relationship is developed over time and becomes very strong. If you do not like the instructor you are going to then branch out. If you are also talking trash about your instructor, you need to go back to Yoga 101 as you are missing some key components of the entire yoga philosophy!

Yoga in the West is not yoga in the East; an American yogi who goes to a Yoga class in India would lose their mind. Westerners go to yoga (the majority, not going to say all), to look good in Lululemon. There are cold hard facts that have to be faced: yoga is now a multi-billion dollar a year industry, and as any multi-billion dollar industry, money rules it. As long as people are willing to pay for the fluff, the path of yoga in the West is going to follow that and the true meaning gets a little more lost in that fluff.

It is up to you as the individual to decide where you want to go with your practice. If it is purely physical, that is fine. I am neither condemning the physical only aspect nor fighting for the spiritual aspect, I personally enjoy both. The true nature of yoga is not a better head stand, handstand or crane pose; it is about finding peace within yourself and finding your higher power, through the journey. That is not something that is taught in Western yoga often, or if it is it’s touched on lightly for fear of turning people away by being too “religious.”

Being a better human is simply being a better human, nothing more, nothing less. That is a side of yoga we need to fight for more. That should be your goal on top of all the funky poses.

 

 

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Editor: Travis May

Photo: Wiki Commons