You don’t have to have the “perfect” outfit to come to yoga class. You don’t have to look like a yoga journal cover model with your arms delicately toned, and your posture precisely aligned. You don’t have to be bendy, or even be able to touch your toes.
It’s ok if your thighs jiggle. If your belly moves when you laugh, that’s ok too. Your wrinkles and gray hair are bonuses. They tell us that you’ve been around … hopefully learned a few things along the way.
You can sweat a lot, and struggle through the whole thing. Cursing if you have to. You don’t have to put on a serene face and act like nothing’s happening here. Something’s definitely happening here.
You don’t have to hold back either. You don’t have to hide your experience or dumb it down just because the person on the mat beside you is newer to practice.
The truth is, you don’t have to be anyone other than you when you step onto your mat.
Your task is to let down your walls. Drop the act and SHOW UP.
I have had so many conversations with people who tell me they stopped coming to yoga because they were worried that they didn’t have the right outfit. So many talks with people who never even started because they got intimidated when they saw a photograph of someone doing something extreme and calling it yoga.
You have to know, it’s not true. None of it. The fancy outfits. The uber bendy people doing acrobatics for the camera. The clique of “cool kids” with “advanced practices” at the studio down the street. None of that has anything to do with what yoga is.
Yoga is not something you can commodify. Yoga is not something you can measure. Yoga is not something that is exclusive or reserved only for a select few. Yoga has no special requirements other than your interest. And if you’re interested, you’re meant to explore it.
What you’ll come to find is that Yoga is a state – an experience.
You don’t have to be wearing name brand pants or have the perfect body to have an experience of yoga. All you need for yoga is yourself. Your true Self. And if you don’t have that yet, you need the courage and curiosity to go looking for it.
All the rest of this stuff is fluff. Go searching for the Truth beneath the colorful tops, fancy postures, and cool kids. You’ll find one thing:
LOVE radiating at the core of everything.
The journey to that LOVE is yoga.
Sarah Fischer ERYT500, YACEP has been teaching alignment-based yoga at SoulShine since 2021. She’s been a student of yoga since 2001, and a teacher since 2007. In addition to writing and teaching, she offers mindfulness-based mentoring. Read more from Sarah at www.sarahfischer.life/blog