How To Go To A Yoga Class

Charlotte Watts

First published in NHS Your Choice Magazine Autumn 2010

Doesn’t this seem like an odd title to you – don’t you just turn up? Well yes, if you’re approaching this ancient discipline with an open mind and heart, but somewhere in the vastness that is the health and fitness industry, our understanding of yoga beyond a good stretching ‘workout’ may have got a tad lost…

Yes, the yoga postures (asanas) help us get back to our natural body alignment, posture, flexibility and core strength, but this is not the first aim of yoga. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, written over two thousand years ago, the postures are first mentioned as a way to still the mind through the breath. Moving towards a meditative state in all practise and indeed life, is seen as a way to move towards ultimate connection with the universe around us – Samadhi.

But hold on, doesn’t this seem a little overblown when you just wanted a bit of a stretch and to tone up your arms?

If that seems a bit overwhelming, bear in mind that the more simple this can be, the better – connection really means being present in the moment and in yoga, we practise using the breath to just be. The postures help facilitate this and by opening the body we help it release into the movements it is designed to do; we move away from forcefulness to allow more and more flexibility and strength. In this way the poses as you see a more experienced practitioner doing them are hopefully the bi-product of their journey of letting go of the ambition to get there – the very thing that tenses us up and gets in the way of lengthening muscles, balance and staying calm in a challenging posture.

This may seem contradictory at first, after all we live in a society where we have been programmed to keep doing to get where we want or are told we should be going. But this is the reason that yoga has become so popular recently, not because it tones up the belly – plenty of things do that – but because it helps us get back to a place we instinctively need to be, simply being and breathing and the postures are just one aspect.

A yoga teacher is your guide to help switch off those continual voices in your brain and they can instruct you how to get into poses, but it is only you who knows what is happening internally. If you are feeling confused, anxious or comparing yourself to the person on the next mat, it is unlikely that you will be anything but distracted. It often takes us many, many hearings of an idea to truly feel rather than think it, so even if the teacher is saying ‘stay focussed on your breath’ that doesn’t mean you necessarily will.

So don’t give yourself a hard time – we are so used to our critical brains commenting on everything we do that we can forget that nothing is that important. Does it really matter if you can stand on one foot or not? Let’s face it, you’ve got through every day before not doing that. And every single time we practise a posture is different, that forward bend may have seemed easy last week, whilst today’s tightness is not something to force against, but a great reminder to simply breathe and accept where you are now – use a full and releasing exhalation to tune in and just let that pesky mind stand back and observe. Your brain may always want you to go quicker, stronger, better but step away from it and your body gets the chance to slow down as it needs.

So yes, you may start to tone up your legs and bum, but you have the chance to experience so much more if you switch off your expectations. There is a sense of peace, stillness and space to be had if you are prepared to help your mind and body let go of some of that accumulated baggage.