To wonder if yoga is becoming less popular now?

It’s the time of day of classes though. In my area it’s 7 pm ish so it’s a bit tricky after dinner! I have a healthy diet but eat lots of fibre and veg .😂

If you can't bend over without farting, there may be something wrong with your diet

The area is saturated round here. It's a hippy part of the country with millions of yoga teachers so they struggle to fill their classes.

Is it that there are so many teachers and classes now that they exceed the demand?

I teach yoga and my aim is to help people improve their mobility and strength rather than flexibility alone. This means engaging muscle groups rather than stretching in an unfocused/floppy way.

Not all teachers have had the anatomy and physiology training to understand this though.
I only teach a few classes a week and the one I run and publicise myself is very popular. The other drop-in class, run by the local authority, less so.

There's been an explosion in the number of yoga teacher training courses over the last few years and, as a result, there a lot more teachers, not all of them good nor authentic.

Depends where you are I think. The studio I go to in London (not central), runs 50+ Yoga classes a week, all different types/levels. The couple I regularly go to are always fully booked (22 per class). I also went to a leisure centre gym for a little while where the Yoga classes always seemed to be fully booked too.

The plus side of the place I go to is there are so many teachers/types you can try and find a style you like and teachers you gel with. I tried a teacher I hadn’t tried before the other day as I couldn’t attend my regular class time and hated every second of it. Far too advanced despite being an all levels Vinyasa class and offered 0 modifications and seemed visibly irritated at the fact I couldn’t do some of what she was asking. If she was the only teacher there I’d have never returned. I wonder if that’s the case in smaller areas = less teachers = less people able to get into it because there’s less opportunity to love it.

I used to do Ashtanga yoga at the Triyoga near my office, but post-Covid we all stuck with WFH and I found a lovely small class in a local community centre.

The teacher always asks about injuries, offers variations and props & goes round checking on everyone, and varies the practice according to the moon cycle - at the full & new moon times we do moon salutations & restorative / yin yoga, at other times it’s vinyasa. It’s much more fun than the Ashtanga classes were.

For strength I’ve got weightlifting at the local gym.

Jessica Valante pilates YouTube

I used to be into yoga myself but encountered so many teachers who, as you say, just do sun salutations all hour long and want to charge £20 per hour. I prefer mat pilates as it is a lot better for my back, hips, etc.

I started practising about 4 years ago, just from home with YouTube and I still love it now, also do HIIT and cycling. I don't think it has got less popular. During Covid I think a lot of people reevaluated their lives and lifestyles and people setting up small businesses and going self employed has sky rocketed. My Next Door app is absolutely littered with handy men, yoga classes, MLMs, nail technicians, dog walkers, baby sitters, cat sitters, house sitters, people trying to sell crap crafty stuff. I think they have a very rose tinted view of what being a business owner involves though and I do believe it will die off when people return to normal employment when they realise it isn't as easy as it appears.

It’s too expensive for me now at a small local studio (has won awards). I can do it online for free.

Pilates has been pushed more locally for backs and strength work.

It doesn’t need to be either or. I do more strength training with heavy weights for sure but Pilates helps my back and core.

Pilates hits the smaller muscles that we don’t work in the gym. And loads of posture work.

I also think many current yoga teacher training courses are very poor and you have people qualifying without the required knowledge to teach safely.

I have a yoga studio, our revenue is higher than ever. There are more teachers locally than ever before but many struggle to build sustainable classes. The marketing side is really time consuming now especially with so much competition. I think people have a view that it's a nice job and don't realise how labour intensive it is.

I see a lot more fusion classes with pilates, Qi Gong, breathwork, sound bowls etc. I think we are getting further and further from yogic tradition but that's a different discussion.

This is why proper instruction is important, your instructor should tell you which muscles to engage in the postures and should encourage you to prioritise alignment over depth. I remind people that their less flexible side is their stronger side 😊.

I've been practicing for 17 years and did yoga teacher training earlier this year. I'm now teaching 1-2 classes a week alongside my regular job. I love connecting with people. I know some people are put off by the spiritual side of yoga but that's a big draw for me, it really helps me regulate my moods and overall mental health. I love that moment at the end of the class when people open their eyes after savasana and you can feel the calm in the room 🧘‍♀️

I used to go to yoga where I lived before but moved here and haven’t found a class I liked. Some were too “spiritual” ie chanting and incense, really not for me. Others were not super helpful for me, I have injuries and I can’t do some poses and they were a bit sniffy about it. I don’t want to damage my body and I don’t want a hyper competitive “push yourself to the limit” space, I get enough of that at work! One had a creepy man instructor who kept touching my body in a way I find hard to articulate but felt uncomfortable.

the yin yoga class I used to go to was soooo good, and I miss it a lot! The instructor put on modern music like lana del ray etc and was really chilled out and just told us to “relax into the pose” and would tell us off for trying to hard! (In yin yoga you hold a pose for ages). I may have had a platonic crush on her. It was full of type A people trying to relax and it was so theraputic, plus I did get stronger and more flexible. It felt like such a companionable space.

I do need to do something though 😆

I prefer weight training with (heavy) dumbbells over pilates. More straightforward and effective I think. Try Caroline Girvan...

But I also do a lot of yoga-type stretching, courtesy of Kassandra and Livingleggings. Add in Growingannanas for HIIT and I'm sorted. At 70 I'm not doing too badly...

Plenty of both here (rural area), many yoga classes, mat Pilates and a new Reformer Pilates studio has opened.

I recently started a yoga class but had to abandon due to a non Yoga injury but will restart next year. I like the meditative side.

I also really like mat Pilates and used to do it regularly. But they have different breathing and I get very confused between the two.

But plenty of choice to be had.

Can anyone recommend any YouTube channels for pilates please?

Oh have never heard of Pilates with machines! I’ve been to several classes and it was similar to yoga.

I think with the wrong instructor pushing someone in to a position that is beyond their flexibility can cause issues. Torn muscles for example.

Also, everyone has a personal level of flexibility. If you could never touch your toes then that’s fine. Just maintain what is normal for you.

Occasionally in yoga you get super flexible people (who are just born like that so not really impressive) and that seems to be the goal with advanced poses.

In Pilates you just need to be strong to get to the advanced levels. And strength is more important than being super flexible. Flexibility without strength to back it up is not good. It’s just hyper mobility.

Yes reformer Pilates is Pilates. There’s mat Pilates and reformer.

Reformer Pilates is still a classical version of Pilates as taught by Joseph Pilates. But there really should not be these huge classes with loads of reformers - they can be dangerous and need a lot of attention from the instructor to make sure people are doing it right.