For People Who Have Never Liked a Yoga Class

Most of what people dislike about yoga turns out to be about the class rather than the practice: the pace set for someone else, the spiritual framing, the sense of being watched, the vocabulary nobody explains, the music. Almost all of it is a property of teaching a room of strangers at once, and almost none of it is inherent to the thing itself. Which is worth knowing before writing the whole discipline off on the basis of two drop-in classes in 2019.

Here is the honest list, and which parts a different format actually solves.

The pace is set for the median

In a class of fifteen, the sequence moves at a speed that works for roughly the middle of the room. If you are slower than that, you spend the hour arriving late to every shape and never settling. If you are faster, you are waiting.

Neither is a personal failing and neither gets better with attendance. It is arithmetic.

You cannot ask the question

The specific question (is this supposed to feel like that, in the front of my hip) is the one that actually matters, and there is no point in a group class where you can ask it. So people guess, and often guess wrong, and conclude they are doing it badly.

The framing

Chanting, Sanskrit, references to energy or chakras, an opening reading. Some people like this and get real value from it. Others find it either meaningless or actively off-putting, and both reactions are entirely reasonable.

It is worth separating this from the practice. The physical and breathing work stands perfectly well on its own, and a teacher can leave the rest out without anything being missing. It is also fine to want some of it and not the rest.

Being watched, and being the stiffest person there

A real and very common reason people stop. It is not solved by being told nobody is looking at you, because in a small room people are, a bit.

This one a one-to-one format genuinely removes. There is nobody to be the stiffest person in front of.

The suspicion that it is not exercise

Fair, depending on the class. A slow class is not cardiovascular training and does not claim to be. If what you want is to get stronger or fitter, a practice can be built to load you properly, and if what you want is specifically fitness, it is worth saying so, because a good teacher will tell you what yoga is and is not going to do for that.

What a one-to-one format actually changes

Pace becomes yours. Questions get answered in the moment. The framing is whatever you want it to be, including none. Nobody is watching except the person whose job it is. And the sequence is built around what you came for rather than what suits a room.

What it does not change: it is still movement and it still requires turning up. If the underlying objection is that you do not want to exercise, this will not fix that, and there is no shame in it either.

Where a teacher helps

The first session is mostly listening. What you have tried, what you disliked about it, what hurts, what you actually want. A practice built from that has very little in common with a drop-in class, which is the point.

Sessions are thirty or sixty minutes, live on video, at a time you choose. Thirty is a reasonable way to find out whether the objection was the class or the thing itself.

Questions people ask

I hated every yoga class I tried. Is one-to-one different?

In the ways people usually object to, yes: the pace is yours, you can ask questions as they come up, the spiritual framing is optional, and there is no room of people to compare yourself to. What stays the same is that it is still movement and still needs turning up.

Can I do yoga without the chanting and spiritual parts?

Yes. The physical and breathing practice works perfectly well on its own, and a teacher can leave out the framing entirely if you ask. It is also fine to want some parts of it and not others.

I am not flexible at all. Is that a problem?

No, and it is the most common reason people give for not starting. Flexibility is an outcome, not an entry requirement, and in a one-to-one session there is nobody to be less flexible than.

Is yoga actually exercise?

It depends entirely on what is being taught. A slow restorative class is not fitness training and does not pretend to be; a practice can also be built to load you and build strength. Worth being clear about which you want, because they look quite different.