A rant: What is Yoga? Human variability and why everything can’t be Yoga…can it?
If you’re here, reading this, chances are you have an opinion or an idea wrapped around the corners of what the ancient acetic discipline of Yoga is. The question has been rambling around my mind for a week or two after listening to an episode of Yogaland with the power couple Andrea Ferretti and Jason Crandell. The episode had little to do with this question, but they spent a few moments speaking to the trend of some Yoga Practitioners calling out others with an accusatory “THAT’S NOT YOGA!” Usually (in my experience anyway) this happens online. If you spend any time in the Yoginsta-sphere you may have seen it happen in snappy, polarising Reels (which *ahem* are never long enough to fully capture anything complex, but have become the norm because… Yoga Teachers gotta be marketing experts now & also…we gotta eat). To be perfectly transparent, I have done it myself. So what does this look like? Is it problematic? And why am I now pondering the complexities and semantics of Yoga?
Firstly I’d like to say that there actually is nothing inherently wrong with pointing out differences. At its core, defining what something is or labeling something, is part of how we make sense of the world. From an early age we begin to understand that which is us and that which is not. It is a part of our experience of being human and without definitions, the world would become an amorphous mess. Therefore the act of defining what Yoga is, is not necessarily the problem. Where we begin to see issue often lies in the execution; the how. When the message becomes one of shaming, blaming or downright bullying I begin to wonder how useful (or Yogic!?) it really is.
My personal favourite is when people who are leaders of their communities point out what is and is not posturally ‘correct’.
Let’s unpick that together, shall we?
Firstly I would like to remind everyone of my opinion (which is why you’re here...right). The body is wise and adaptive and it’s my choice when teaching, to adjust the yoga to fit the body, as Bernie Clark would say, rather than a to force the body into the Yoga shape when there is blatant restriction of movement. Everyone experiences their Asana practice (posture practice) in differing ways. One of the reasons for this is due to human variability, which is a phrase refering to the wide scale of diffences we see in bone shapes and angles, joint depths, connective tissue stucture, ligament length etcetera which can attribute to poses not being cookie cutter across the board.
Some feel excruciating, face-scrunching, curse induscing tension in their Hamstrings in a Standing Forward Bend, whilst others feel like their hamstrings could lengthen indefinitely, only stopping due to the compression of face on shins. The experience of these individuals is different and whilst some might see the more restricted person as being less adept at Yoga, no outsider can possibly judge which of the two is a better practitioner or who is experiencing a greater level of presence in the pose. Not even the teacher.
The intention of the pose and the practice is also a contributing factor to how we might choose to do it. For example, are you in the pose for a specific function? If, for example, the intention is to create stress (good stress, y’all) in my inner thighs in Seated Straddle Fold and I am tight in the lower back and hips, I could be sat up on several blocks, have a shallow angle to my fold and my legs may be narrow AF or propped under the knees. If my intention is met, the function of the pose is doing its thing; I’m getting what I want, I’m feeling a sensation in the places I want to. I might be feeling a bit disgruntled though when I peak over at my friend who is in full pancake mode. Am I doing it right? Or is she? Let’s say her intention is to create a shape that she can transfer to her gynamstics practice, which in her mind is a solely aesthetic endevour. She wants to look cool and slinky and for her, that’s enough.
I peak in the studio mirror and see my pose in all its pillow-propped glory and think I am doing it wrong. Sad.
Is one pose right and one wrong? Simple answer is no. I think the general population may be more inclined to get injured in a strictly aesthetic practice if the aesthetic is to be a flexible as possible, but with good guidance this certainly is not a binary truth. Just look to the many circus performers and dancers who work on insane ranges of motion throughout life; heck you might even meet one in your class and they may well be there with aesthetics in mind; anyone (performer or not) could be. Practicing Yoga for the sake of aesthetics alone is not my choice, but I would also be lying if I said I did not find many postures beautiful to look at.
Is that wrong, or perhaps it is just different.
An Ashtanga practice, for example, is often judged from an aesthetic perspective with goals that relate to whether you can catch a big toe in Triangle or ‘square’ your hips in Warrior 1. Arguably, those are aesthetic intentions - why do we have to catch the big toe? Will a practitioner be closer to enlightnement if they do? I would argue no, they bloody well would not, but does that make my opinion the “right one”? People have differening opinions and I sure as hell am not going to define whether someone’s Yoga is Yoga based on whether their beliefs align with me. I just do not think there is one correct opinion, especially where Asana is concerened, becasue relative to the age of Yoga (there is proof of it dating back nearly 4,000 years) the practice of moving posture (what is seen as Yoga here in the west by most) is actually very very young. Our Asana practice is a wildly different ball game to any that was practiced even 100 years ago.
To say we are doing Asana wrong or right feels a bit weird when we consider that the way the majority of us practice asana now (flowing, in sequence) is a very new element to the overall practice. Asana literally means seat. In the Yoga Sutras Pattanjali referes to Asana being Sthira and Sukha = Asana is spacious and strong (easy and effortful). To embody Asana is to embody those two concepts and traditionally speaking that is to be done in the seat. I am not a traditionalist when it comes to Yoga, with that being said, I do belive it is important to respect the roots and return to them often.
One could argue that we might not be doing Asana as regularly as we think. Because we are practising the embodiment of ease and effot, or space and structure. Practising something suggests that there is room for errot and room to get things wrong. To miss the point. A huge part of how we interact with this idea is down to semantics - this is why we say that we practice Yoga and not that we do it. We cannot possibly do something that is ultimately an experience.
