To think that many yoga teachers are too “woo woo?”

Surely it’s just about finding a teacher who suits what you need at the time and who can grow with you.

I’d say I started as the least woo person ever. I started yoga at least a decade ago, looking for a solution to a very specific physical problem, in the expectation that it may well take a good few lessons to get me sorted. i was very clear in my expectation.

In the years since, I have come to really value more and more of what I might originally have dismissed as ‘woo’. My teacher introduced elements in what I now think of as a way which was appropriate to my ability to internalise it. My body has been totally transformed and my mind too is very different, both can do many things I would not have thought possible.

if I had not ‘clicked’ with the teacher I would never have learned and experienced all that.

Hope you find the right teacher, when “the student is ready, the teacher will come”

I’ve tried to get into yoga a few times over the years but we didn’t click.

The 3 yoga teachers I had were great at what they did, but, yes, 2 of them in particular were a bit ‘out there’ and I found it hard to fully take the classes seriously. Especially when one of them started talking about my feet being roots and to imagine I’m swaying in the wind, she then gave me an impromptu head massage when I was laying down. I know some people would love that, but I found it a bit weird.

There’s elements of it I do practice though - the sitting still, closing eyes and focusing on deep breathing, it’s great for the core and I really do feel like my mind is calmer afterwards.

I do Pilates twice a week and really enjoy it.

I prefer Pilâtes. Can't bear some of the sanctimonious guff that some yoga people come out with. Besides, it makes me giggle.

As many have commented yoga has a philosophy and history. If you do yoga in a yoga centre more of the spiritual side is often incorporated but in a gym it isn't. I don't agree with others that you should do Pilates or Stretch classes if you don't want that side, lots of people who aren't devout Christians sing carols. Yoga poses are sequenced in many styles of yoga and the transitions are important. I do a lot of yoga and have tried Pilates but I don't like the Pilates, it's very different.
If you want a style with very little woo woo try Power Yoga, it's rarely done in yoga studios but can be found in gyms.

Whenever I heard of pople talking of 'woo-woo' I can't help but think of this...

m.youtube.com/watch?v=FdGQU92n4cE

But not all cultures have the same attitude towards cultural appropriation.

In some, in fact, it's a sign of respect and honour to imitate or copy other cultures. It's a mistake to assume that others will be offended - it's infantilising. And others will take the approach that a little spirituality is better than none.

It's very presumptive to call out cultural appropriation on someone's behalf.

Sorry, chakra- ing

I spend my week teaching science so I quite like my 1 hour of sitting in the dark surrounded by fairy lights, omming and shakraing and being gonged. It's escapism woo woo but it gets my thumbs up.

Where are all these offended yogis?

The thing that's intrinsically wrong about having a 'sanitised western version' as the pp puts it below is that it's not yoga. Don't call it yoga. Call it a stretch clas. But just thinking 'let's westernise it and take all that foreign muck out of it' is essentially whitewashing and cultural appropriation. It is offensive to a 5000 year old tradition.

I respect that people might not want to do a practice based on spirituality, but in return people that do practice it should respect that it is a practice based on spirituality and a rich history, and it shouldn't have to be sanitised so that it is palatable to them

Yoga literally means the yoking of the mind and the body. Without the spiritual ideas it’s just stretching.

Only ever had that type once and that was in a studio which had loads of iconography

Any yoga I’ve been to has had a finishing prayer - even the non “woo woo” ones. Even Les Mils body balance has a lie down and a prayer at the end!

It would be naive to expect anything else imo.

I practise qi gong and tai chi, and the amount of spirituality in those varies, like yoga, according to the teacher. (My daughter is a yoga teacher and has the balance about right, I think.)

Exactly

isn't it rooted in Hinduism.

I want to do the exercises not pray or open my mind to an unknown power.

What's intrinsically wrong with having a sanitised Westernised version, though? That can be calm and meditative without being unpalatably woo for some?

I wouldn't expect spiritual people to attend, but I don't see how it's offensive to adapt it for a different audience.

I quite like the phrase, "if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly" - e.g. if people are more comfortable/in tune with doing the spirituality low key, then it's better than not being spiritual at all.

There are different types of yoga, but the teachers of the best class I went to would describe yoga as being about strength.

I wouldn't describe it as a faith practice. Its not an exercise class either.

Not if its been sold as an exercise class rather than a faith pratice

Aren't Pilates and yoga different though - one is strengthening (and recommended for anyone with hypermobility) and yoga is stretching (and not recommended if hypermobile)? I realise you can get stronger through stretching but the way the body moves is different.

Sweary Yoga sounds like a great idea.

But yoga is an intrinsically spiritual activity surely? That's why I don't do it. I don't want my exercise to have that side to it and there are lots of alternative ways to keep fit.
I think the problem is that there are lots of exercise classes that have taken elements of yoga and Westernised them so that many people now view it as nothing more than a stretch class and are then surprised to find out about the background. Yoga isn't becoming woo, it always was, it's just that it has been misrepresented to quite a large degree in Western society.
I was surprised to recently see pictures on a local Church school's social media of the children doing a yoga class. I mentioned to someone I know who works there that I would have thought this was contrary to the school's professed Christian ethos and she had no idea that yoga had its roots in religion. It turns out they'd invited in a number of different teachers in to vary the PE classes so one week it was Zumba, another ballet and so on. They'd not thought yoga was any different.
Probably people who run yoga type classes but without the spiritual element should have to call them something like "yoga based exercise" to avoid confusion but in the absence of that kind of differentiation I would always assume that a yoga class would have a spiritual element and that's not for me, so I wouldn't go.

I used to be on edge because THREE times I fell asleep and snored at the meditation bit 😳 So I was scared to relax after that

This! Yoga is a spiritual practice.

Yeah, but if we’ve finished stretching I’d rather get on and do something else, not spend 15 minutes lying on an uncomfortable mat wondering if everyone else really has their eyes closed or if they’re all lying there waiting for it to end so they can leave too.

Yes I don’t like the spiritual aspect of Yoga and I feel uncomfortable with it