Yoga for Everybody Is Bullshit.

You know it. Someone has told you, “You HAVE to try yoga! It’s GOOD for you!” Fuck that noise. Yoga for everybody is bullshit. Don’t get me wrong. I love yoga. I hope so; I’ve been practicing it for over 30 years. I don’t love this sing-songy, oozing bullshit I hear when someone is talking about yoga. Yes, I eavesdrop. I’m a writer, of course, I am.

This crap is everywhere. The top ten reasons you should try yoga. Yoga will change your life. Seven reasons you shouldn’t try yoga. Snort, like that, isn’t a shady bullshit move. Every single one of these articles tout the same malarkey if not the same angle. Oooh, we love yoga and so too shall you.

 

Not Everyone Is Going to Love Yoga Right Out of The Gate.

 

It makes me want to slap the shit out of someone. Preferably some slender, young, hyper-flexible yoga junkie who has drunk the hippy kool-aid and is so far left a yoga nut that they give ISIS members a run for their money in extremism.

Yoga isn’t for everybody. It’s fucking hard. It isn’t all stretching and sunshine. There’s a lot of thinking involved so that turning off your mind line, yeah bullshit. The first time you try yoga find a beginning yoga class. BEGINNING.

Go early and talk to the teacher. There ain’t no shame in admitting you’re a newbie. A beginning yoga teacher should ask about your injuries and your limitations. If they don’t, walk out. I fucking mean it. You can injure your body doing yoga. I really fucking mean it. Healthy alignment is critical and not all yoga teachers know healthy alignment.

Gear your brain up to feel some serious distress. Yoga is intimidating as hell. For most of us, it’s a completely different way of dealing with your body and your brain. Which is to say, we typically don’t.

Once you step on a fucking yoga mat, all attempts to ignore your body and quiet your mind fly out the fucking window. All you’ll be doing is thinking and thinking and thinking. That whole quiet mindfulness, yeah that doesn’t happen for MONTHS.

 

It’s entirely valid to hate yoga.

 

You’re gonna hate it. You many NEVER love it. I have a love/hate relationship with Indoor Cycling. Doesn’t stop me from doing it.

That first class is going to suck eggs. If the teacher doesn’t help you find a safe and healthy way to be in a pose, don’t go back. Find another beginning yoga class and prepare to hate it.

Yoga is a process. In fact, the first few classes are going to suck eggs. There is no instant in yoga. It’s awkward as fuck. It’s confusing as fuck. You’re never as flexible as you’d like to be. Hell, thirty years I’ve been practicing yoga, and I’m still not bendy like a pretzel. I don’t have any desire to be. That’s yoga bullshit.

Some things you’ll hear about yoga are just wrong. Seriously, in writing The F*cking Yoga Book I’ve done a shit ton of research. From yoga history to current medical science, there are benefits to yoga, again . . . proven by science, but some poses aren’t beneficial to your body under any circumstances.

Yoga doesn’t detoxify anything except a crappy fucking attitude, and that won’t be instantaneous. It’s likely to spike your frustration and rage at first. A lot of yoga teachers don’t know shit. They don’t know shit about yoga, they don’t know shit about anatomy, and they don’t know shit about you.

It’s okay. You can say it. Yoga isn’t the end all be all. There is no divine yoga lightning to strike you down.

Yeah, I think every fucking person on the planet would benefit from yoga. Truth is not every yoga offers benefits. If something about the yoga class doesn’t click for you, you are not a failure as a human being. Find another class to try. A BEGINNING class.

It’s not about chakras, chanting, or detoxing. Scientific studies prove yoga can lower your blood pressure, reduce stress, manage chronic pain, and aid in the treatment of depression TEN times more efficiently than medication.

And you might not want to fucking punch that slender, young, hyper-flexible yoga hippy asshole. Maybe.