This is our eighth Sangha Session, which are community dialogues about interesting, yoga-related and sometimes personal topics. They take place every second week. This week, our Sangha question is:
“What bothers you about yoga?”
From the clothes to the classes to the crazy commercialization, tell us your stories!
Yoga itself, when done with the spirit it was intended, is a wonderful, healing part of my life that I love to share with others. However, it seems like many I speak with that also do yoga seem to be missing some piece of it. They go about it as simply a thing for the body, not the mind. So I suppose this is less something that bothers me about yoga itself, and more something that bothers me about the mainstream culture around it. Not to mention that I hate that good mats and gear always tend to be so expensive! I’m just trying to live my life in a healthier way and on a higher level of spirituality, and it’s so frustrating that commercialism doesn’t approach it that way because spirituality “doesn’t sell”.
I agree with Morgan, not much about yoga itself bothers me. I find it a very supportive and nurturing part of my life.
I can only respond based on my experience but here’s an example of what does bother me about yoga: When I first started my yoga journey, I did an Astanga intensive for beginners. I lasted about 4 months because each day I would get pushed into poses far beyond my flexibility by one of the teachers. Each day I’d have to say “Ow, stop please, stop that hurts”. I could not believe that there was no respect for the gentle journey that yoga can be; it only seemed to be about pushing me into Instagram-worthy poses. For me, that wasn’t actually why I was in class! It just became another way in which I felt I had to “keep up” and push, push, push myself. That’s the exact opposite of why I wanted to learn yoga in the first place. So I stopped going to classes and had a yoga hiatus for about 6 years. Now I’m older and wiser, I’ve picked up my practice again thanks to DYWM and I place real importance on finding classes/yoga schools that resonate with my needs 
Studio classes with a teacher that practices at the same time and rarely if ever corrects students. Often there can be 30 or more people in a class. I got hurt several months ago as a total newbie and was not corrected in poses. Triangle pose was the culprit I believe, for this gal with very tight ligaments. I am an athlete and my nature was to push myself. I am thankful I recovered, but sorry I had to learn the hard way. I went to live studio classes to avoid this. I am so grateful for this site and all the teachers here. I feel wonderful after each class and the instruction is so professional and full of quality I can practice safely and with ease at home. How great is that?
How many students would be a safe number for a group class? Is it possible for a teacher to tend to everyone?
I have been turned off from my studio after one of the teachers told me “you’re so intense” in reply to my asking for specifics regarding an asana. The same teacher told me I need more spirituality. How does she come to say this? She barely knows me. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I am considering resigning from this studio.
Yoga studios that charge the same amount for beginning teachers as they do for their advanced teachers. This indicates that they aren’t giving the respect to students that everyone deserves. It is important that new teachers learn the ropes as quickly as possible, but students shouldn’t be guinea pigs, nor should they have to pay so much! Maybe a useful system would be a period of supervised teaching (AFTER the 200 or 500 hours and at a particular studio, not during teacher training!). Yoga classes are expensive to begin with, and it doesn’t help if studios are seen to ignore the damage a bad teacher can cause.
I agree with your comments about class sizes. Surely the more students, the less focus can be given to each individual and therefore higher risk of injury/improper alignment. We all love DYWM though, which is such a lovely thing 
I’d be questioning whether I’d be attending the studio if a teacher made those same comments to me too. Does your studio offer private sessions? Perhaps you’d get more out of a once-a-week or fortnight private session where you can have real focus on your practice and ask any questions you like.
Firstly, thank you for your reply. I’ve been struggling with this decision and came up with the exact same idea as you mentioned. I can always take a private session here and there with the teacher I respect and am comfortable with. It’s becoming clear to me. This leads me to my next question, what shall I expect during a private session? I’ve never had one as they are quite expensive.
