How ’bout just some plain, simple yoga?

I feel like I’ve had a flashback to my childhood, when my mom was an aerobics teacher and I’d spend my afternoons hanging out with her on those vibrating waist belts while she taught a class. Honestly, does shaking your waist really shake off the fat? Perhaps that’s what Florence and the Machine was singing about all along…

Anyway, in my nine years of yoga practice, I feel like more and more I’m surrounded by spin yoga, sculpt workouts, kettle bells (since when did 20th century macho men with curly mustaches and spandex set the trend?), you name it. We’ve gone from power yoga to old school aerobics and while I promise you I respect it, I’m just not sure it’s for me.

I love yoga. Hot, sweaty, aligning my chakras yoga because it’s not only a physical practice that keeps me healthy, it’s a form of therapy that’s allowed me to survive these last six plus years I’ve spent in a university. I have a regular craving for Hatha yoga, and enjoy feeding my hunger at least six days a week. Yet, I feel like yogis are beginning to be so outnumbered by spinners and cross fitters than what was once the headlining act is now the warm-up routine with a crowd of about 10.

I had recently partaken in a really motivating conversation with my studio manager who inspired a lot of truth in me. It’s okay to just do yoga; it doesn’t matter how outnumbered you feel. I think I get so lost in the crowd of fitness trainers sometimes that I forget there’s still a whole community of people out there who love yoga just as much as I do.

One of my favorite poems by Rumi says:

“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty 
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study 
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. 
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
 There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

For all of you yogis who, like me, have questioned whether the money is in the yoga or the fitness anymore, just remember what brought you to your mat in the first place. If your relationship with yoga is strong and surrounded by love, then stay true to it. I love my yoga practice and can only hope the inspiration it gives me can continue to shine through and encourage others.

Giulia is a yoga instructor at Qi Denver and an active participant in her yoga community. In November, she will be receiving her MSW, and plans to heal the world one asana at a time.

Editor: Anne Clendening

“Like” elephant yoga on Facebook