To not find yoga calming?

[serenedream]

Admittedly I am a newbie! I hope that I am unreasonable, because I have dearly wanted to learn for many years, and have only been able to commit to it recently.

I have a rather lousy local class and can't yet get to one further afield as not driving at the moment. By lousy I mean it is very large and the teacher can't really help individual clients.

So, I have tried many vids at home and have studied alone (books, documentaries, etc) and tried out small sessions here on my mat, going gently and trying to find a fit that feels right for me.

But some of even the easier poses feel stressful, it is even worse if I try to follow a video as my neck is twisting around to see it! I thought of planning a set of poses before hand then easing into them alone, but even then I can't quite seem to find it relaxing. I must admit that my muscles feel fab after though! Some dreadful soreness as a newbie (hope this is normal) but my mind feels odd and frazzled! I felt even more stressed and hyper after doing it.

I have meditated for years so not a novice there, I am usually very comfortable being alone with myself and breathing/inner silence and calm. It's just that I can't seem to combine that with asanas - which is what yoga is supposed to be about!

AIBU to think maybe it is not for me? Perhaps it works for some and actually upsets others? I have had a really sore neck and feel unpleasant doing any kind of inversion. Even downward dog makes my head pound. Maybe I could do modifications?

Yin yoga or yoga nidra with a live teacher - zoom class then you don’t need to travel - I have gone to Catherine Annis classes for years and love her

Hi there, I am pleased you are persevering. It has taken me 18 months to find my flow! I attend a taught session once per week and then do a session on my own 2 or 3 ti each in between. Are there any poses that you are happy to perform?
Hopefully, now you have dialled back on the pressure to do the classic “I am a yogi” poses you will find you get to where you want to be.
I still struggle with any pose that requires hip mobility but I can do a crow to handstand! I will never ever be able to get my heels down on the floor in downward dog…..

I was always too worried about accidentally farting to find it relaxing

I am the opposite! I can twist my hips and legs anywhere but inversions really bother me. I won't entertain any kind of headstand and full downward dog makes me neck/head feel uncomfortable. I am happy to find modifications though and may use a stool or chair for d.dog.

I am comfortable so far with:
Warrior poses, cat~cow, moon, triangle, etc. I am only uncomfortable with having my head lower than my heart.
I prefer slow flows........my interest in yoga is body/mind so if i wanted to feel invigorated I'd probably do something else.

Agree that it will take time, I keep stopping but going back after a few days. It works out better the calmer I approach it. I would love to mix class with home practice, ultimately!

I have IBS, so god help anyone within a 5 mile radius

You should look at yin it's mainly mat based no down dog or inversions it's poses like pigeon, butterfly, seated fold, deer, supported fish, bridge etc

will do that, thanks!

I don't enjoy it either. I do like Tai chi, though. Try something different. Some of the benefits of yoga come from the stretching and focused breathing which facilitate respiration and lymphatic drainage and overall impact your physiological processes in a positive way. But you could get those effects from other types of classes. Zumba is fun too. As is water aerobics. Lots of low impact types of activities out there but you should do something you like. I just took up Nordic hiking.

Rather sounds like you are doing rather better than you thought! Your balance and core strength must be sound. Perhaps it is your blood flow that restricts your capacity, this may come from tension coming g from the desire to master the full range all at once.
keep the faith, you sound awesome.

Yanbu. I've never relaxed at yoga. Too much time to think.

This is interesting. I stopped for over a week, and since slowly going back in, I have taken a calmer, less demanding approach (with props, lol). It did make a difference, but I have done very little as of yet. I have just found a local teacher who may do private classes, and just one session might help me get started, we shall see how it goes when I call up!

When practising last week I felt very rushed (my own doing) and too confused. I was too excited to try many things at once, and discovered a lot of discomfort in my head being lower than my chest. For now I will do modifications, as I don't want to aggravate that, and my body is likely telling me it doesn't want to go there. I will adapt to my own comfort. I think many of us when starting out think we need to work up to acrobatics, sort of in a progression, but it's ok to follow one's own path - headstands are not compulsory at any level.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts:)

I will definitely consider these, we do have a local tai chi class here. Always fancied that! Will see how I get on with my yoga for now and give it some thought as I go along.

@megletthesecond Ah, I am good at switching off, but I can see how that might exacerbate it. People always say yoga is for everyone, but I think they mean 'everyone who gels with it'!

Yes yoga makes me really angry. I used to come back from a class furious! So I googled it and apparently it is a thing.