I’ve never had a private session either so I am not sure. If it were me though? I’d write down a list of key areas in my practice that I need help with or have questions about, then when I had a decent list for the time allocated for the session, book it in. Perhaps some other community members can help or you could start a new discussion thread? Best wishes and I hope you enjoy if you do book in for some sessions eventually 
I understand that yoga is a practice for the body and the mind, and a lifestyle for many people, but something that does bother me is the attempt of some instructors to be healers, or “philosophy teachers”. Also, people who make their own mix of Asian schools of thought and bundle it all up as yoga. In the last class I tried, I was told that joint lack of flexibility is a mirror of thought/mind inflexibility too. In the one before that, the teacher made a (wrong) summary of Zen ethics halfway through a session, when everyone was in the middle of a pose. To me this is reason enough to stop attending a class.
I totally agree on this. I think most classes are packed in order to make a viable business and as a result there isn’t much teaching. I have been to very few classes that were any more than a group yoga session - the teacher might occasionally come up and make an adjustment but nothing is ever explained about all the important stuff like how to protect your back, not hyper-extending - all that vital stuff that makes the difference between a practice for life and a short one that ends in injury!
I’ve learnt more on this website than anywhere else and I feel like I’m practicing yoga safely as a result.
I think the teacher said that to you because she didn’t know the answer and instead of just saying she didn’t know, she felt critical of herself and turned it on you. It’s a pity she couldn’t admit there was something she didn’t know and say ‘great question, I’ll go away and find that out and get back to you on it next week’. Just because you’re a yoga teacher you don’t have to know everything.
What does ‘need more spirituality’ even mean?! 
Great question. I don’t know much about clothes, classes and commercialisation because, lucky for me, thanks to dywm my yoga practice is a personal thing I do at home and I’m a bit sheltered on that. My issue isn’t something that bothers me about yoga in itself. I’ve really begun to think more on it since watching the wonderful documentary on netflix -yoga the architecture of peace (watched it 3 times now) as well as another documentary on netflix about sadhus. I was looking at and listening to those yogis and I saw how perfectly still they were, mindful and at peace. I feel that yoga in the west does offer a spectrum of the practice, like the fast moving flow and the yin practice and also meditation and pranayama, but shouldn’t a practice include all of those in one? How is yoga complete as simply a physical practice with a savasana at the end? So I just feel like there’s something missing.
Maybe what’s missing is I can’t become a wandering sadhu and walk barefoot around Britain! But somehow or other I feel I need to get more into the essence of what those yogis are doing and I can’t work out how to do that. I think probably it means taking what I do now and doing more of it. Does this make sense? I think maybe what I feel is missing is the spiritual practice and being dedicated to that, but I don’t know how to do that. I can’t join a class on that and who’s going to teach me? So I suppose in a sense it does bother me because Its a puzzle I’m going to have to work out. At least I have gained something really special in my life with yoga but I want to take it deeper and don’t know how.
I feel the same Helen. I’m trying to explore the whole of yoga, not just the physical aspect. I align my yoga practice in the mornings with meditation practice also, and that feels quite in sync. But so much of yoga needs to be practiced “off the mat” as they say. There is a lot of literature about the eight limbs of yoga, have you looked into that? I get a sense you’re looking for a whole spiritual practice. One book I love is The Wisdom of Yoga by Stephen Cope; it’s a great read. I’d really suggest a meditation/breath work practice if that is something you feel drawn to - it will help with the more self-reflective aspects of a yoga practice, encouraging you to see and work with/through all of your own ‘stuff’. Whatever you do, I wish you the best
Thanks I ordered the book Looks really good. I think I do need to do a lot more reading as well as meditation x
My main point of frustration in yoga is when I haven’t been practicing for a little while and then try to have some nice classes but I find that my muscle strength isn’t good enough to get me through the poses that I would really want to do to get the full (body and mind) experience…
Great feedback, everyone! Thank you. Keep 'em coming if you have more.
I appreciate a good “yoga chat” before practice and often hear really wonderful ideas. But it rubs me the wrong way when 21 year old teachers sound like they are telling a room of grown adults about the wisdom they have accumulated in their long long lives. 