Escaping Your Yoga Instructor’s Limitations at He's Fit

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Escaping Your Yoga Instructor’s Limitations

Posted February 20, 2008 at 12:00 PM by James Flesher

Section: His Fitness, Alt. Therapies, His Health, Physical Health

yoga I have had the pleasure of sampling the classes of a number of different instructors at several different gyms and studios in the many years that I have been practicing yoga. Some of them practiced in a style that I found highly engaging and beneficial, while others left me bored and distracted. Regardless of how great an instructor was, I have noticed that each typically has their own bias in what asanas, or poses they select to teach for their classes.

I was particularly drawn to one instructor (we’ll call him Bill) who regularly included inversion poses such as head, hand and forearm stands in his practice, all of which I highly enjoy and find quite challenging.

However, after attending a workshop with another instructor (we’ll call him Joe), I realized that I had spent an entire year and a half working solely on working the hips. I quickly realized that Bill had included maybe one of these poses in the previous ten classes I had spent with him. In one class where Bill included several hip-opening poses, he pointed out his own flexibility in this area. Suddenly it was clear – this wasn’t his strong suit, and I was getting gypped!

None of us would lift weights with a trainer who worked our biceps and triceps vigorously but flatly avoided any motions that focused on the pectoral muscles; neither would we heed the advice of running coach who simply repeated one long distance run after another without any sprint work.

A yoga instructor might fail to mix up their classes for several reasons. They may have one particularly inflexible muscle group, and feel inadequate in demonstrating asanas in which they cannot achieve the full “textbook” expression of the pose. However, yoga is as much about accepting and even overcoming our limitations as it is about working our bodies into certain postures.

That being said, as a beginner I didn’t know enough about practicing to pick up on teachers preferring certain types of asanas over others. However, as we advance in our practices and become aware of such inadequacies, we must be willing to discuss them with out instructors.

First of all, whether or not an instructor can perform a particular asana to its full expression, they should be well trained enough in both yoga and in human anatomy to verbally describe the posture and assist their students in achieving it to the best of their ability. An instructor who cannot do this is not worth your time.

Secondly, a vast majority of poses have multiple variations which can either make things more achievable for the novice or provide an additional challenge for the seasoned practitioner. These modifications can and often should include the use of props such as straps, yoga bricks and additional mats.

If you feel your practice is becoming redundant or lacking in certain important asanas, don’t be afraid to talk to your instructor. You will find that most of them are as dedicated to keeping flexible lines as they are bodies.