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I was recently at a friend’s house when I decided it was time to make my confession. I’d been thinking about this for a while, and I wasn’t sure how to break the news. But after dinner, I took a deep breath and shuffled over to her, head hung low.
“You know,” I said. “I’ve been doing some thinking.” She turned to me, eyebrow raised, dish towel in hand.
“And?”
“Well, I’ve decided that things just aren’t working,” I admitted. “I’m not happy. I don’t think this is for me.”
I was referring to the yoga class we’d been attending together for the better part of a year. She’s a dear friend, and one of many people I know in my Colorado hometown who swear that yoga changed their lives—and are equally certain that it will change mine, too. Whenever I’d open up to her about my anxiety, depression, tight hips, achy back, or any other malady, her answer would always be the same: “You know, you really should try yoga.”
For years, I’d simply roll my eyes. “Here we go again,” I’d think, bracing myself for the lecture and the frustrating feeling that I wasn’t being heard.
“Just because yoga worked for you doesn’t mean it will work for me,” I’d remind her. But eventually, during a particularly stressful month at work, she wore me down. I was anxious all the time and desperate to manage it. “Maybe she’s right,” I thought in a moment of weakness. “Maybe this yoga thing is worth trying.”
Fine, I told her. I’d give it a go. And I did. But as the months ticked by, the oft-touted benefits of yoga—a greater sense of calm and equanimity, better sleep, lower stress, reduced rates of injury—remained elusive. And trust me, it wasn’t for lack of trying.
A Brief Litany of All the Yoga Studios That Have Failed Me
When I finally agreed to try yoga, my friend gave me a promotional code for a free week of classes at her studio. At the time, I was an underemployed freelance writer living in the basement of a run-down house with one dude I’d met in college and three other guys we’d met on Craigslist. I had almost no money, and I was a sucker for free stuff. So I resolved to squeeze the maximum benefit from this sudden windfall and go to yoga classes for seven days straight.
Each class was different. The first involved doing yoga poses while pumping dumbbells to high-powered pop music. During another, the instructor played aggressive hip-hop and pranced around shrieking, “Work that booty!” to hapless participants. In Wednesday’s class, the teacher played the harmonium and encouraged us all to join her in a wheedling, half-hearted chorus of “This Little Light of Mine.” I don’t remember much about Thursday except that some shirtless dude in the back row seemed to spend the entire class doing maddeningly perfect handstands. Every time I glanced in the mirror, I could see his sweaty, upside-down six-pack in my peripheral vision. By the end of our first cycle of Sun Salutations, I hated him. By the end of the second, I was fantasizing about “accidentally” knocking him over during my next three-legged Downward Dog.
My last class of the week was actually quite nice. It was a more traditional vinyasa, flowy and meditative. The teacher still used too many Sanskrit words for my liking—a practice that has always struck me as show-offy and appropriative—but the movement itself was…fine. Still, by then it was too late. Just walking into the studio left me feeling itchy and irritable. I couldn’t wait for the week to be over.
Later, I tried taking a yoga class at my climbing gym, hoping it would be more workout-focused. Instead, the instructor waxed poetic about moon cycles and horoscopes and burned a quantity of incense that would have sent an asthma sufferer straight to the ER. I tried hot yoga, which left me both irritable and dehydrated. I tried rooftop yoga, the best part of which was the mimosa that was served after. And, finally, I tried showing up religiously to that yoga class with my friend, twice a week, for months. But it never did stick.
Who Yoga Doesn’t Serve
I have a number of friends who seem to derive enormous benefit from yoga. Many are folks for whom a love of exercise doesn’t come naturally, or whose bodies are healing from physical or emotional trauma of some kind. For them, the slower, gentler styles of yoga are a great way to find movement without the intimidating intensity of a cardio or weight-lifting workout. That’s something I can definitely appreciate.
