My Yoga Experience

Coming into this class, I didn’t really have any expectations for it. I’d heard of yoga but I’d never really practiced it seriously, so I knew very little about the experience. However now that it’s over, my opinion of yoga has changed drastically from the ignorance I had towards it before. After having practiced every week and gone through so many different practices, along with the information from class, yoga has become something lack-luster for me. I do like the practices, I like to exercise and stretch for sure, but learning how commodified yoga in the west has become has taken away from the experience as a whole. It feels like I’ve been lied to, because yoga portrayed itself as something spiritual, as something healing, and as someone who suffers from mental illness and has many friends that love yoga, I was interested. Specifically the Iyengar Yoga practice that we did, I really enjoyed. However, learning later that Iyengar was one of the proponents to the surge of commodified yoga, I was disappointed. The history that they attach themselves to is even worse because it is no more than cultural appropriation of true Yoga in India.

Another thing that really drew away from the experience of yoga for me is the pandemic that we’re all facing together. It’s so much harder to understand how a studio can be considered a ritual space when you can’t even go to one. Plus, when you’re at a studio you feel pressured to push yourself along with the class, and you don’t have the same distractions that the home environment has. Especially for me, I had a problem with my cat being crazy constantly and as funny as it is, it definitely took away from my practices. 

Continuing on, another thing that I really disliked about yoga was the fact that there are so many false gurus that seem to easily deceive the public. Bikram yoga has gotten heat on Netflix for the founder lying, and sexually assaulting his followers. Similar allegations occurred against John Friend, founder of Anusara yoga. These founders are both found practices that have an extremely large following, so it sits surprising that these men who have obviously falsified their credentials have managed to convince so many people that they’re yoga guru’s. It makes me particularly wary of looking at any other kinds of yoga because now it all just seems so manipulative and superficial.

One thing that I really like that I’ve gotten out of my yoga practice is definitely meditation. I just feel like it really helps me center myself, and the professor that was brought in to explain the benefits of meditation was interesting because I hadn’t realized it had such profound effects on the brain. It has encouraged me to practice for at least 15 minutes a day, and it has been beneficial to me because it helps me slow down after a busy day.

In conclusion, while I still have a certain appreciation for yoga as the exercise, I still feel as if the devotion to the practice as some type of religion is delusional and misleading. Nothing so capitalist in nature can really be spiritual when the only thing leading it forward is money. I know I’ll still practice it, so I’m in no way completely condemning yoga. It creates a community, and a healthy space to maybe cope with things and to exercise. I just know now that after this course, I've become more skeptical of for-profit enterprises.