This is a guest post by Angelina Egerton – ‘But I’m not flexible enough for yoga’.
When I tell people that I’m currently working towards my 500 hour Yoga Teacher Training (I talk about it a lot – apologies), often the first thing I hear is that the person I’m having a conversation with could never do yoga, they’re just ‘not flexible enough’.
I want to use today’s blog post to address this. So if you’ve wanted to try yoga for a while but were just worried about not being flexible enough, keep reading…
Ever been ‘not well enough to go to the doctor’?
Didn’t think so. We go to the doctor when we know that something isn’t right. When we go to the doctor we are hoping for a remedy.
We go to yoga because it offers us a remedy for our modern life.
Often, our sedentary lives leave us feeling less than our best. Too many hours hunched over a steering wheel or a computer screen take their toll. A yoga class encourages us to move our joints through their full range of motion. This is something that doesn’t often happen in normal modern life.
At the beginning, we may not be going to yoga because we feel healthy, vibrant and strong. We go to yoga because we want to feel healthy, vibrant and strong.
My point here is, yoga students aren’t more flexible than your average person and therefore decide that yoga is the thing for them.
Yoga Provides A Habitual Physical Practice that Encourages Flexibility
Yoga students often have a habitual physical practice that encourages flexibility. Let’s open this up a bit more. Everyone has a starting point with regards to what their body is capable of. The structure of your skeleton has some bearing on your overall level of flexibility, as does previous experience with gymnastics or dancing. But everyone starts somewhere once they get to a yoga class. For me personally, I have always been tall with tight hamstrings, so forward bends are challenging for me. I can’t do the very deep bends that we see on instagram. I modify and make it work for me. If I never get my chin to my shin, then that’s ok.
The beauty of yoga is that you start where you are. You modify the asana (poses) as needed, and eventually you will progress onto the next version of that pose. Your body will become stronger, more flexible and have more integrity in the joints and connective tissues (under the guidance of a good teacher of course).
Yoga is about so much more than flexibility
Let me say that again: yoga is about so much more than flexibility. Here are some other things we get from yoga: strength, joint mobility, integrity in our body, a calmer mind, a more peaceful outlook, connecting with like-minded people, becoming happier and less reactive or argumentative, ageing more gracefully, better posture, better balance, yummy stretches, and deep relaxations.
Worried about being the worst in the Yoga class?
I think this is a more common concern than we care to admit. We worry that everyone else will be beautifully gliding through the class without breaking a sweat, and we’ll be at the back, miserable because we can’t do everything absolutely perfectly.
This concern comes from our ego and part of the teaching of yoga is to recognise the ego when it pipes up and to gently tell it to shush. The ego wants to remain comfortable, the ego wants to be the best in the room, and if we listen to the ego we leave no room for personal growth, for vulnerability, or for genuine connection.
Remember this: no one is watching you. I mean this in the kindest, gentlest way possible, but the other students in the class really don’t care what you can and can’t do. The teacher will be thrilled that you are taking their class so all you need to focus on is staying present, breathing and doing your best. Really.
If your ego says you are the worst in the class, be grateful that you will get the most value out of the class, because you have the furthest to go. Enjoying the journey is part of yoga.
Not Flexible Enough for Yoga
For more information on Yoga, we can put you in touch with Angelina. Simply get in touch in one of two ways:
- Fill out our contact form at the bottom of our home page (https://www.foxwoodpersonaltraining.co.uk)
- Get in touch with Foxwood Personal Training via DM on Instagram
Please do be aware that Yoga is not one of our primary services here at Foxwood Personal Training. We specialise in Strength and Conditioning, Sports Massage and Running Coaching. For more information on each of these services, do explore the following links: