Miths about yoga to dispell 

1) I’m too stiff, almost nailed down, yoga is not for me
​Especially those who have short muscles and not very flexible joints will receive the greatest physical benefits from this practice.
2) Yoga requires regular particular and I don't have enough time
Everyone can find at least half an hour a day to devote to practice. Other than being a waste of time, this practice gives us back the time that we invest in medicating and healing our body, in addition to the even greater one that we waste in afflicting ourselves and complaining about our aches and pains
3) Yoga is boring because it is a static discipline
​The practice of Hatha yoga begins precisely with the conscious activation of our whole organism. Especially for the beginner who has to find a perception of his own body, often forgotten, it is important that the practice is active, dynamic and physically engaging.

4) I am suffering from various pathologies, I am not in the condition to practice yoga
​As the Indian master Desikachar said, if you can breathe, you can start practicing yoga. It is not the individual who must adapt to a standard form of yoga, but rather the practice that must tune with the particular needs and conditions of each individual. It is possible that individuals with different needs participate in the same class as each posture can be performed at various levels of intensity and with individual developed adjustments and dedicated variations.
5) Yoga is nothing but a kind of gymnastics
What differentiates the practice of Yoga from similar western disciplines is the type of attention that is required in performing any movement. It is not a question of positioning the body according to a specific indication, but of really perceiving the body in that position, entering into the sensory perception of what is there, without being distracted by the endless digressions that the mind provides us, each time we drift away from the "here and now".
Immagine


6) Yoga is a mystical-religious practice, I am an atheist and I'm not going to start believing in funny things
​Many students ask me if there is a need to believe anything in particular to practice yoga. Some even wonder if it is necessary to stick to any particular religion to become good practitioners. In these cases I reply that not only is there no need to believe into something specific, but it is advisable, when practicing, to try to suspend any belief. Yoga is closer to a scientific process than it is to religion. When we devote ourselves to practice we wear the clothes of the researcher, of the impartial observer. We undress from the load of certainties, knowledge, judgments and prejudices that we have accumulated over the years and try to notice the surfacing sensations, what is happening to our body, to our breath, as if we were explorers landed for the first time on Mars trying collect data on the scenario that unfolds. Science works with external experiments, yoga works with internal experiments, that is, with experiences. We could define it as a psycho-experimental practice in which we drop any belief (even trust in science itself, which sometimes turns into another faith) and we stick only to the experience we have, to what is given in the moment, as a phenomenon. However, it must be remembered that this millennial practice was born within the fold of the Indian culture and borrows many names, mythological characters and symbols from Hindu religion. The dimension of yoga, which is certainly not aseptic, is imbued with Indian spirituality. However, the fact remains that yoga is not a religion, it is an investigation of ourselves and the world we are thrown into.
7) I once went to a yoga class and realized that yoga is not for me
Luckily, unlike math or ballet, until now an institutionalized yoga-manual has not been created and the knowledge that it encloses has not been codified in a standard and universal way. The word itself, so inclusive in its original meaning of "reintegration of oneself in the world", is open to be interpreted and declined in endless ways. Moral of the story: there are thousands of styles, practices, approaches to Yoga, ranging from the most demanding dynamism to the pure contemplative stasis. The advice is therefore to try different methods until you find the most suitable for you. And I assure you that there is certainly one that is right for you, it's just a matter of finding it.
8) The yoga environment annoys me because it is full of fanatic people
Very often those who teach yoga take themselves very seriously and risk conveying the idea of being a representative of an elitist and mysterious knowledge. It is instead useful to remember that although yoga, as a phenomenon of self-enquiry, is a very serious thing, those who practice or teach it can take themselves much less seriously, cultivating a healthy self-irony.          
9) I need to increase my physical strength, strengthen muscles and lose weight, yoga works only on stretching, so it is not for me
The Indian master Iyengar reminds us that "The practice of yoga is a gradual transformation from an effort full of effort to effort without effort". Although some courses tend to select slightly lazy series with a prevalence of static stretching postures, the practitioner should be started with practicing muscle engaging and strengthening positions, developed in fluid and dynamic sequences in which cardio activity has a substantial part and the general slimming of the body is a side effect.
​
10) Yoga is for women
Since in the West, during the week, men tend to have more binding working hours than women, it is women who have the opportunity to enroll in yoga classes more often. The belief that the practice of yoga is something for women, a bit like aerobics or pilates, has therefore been widespread. There is nothing more false, because it is even contrary to what is the history of yoga. Of course the practice of yoga should not include any kind of discrimination, be it of  gender, age or ethnicity. It is a gift within everyone's reach and which each of us can treasure. Historically, however, this practice became more widespread among men, in a society in which there were differences in gender and class. And in fact, men's muscle structure represents a great advantage for them to easily enter most postures which, together with flexibility, require a certain physical strength.
11) Sports e yoga are distant worlds
​Although there is a big difference between sport, which is essentially aimed at a performance and yoga, intended as an untargeted process of exploration, it is indisputable that for the sporty person yoga is not only compatible, but even a propaedeutic activity. As the agonists know well, obtaining good results can be a stimulus to continue doing well, but shouldn’t become the heart, the meaning of sport itself. To maintain a clear and stable mind, without succumbing to stress, it is important to remember that first of all you can enjoy the act for what it is. Through yoga you train to stay mentally with what you are doing, without focusing excessively on the results, which, in this spirit, will not be long in coming.
12) Yoga targets just the musculoskeletal anatomical system
​Although there is no doubt about the effects of this discipline on the postural level, yoga through twists and inversion works inside the body as well, decongesting the bowels and internal organs from the old blood. All this promotes a deep oxygenation of the tissues which can counteract, for example, stomach ache or headache. Inversions in particular stimulate the glandular system and promote the correct functioning of the hormonal system
13) Yoga is a competition with yourself 
There is perhaps no more misleading indication than this one for those who are approaching this practice. It must be made clear that there is really nothing to achieve in yoga. In daily routine we are always overwhelmed by countless tasks that we are asked to perform both in the private and professional life. We are so immersed in the dimension of doing that we forget “to be”. Yoga can thus represent a moment  in which there is nothing more to do, and we can limit ourselves to perceive our body and feel ourselves existing. We put ourselves in strange, unusual, new body postures, to displace our tendency to mentally rationalize and organize experience. We are not competing with others or even less with ourselves to stretch more and touch the tips of our feet. Stretching or muscle strengthening is no end in itself, but it is an opportunity to explore ourselves, and explore what happens when we are able to start listening.
14) I am stressed and suffer from panic attacks: I should better concentrate my efforts on a therapy addressed only to the mind
When the mind plays tricks on us it is because it acts as a master, it lords over us. Since it represents a counterpart not particularly willing to listen or democratic, it is very difficult to undermine its destabilizing charge by working directly on it. It would be like wanting to negotiate something with an absolute sovereign. For this reason, the best way to deal with it, is to shift the center of gravity from the mental sphere to the sphere of sensitive perception. It is precisely by increasing the ability of our body to perceive that we can reduce the anxious and restless wandering of our mind.
15) I don't want to become a contortionist or a acrobat, so I prefer to dedicate myself to other disciplines
The very advanced postures in which famous practitioners  appear, resemble amazing undertakings calling to be frozen in a snapshot  more than genuine explorations of oneself and one's own body. The goal in practice is never the difficulty of a posture in itself, its external look, but the experience I have while I dwell in it. If I force my body into extreme shapes or just simply out of my reach, I get no other result than being overwhelmed by uneasiness and discomfort and missing the experience of what’s happening inside
Update cookies preferences