If it’s Not Spiritual, Don’t Call it Yoga

One of the most common issues that keeps people from starting yoga is lack of flexibility.

Because marketers portray yogis and yoginis as uber bendy twenty-somethings twisted into pretzels, yoga newbies tend to get the wrong impression.

They’re led to believe that yoga is the pursuit of flexibility. And if they’re on the stiff side, they then dismiss yoga altogether.

As a yoga teacher, I hear comments like, “I’m not flexible so I can’t do yoga” all the time.

I tell them “No, yoga has nothing to do with flexibility.”

They look at me like I know nothing about yoga. But this reaction is to be expected. To the uninformed, yoga looks like gymnastics for young and bendy ex-dancers.

But they’ve got it all wrong. Yoga is for stiff people. It’s also for the bendy, and for the old, and for the young. For men and for women. Yoga is for everybody. Every BODY.

If you practice yoga long enough, you will become flexible — it’s a side effect of its greater purpose: spiritual evolution.

However, in this article, we’ll stick to the beginnings of the yoga journey, which starts on the mat.

Yoga is for stiff people if you keep these three guidelines in mind:

1. Flexibility comes with time

If you’re starting out with a stiff body, please have patience. Flexibility comes with time.

You will see improvements after only a few yoga sessions, especially if you practice it multiple times a week.

You might find that your fingers are just a few inches closer to your toes in a forward bend. Or mild backbends feel a little less straining. But for the big stuff like the splits and advanced backbends, accept that these take time and a lot of practice to master.

When I first started yoga I was 18 years old. I’m also a female, so in theory, I should have been quite pliable. But this was not the case.

I was fit, I worked out often, but yoga asked me to bend in ways that seemed unnatural. It reinforced just how stiff I was. I found the whole practice extremely challenging.

My first attempts at wheel pose (which is supported by the hands and feet, belly toward the sky in a graceful arch) were fruitless. I wasn’t flexible enough to even push off the ground. It was as if I was stuck to the floor, and I was sure that wheel pose would never be within reach.

It took me a long time, but with dedicated practice, I slowly unknotted my tight back. Little by little I was able to lift myself from the ground.

Now I’m a bendy backbend expert and sometimes other yogis comment on my flexibility. Me… flexible? I wouldn’t have believed it in the beginning of my yoga days. It just took time.

So have patience. Be consistent in your practice and you’ll see results. Yoga slowly undoes stubborn muscular knots. It lengthens and elongates, eliminating body pain kind of

like a self-massage.

Your flexibility will waver a bit — some days you’ll be much more open than others, but the overall trend is inevitably toward increased bendiness.