Deep breath. Let’s pop back to Human Variability shall we…
I recently saw a video of a teacher showing the “correct” alignment for Downward Dog. He had a person demonstrating the “wrong” positioning of different joints and one by one (with a rather smug face and a very waggly “bad-yogi!” finger) he showed us the “corrections”. I do not think this guy is doing the Yogasphere a total diservice; free education is pretty cool and in my experience, most students want to know when they are doing something wrong or potentially causing harm to themselves. Here’s the thing - this kind of instruction teaches us that the pose is a fixed reality and that the intention is always the same. Sure, it can be useful to elevate the scapula and externally rotate the upper armbone in the glenohumeral joint in Down Dog (and I very often teach that positioning), but the research points to joint health being supported by movement in that joint in different ways. To explore the range of motion we have. Our joints have evolved to move in a myriad of ways and to maintain mobility and health in the tissues, we need to continue moving through that variety, assuming we are not working with injury.
On from this, to be practising Asana “correctly” (gross) we could assume the only solid intention we can reasonably have, when relating to the root of Asana within the cultural tradition of Yoga, would be feeling into effort and ease. Who is to decide in what joints, muscles and tissues the effort or the ease shows up in! I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of Yoga Teachers having good anatomical educations; no way in hell does it feel good to me for YTs teaching contemporary Asana to do so without that knowledge, but that does not mean we need to be making out like a student has to do a pose in one way and one way only. A pose can serve so many functions and as Asana Teachers I really believe it is our job to empower our students with knowledge and a hefty dose of sceptism and curiousity to explore their own postural preferences.
Here is my hot take, and we will start with some thoughts on what Yoga is shall we? Finally.
The root word for Yoga is the Sanskrit word Yuj which literally refers to yoking an animal to a plough. So we can read Yoga as a practice of harnessing our awareness or unifiying body, mind and (dun dun dun) soul. When we go to class, or practice at home, are we doing unity? Can we do unification? I think we are practising the doing of actions (Pranayama, Asana, Meditation etcetera) and those actions might hold certain qualities liek effort and ease. As a result of that practice of harnessing, I’d argue we hope to embody a sense of unification; of being whole. We hope to experience it internally because that is where Yoga occurs. The experiencing of the magical, tangible presence is actually the residue of the practising of the actions; not the actions themself.
Mouthful, right?
Yoga is an internal experience only very crudely reflected by the external casings which can serve as a sort of quasi demonstration of Yoga. Likely these experiences of unity are found in brief flickers of clarity felt within us, that hopefully, show up more and more and expand to become more embodied as we practice often over time.
Yoga is also (as my main man JC puts it) a heterogenous tradition. Meaning that it has differing defining features and has different phases to the experiencing of it. In its very nature, the experience of Yoga changes over time, from day to day and practice to practice. How we experience our first practice will vary from our 10th, 100th and 1,000th. We will likely discover much over the course of this journey, both physically and mentally (perhaps spiritually too).
I can understand that someone telling us what is and is not Yoga can feel a little like treading on thin ice, because our experiences of it changes and the individuals intentions vary too. With that being said, I don’t believe that EVERYTHING can be Yoga. That territory can become murky, amorphous and possibly land us in the world of both cultural appropriation and/or cultural disrespect. QI gong and Yoga share concepts albeit with different names, but they are not the same thing. We might experience a similar relaxation from a restorative practice and a massage, but they are not both Yoga. Sure we can experience presence, unity and clarity in every day moments and may god-willing we fall into them more regularly or notably when we are in a regular practice, but I’m not sure that we could, strictly speaking define those moments as Yoga in and of themselves. Maybe you disagree, I’m not sure if I completely understand that statement or agree with it fully myself yet.
Traditionally speaking if we go back to the roots of Yoga, there are four main forms of practice outlined in the Vedas, none of which are strictly postural. Returning to these can serve has as an accute lesson in the vast variability of what Yoga can be.
Bhakti Yoga is concerned with loving devotion to a deity and the practice of this type of Yoga deals in centring our actions through loving devotion.
“Jnana Yoga is the path of attaining knowledge of the true nature of reality through the practice of meditation, self-inquiry, and contemplation.” - Timothy Burgin
Karma Yoga is about self-less service (Seva) and is about following a life path that inflicts little negative impact on those around you.
“Raja Yoga means the “Royal Path.” Just as a king maintains control over his kingdom, you must maintain control over your own “kingdom”—the vast territory of your mind.” - Chopra Centre. Arguably, the Yoga we practice here in the west is a derivation of Raja Yoga which is very meditation centric.
So sure, there are different ways we can engage with the practice, but whilst the practice may be heterogenous for the individual and generally as a system of living, I do not believe its metamorphism is so inherent that we can claim Yoga is everythign. I do think that Yoga teaches us to appreciate the present moment as we move through it. Yoga can teach us to lead a life of far greater meaning through acts of kindness, service, seeking of wisdom, quietening of the un-useful mind-chimp and perhaps through some kind of loving-devotion. If you fancy it.
As I near the end of this rant, I wonder if I’ve created any clarity around the initial question of,” What is Yoga?” or if perhaps I’ve confused myself (and regrettably, you dear reader) even further. Yoga might look and feel different for each of us. The practice for one may be nothing to do with poses or meditation whilst for another posture is their only access point to it. Ultimately the internal process and path when we have a regular practice may well be the same and could lead to the same lessons.
“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self”. - The Bhagavad-Gita
https://jasonyoga.com/yogaland-podcast/
https://www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/philosophy/the-4-paths-of-yoga
https://chopra.com/articles/the-4-paths-of-yoga
Your Body your Yoga by Bernie Clark (book) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Your-Body-Yoga-Alignment-Skillful/dp/0968766536
Move your DNA by Katie Bowman (book) https://www.amazon.co.uk/MOVE-YOUR-DNA-BOWMAN-KATY/dp/0989653943
