What Exactly Is This Yoga That I Am Teaching?

yogaLast week I read an interesting piece about alignment and its relative importance to yoga.

It was written by an Indian woman who reflected on the eight-limbed path and asana’s limited role in the grand scheme of the yoga practice.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything she wrote but of course have to add my two cents.

I am a “yoga” teacher because that is the name given to the exercise practice that I teach.

At this moment, I could work at a gym or open a studio and try to sell “exercise” classes or come up with a special name for my type of yoga, but I don’t think anyone would show up.

What I do is called yoga, but I teach is an exercise routine loosely based on traditional yoga poses with a very specific emphasis on alignment and posture.

I think this is a legitimate approach but not genuinely yoga.

I’m not saying that all yoga teachers are like me but I wonder what the percentage is.

And I might add that I’m not ignorant of yoga philosophy.

When I first began taking, and then teaching yoga, I dove fairly deep into the literature especially three of the more important ones: The Bhagavad Gita, The Ramayana, and the Yoga Sutra.

Having run several teacher trainings using these texts I became wonderfully familiar with their content.

And I love them.

Especially the Ramayana with the awesome monkey Hanuman who I revered from the minute I entered Jivamukti Yoga Center in 1995.

But at the heart of the matter I am a Jew with a healthy (I think) antipathy for all religions.

I am fond of all of their philosophies and appreciate many of their rituals, but I also choose not to believe.

And yet I am a yoga teacher.

What is a boy to do?

An Interview with Eric Goodman