Pilates is loads better.

I dislike them both! I’ve tried a few different classes over the years as friends have encouraged me to give it a go but I’m far too impatient and like my exercise/workouts to be quite aggressive and high intensity, I like to be really out of breath and sweating in my sports bra!
yoga and Pilates just totally enrage me with their slow doddery pace and so much time spent either concentrating on breathing or lying down - I just want to shout “stop wasting my fucking time and get on with it 🤬” only to discover that that really is ‘it’.
Not for me, but I know so many people are totally dedicated to it and would hate the type of classes I like. And some like both. Different strokes for different folk.

Yoga isn't a fitness routine and is much more than asana. It's also mediation and breathing. The postures are there to help with movement but you can practice yoga without doing any strenuous asana.

If you want to exclusively keep fit or lose weight, perhaps try a different form of exercise such as pilates or running.

It depends on the teacher, mine is amazing I love her classes, anyone else is just not the same!

This! I am drawn to yoga for those reasons, to extend my meditation practice into the physical. I don't see it as fitness in the ordinary sense, so I can imagine if someone prefers vigorous or intense workouts yoga might not be very satisfying.
It is often marketed along with more typical exercises though, so I am not surprised many people are let down by it. It just isn't like that at all, and I strongly doubt there would be fast results or weight loss. And some people just like pushing harder, having more active workouts. It's all good if it is right for you.

What irritates me about yoga sometimes is the mythology/lifestyle mania surrounding it - the winning insta poses, expensive accessories, etc. It put me off for a long time.
I am open to the spiritual/mindful elements (although not religious myself) as I do feel we are more than just a brain on a stick, so would love to delve deeper in

I dipped in and out of yoga for years, and you're right, you need the right instructor. I can't recommend Kassandra Reinhardt enough, try the 30 day morning yoga challenge. She really is great.

There are lots of different sorts of yoga.

I started with Iyengar, where you hold poses for quite a long time, and focus on doing them correctly and on observing your body's response. It was physically hard but with a gentle approach, a fabulous grounding in the asanas and taught me how to,listen to my body, which was invaluable. I usually felt invigorated after classes. The calmness came later when I'd use the techniques learned to observe what my body was doing /telling me and that took away some underlying anxiety that I'd been unknowingly carrying.

There are restorative poses too - again more slowly paced which involve a lot of breathing, sitting , lying and stretching rather than the (trendy) flow which is hard to keep up with as a novice.

If you can't find an in person class, I'd suggest you start with Adrienne and her series that introduces the individual poses so that you can get to know them, practise them and get fluent in them before moving into a series where you join some of them up.

Adrienne is very good and her mini programmes are excellent because they repeat the poses each day so you gradually get fluent and stronger.

And also be aware that it takes years to build strength and flexibility to a standard that you see most instructors demonstrating. The important thing to bring the zen you are after is to learn to listen to your body, accept its limitations, embrace its capabilities, learn that each side behaves differently, and watch and marvel as it looks after you even more strongly when you take good care of it.

Yoga has been truly transformational for me and I hope it will be for you.

You should try the Asana Rebel app. That will have you sweating and groaning. It's hard (when you pick the right workouts)

Pilates is completely different to yoga so wouldn’t lump them together. I hated yoga but love Pilates.

OP to be fair, yoga has many different strands, and we've entered Insta hell if you ask me, just yoga-lite with influencers flogging happy videos and lycra leggings with zero understanding of the real roots of yoga...these days I think instructors can probably do fitness yoga certificates and then just start teaching and going on about Eastern meditation or whatever they think yoga is, and that's not really Yoga, is it? Maybe you've picked up on that and it's annoying you. It certainly annoys me! It often seems a bit half baked to me.

I can't relax in yoga either, I went along with a friend to her class as she was too nervous to go alone and I found the instructor really funny.

She had really baggy harem trousers that kept falling in her face whenever she did the bending over poses, along with a load of clanky silver necklaces they got stuck in her hair and after a while of untangling she just left them in there. And she had a normal accent for where we live, when we spoke at the beginning but drew into this slow posh overpronuciated drone as soon as the class started, I thought she was joking at first.
She also called eveyone Daaaaarrrrling and told us all loudly when some poor woman at the front farted that "human wind is just like the earths wind, it comes and goes and washes over us all"

I have tried again since with different people and videos but it all makes me think of her and I can't take them seriously, definitely not relaxing now.

That's true, I read an article recently explaining how inappropriate some instructors are eg chanting 'om' is hugely disrespectful.