Are You Making This Rookie Yogi Mistake?

I see it all the time: A room full of people of various ages with different bodies, levels of experience and goals all doing the same movements at the same pace.

What’s wrong with that? You may be wondering. 

A lot, actually.

You may be confused and thinking to yourself, “isn’t that the goal in a yoga class? To move and breath together?” 

I’ve noticed that a lot of Yogis believe that a “good” student does what the teacher says to do. A “good” yogi inhales when they’re told to inhale and exhales when they’re told to exhale. They definitely don’t do their own thing in class because that would be rude, right? 

Wrong.

First of all, there’s no such thing as a “bad yogi.” Let’s remove this phrase from our vocabulary, okay? There are beginner Yogis and more experienced Yogis, yes, but neither one is better or worse than the other.

One big different between a beginner and a more experienced practitioner is this: 

Seasoned yoga practitioners give themselves permission to customize their practice.

It makes perfect sense that new students feel unsure and have the desire to do the poses “right.” Wisely, they want to avoid injury and maximize the benefits of the postures. What they don’t yet understand, however, is that what makes a pose “right” for you is more than likely very different from what makes it “right” for me. The only way for you to discover what is right for you is to listen to your body above all else.

“Listening to your body” may sound like a very hippy-dippy thing to say, but it’s actually very practical. It simply means that you pay attention to sensations in your body. You might notice an increase in temperature or heart rate, a sense of tension or lack thereof, a pulling, a pinching, a release. These sensations are there to communicate to you what to move towards and what to move away from. 

You are the only one who has lived inside your body. You are the only one who could possibly know what is best for you. No matter how well intentioned, experienced or educated an instructor may be, they simply cannot know what is best for you. Instead of allowing any insight from a teacher to be law in your mind, use it to direct you and support your own inquiry. If something a teacher suggests feels good, go with it! 

If a suggestion doesn’t inherently feel right in your body, for any reason, know that you absolutely have the right to choose something else, always!

Secondly, you have a unique breath pace and ratio between your inhales and your exhales. There’s no way that a group of 30 very different humans could all be breathing in sync if they are choosing the ideal pace for their body on any given day. 

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve taken yoga classes where the whole room syncs up with the instructor’s cues and the rhythm of the music, and it definitely feels amazing to groove together. The synchronicity elicits a level of connection that fills the room with palpable positive energy, and I’m a fan of that for sure!

What I’m not a fan of is a student feeling the need to compromise their breath connection in order to stay with the group. Not only does it limit their ability to find 

“Why can’t I keep up?” the new yogi wonders, thereby criticizing themselves and making their pace “wrong.”

Finally, we all come to the mat with different goals, and the poses and approaches that will help us get there are different.

Conclusion

The mistake that I see most new yoga students make is following directions. The job of a yoga teacher is never to “fix” what you are doing “wrong.” The guidance of a well-trained instructor can provide insight and support as you discover what works best for you.