It’s easy to get lulled into a false sense of reality by the ‘yogigram’!
Scroll through the scores of impressive back-bends and impossibly perfect poses and you’d be forgiven for feeling a few double joints short of the yogi life that has become so widely aspirational. However, here’s the thing. It is one of yoga’s biggest myths that you need to be flexible to jump on the bandwagon. Only a very small part of the yogic tradition has anything to do with the physical poses themselves, contrary to what the ‘gram might imply! Admittedly, all this contortion makes great scrolling, BUT the photos have a lot to answer for on account of deterring the averagely flexible masses from what is actually a universally beneficial (and not always bendy) practice.
Reality is, yoga can be simpler and more accessible than all the convoluted limbs and cliff-edge backdrops imply. Equally important to remember is that a captured moment of pose prowess is just that. A moment, and not necessarily an indicator of a person’s yoga ability.... let alone a benchmark for what’s beneficial on an everyday, real-world basis. (This photo being the perfect example of ‘faking it for a photo’!!) The bottom line, therefore, is to not be intimidated to dip a toe in the Yogi waters if some stretching and serenity is what your body and mind so desires!! As a complement to your existing training programme, or as a programme in its own right, there is a whole repertoire of poses from which you can pick and choose to your heart’s (and most importantly your body’s) content. . If you’re looking for guidance to get started, there’s plenty of yoga practitioners who use instagram to promote a yoga that is safety and comfort driven. For starters...@lauralouiseyoga @blessedyoga @yoga_girl_london & @lola_yoga_uk!