But my relationship with exercise is different. I’m a high-energy, high-anxiety person, and I need to move a lot to stay sane. As such, I’m happiest when I spend my free time pumping iron at the gym or hammering out miles on local trails. I know there are intense, strength-focused yoga classes out there, too, but an hour of bodyweight exercise just doesn’t give me the same high as a long session in the weight room.
If I had infinite time, sure—it would be great to spend an hour burning off energy under a barbell and then a second hour stretching and breathing in a yoga class. But like most working people, I have to prioritize. And if I prioritized yoga, that would mean sacrificing the types of high-intensity workouts that leave me feeling strong, confident, and calm.
If you’re the kind of person who needs a lot of fast-paced and/or weighted exercise to stay happy, yoga just doesn’t cut it. For some of us, yoga is nice to have, but it isn’t essential. I think of it as a luxury. An increasingly expensive and often exclusive luxury.
My other complaint about yoga is that its practitioners often act as proselytizers, acting as if it’s the only type of meditative movement out there. Talk to any experienced rock climber, power lifter, dancer, or runner, and you’ll find that every single one of these sports relies intimately upon the breath to channel focus, rhythm, and power. Yoga doesn’t have a monopoly on this.
Yet the evangelism persists. When I tell avid practitioners that yoga makes me anxious and irritable, they usually tell me that the answer is more yoga. Imagine if people responded to other distastes with a similar prescription. Never liked broccoli? Eat a head of it every day until you do. Never had a brain for math? Become an engineer. Always hated running? Just run more. The last time I tried telling a devoted yogi to run more, she raised her eyebrows at me and made a disgusted noise. “Running isn’t for me,” she said, ending the conversation.
I have seen yoga practitioners turn up their noses at a variety of sports, snubbing them as too “striving” or too “intense.” While I agree that movement should be pleasurable and relaxing whenever possible, I reject the idea that yoga is the only way to achieve this. I have certainly witnessed competitive, striving yoga (see: sweaty shirtless man doing handstands in beginner class). And, on the other end of the spectrum, I’ve seen CrossFit fanatics throw tires around with egoless, enlightened ease.
Like anything, it’s not what you do but how you do it. If you love something and set about practicing it with intuition, intention, and openness, you can find a sense of meditative flow. It doesn’t matter if that thing is Warrior 2 on a mountaintop or a 300-pound deadlift in a grimy garage. There are a thousand ways to use movement to calm the mind. There are a thousand ways to stretch your muscles and your limits. Yoga is one way. But it’s not the only way.
What I Wish Had Been Different About My Yoga Experience
I know exactly one yoga instructor who explicitly acknowledges that yoga is just one of many ways to meditate in motion. A friend of mine, she teaches a yoga class at a local rec center that I attend now and again, mainly to support her. It’s only nine bucks and most of the participants are over the age of 65.
We try new things and we laugh a lot. The classes are simple, challenging, and fun. They don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are. I enjoy the camaraderie, but not the yoga. Sometimes, though, I wonder if I would feel differently if I had been introduced to her class sooner.
When I started going to therapy more than a decade ago, a friend’s mom sat me down and shared some advice. “Corey,” she said, “Finding a good therapist is like finding a bra: You need to find a style you like, it has to be the right fit, and it has to feel supportive.”
I wish I’d been given that guidance when it came to yoga. So many instructors think that their approach is best or uphold themselves as spiritual mentors or all-knowing gurus. But the reality is that they’re just people. And like all people, they’re extremely variable and immensely fallible. Just because they’re speaking at the front of the room doesn’t mean they’re right—and doesn’t mean their way is reflective of yoga as a whole. I wish I’d known that sooner. I wish I’d been warned to shop around more intentionally for a practice or studio that worked for me.
As it is, I think I’ve come away with something even more valuable from my yoga experience: a strong knowledge of who I am and what kind of movement I need to be happy. I know that isn’t yoga—at least not technically—and I’m at peace with that. I can only hope that, with time, my yoga friends will be, too.
About Our Contributor
Corey Buhay is a freelance writer and editor based in Boulder, Colorado. You can read her work in Backpacker, Climbing, and Outside Online, among others.
