Three Things That Don’t Matter When You’re Doing Some Yoga
You’ve bought yourself a mat, chosen a class, and arrived at a studio. You’ve been told that everyone is welcome in the class, even beginners, you’ve heard that it doesn’t matter whether or not you can touch your toes to do some yoga. But then you all start moving through the class and you can’t help but notice what everyone else is doing, how much ‘better’ they are than you, how much easier they seem to find this, how they all seem to know what is going on. It’s intimidating and demoralising, you think you’ll never be able to get into yoga and you may as well not bother.
Sound familiar? I don’t think anyone is immune from this experience. But it doesn’t have to be like this.
When I chat with my students who are new to yoga I often hear the same sets of worries, comparisons and self-critiques. I remind my students that firstly these feelings are completely normal and understandable, and secondly that most of the things that seem to matter a huge amount when we’re new to yoga, really don’t matter at all. For part four of my series on How to Start Doing Yoga I’m going to unpack the three things that really don’t matter to a yoga practice and one thing that does.
It doesn’t matter what anybody else in the room is doing
We practice yoga in groups for community, not competition. I think it is a natural instinct to try and assess the room and work out who is the ‘best’, who is the most flexible, who is the strongest, and then place ourselves in that hierarchy. This is not helpful, and it’s really not what yoga is about. Moving past this instinct really comes down to understanding two things; each body is different and will experience yoga differently, and you cannot tell how someone is feeling, how focused they are, or how a movement feels for them just by looking at them. It has been one of the unexpected benefits of teaching yoga online for the last few months, that students have stopped comparing themselves to one another because they can’t see each other. This is an extreme option though, and I still think in the long run practicing together as a group is best, but it has certainly given my students a chance to practice without the comparison monkey on their shoulders.
As a practical tip for moving past from comparisonitis, I suggest that you try to keep your blinkers on in class at least for the first few sessions. Try not to let your gaze wander around the room and instead focus on what you are doing. Your teacher will often give you a Drishti or direction for your gaze with a pose, try to keep to this and it will help you stay focused on your own practice. Secondly, feel free to chat to other students before and after class, as you get to know them you will start to hear about the things they’re working through and perhaps struggling with, it will give you a more well-rounded insight into your yogi-peers beyond what they look like in downward dog. [Hint: you may be surprised by what the most bendy/strong/confident person is actually working through].
2. It doesn’t matter whether you can do any of the poses precisely
There can be a lot of precision in a yoga class. Cues can become long and complex at times and this may be quite overwhelming. Most yoga classes are mixed-level, so a good teacher will provide lots of options and detailed cues to ensure there is a level for each person to work at. It’s worth remembering that these cues are not all aimed at you, especially if you are new to yoga. It’s very important to listen to the cues, but then try not to get too worked up about achieving every pose precisely.
I recently did a training session with Adam Hocke who had an excellent way to breakdown the process of developing a physical yoga practice:
Make the shape
Refine the shape
Personalise the shape
Embody the shape
Learning poses starts very loosely, we’re just looking to make the shapes with our bodies, roughly. It’s only when we’re starting to get comfortable with these shapes that we get into refining the details and working out how to personalise the shape for our bodies (some personalisation may also occur at the first stage, but this is about more subtle modifications as we get to know the pose better). It is only after we’ve worked through all these stages that we’re going to feel able to ‘embody’ the shape, to feel into it and understand it. This process is a slow one, it’s ok just to focus on making the shapes to begin with.
3. It doesn’t matter how flexible or strong you are
I hear it all the time “I could never do yoga, I’m not flexible enough”. This is not true. It is true that if you practice yoga it is likely that your body will become more flexible and stronger. It is also the case that flexibility is not something we are born with or without, it is not a fixed state for life, we all will go through periods of more and less flexibility in our lives.
I came to yoga from dance and I am also hypermobile, which means that some of my joints are too flexible. As a result I found yoga easy to pick up early on because I could bend myself into the poses easily. However, I have learned the hard way that I was cheating. I was relying on my flexibility to make shapes, but I didn’t have any of the strength required to hold them. I’ve spent years trying to build strength to complement my flexibility and undo the bad habits from my early practice. I tell you this to explain that starting yoga as a flexible person really isn’t ideal, even though it can seem like that’s the entry requirement. It would have been much better for me to build my strength and flexibility together in balance with each other from day one with yoga.
The other thing to note is that once you are able to do a pose (e.g. splits for flexibility or headstand for strength) you stop learning from it. That’s why we need advanced poses, to allow advanced practitioners to continue challenging themselves and learning from their practice and learning from their bodies. So achieving a pose is not the end goal, it can actually feel anticlimactic, because the best bit is the process. When you come up against poses that are too difficult for you, try to reframe it so that instead of being demoralised that you have so much to work on, be happy that you have so much to gain in your practice (more to gain than that super bendy pretzel up at the front).
These are my top three things that seem to matter hugely to new yogis but don’t. However I’ve thought of plenty more while writing this so let’s add in a quick fire round of other things that don’t really matter but might feel like they do when you start doing yoga:
It doesn’t matter:
What you wear or what anyone else is wearing
If you understand all the words spoken in class
If you don’t want to chant when others do
If you don’t want to close your eyes when others do
If you find relaxation near impossible at the end, give it time this will probably become your favourite part of the class
If you are the only person in the room who looks like you
If you don’t like the class/teacher/style of yoga, just try a different one next time
It is your practice. The teacher is there as a guide, the other students are there for solidarity and community. No one is there to judge you. Do what feels right to you. Which brings us onto the one thing that really does matter in your yoga practice:
It matters how you feel when you practice yoga
This is the only thing that really matters. It’s more important than whether you can achieve certain poses or not, how calm or zen or focused you are, whether you’re doing sweaty ashtanga or slow-paced yin. What really matters is that you are able to check in with your mind and body and understand how they feel.
This is not necessarily something that will come easily. So I suggest you focus first on how your body feels as you make the shapes. When you make each shape think to yourself, how does this feel? does anything hurt? (if yes, then reduce the intensity of the pose), what part of my body feels good doing this? Is there any tension or discomfort? Gradually these questions will become automatic and you will become more and more subtly tuned into your body. You can do the same thing with your thoughts and emotions as you practice, notice when you feel focused or distracted, whether you are feeling calm or agitated, does a certain pose make you feel angry or annoyed? The idea isn’t to change these feelings or judge them, but just to notice them. The more you practice and the more you check in with how your mind and body are feeling, the better you will be able to understand yourself and see how things change from one day to the next. Really this is what yoga is about. Yoga means connection. I believe the practice is all about building a mind-body connection and gaining self-awareness and understanding. This is so much more valuable than being the most flexible person in the room. Trust me.