Yoga is Not What It Used to Be

By Adam Hocke

I’ve been practising yoga for over twenty years and teaching for nearly ten. For me, the heart of yoga remains constant and has come into even sharper focus with more life and more practice experience. Yoga is and has always been a means of lessening individual and collective suffering grounded in the spiritual traditions of India. However, the way I practise and teach modern postural yoga has started to shift.

Intention is everything

Handstands, arm-balances, and pretzel poses are fun and have their role in keeping us interested in getting on the mat (see Why We Should Practise Hard Poses). But, far more important than the pose itself is its intention. For example, if our intention of handstand is merely to get upside-down, we can find a range of less demanding alternatives that will make that intention realistic for more people. Similarly, if our handstand intention is to see how we respond to physical challenge, we can find loads of other ways to get our sweat on. This is important because not everyone can or should do handstand. Intentions of individual postures can be physical, emotional, or spiritual, and practice and teaching should include a deliberate process of assessing and reassessing these intentions. More simply put, don’t just expect magic from the poses, participate in the process of seeing how you as an individual interact with them.

Stretching is overrated

 There has been a big change lately in how yoga teachers are defining and teaching stretching. Gone are the days when we would just hold a passive forward fold and wait for a teacher to sit on our back to get us in ‘deeper.’ This subject is expansive, but the short explanation is that we have learned that passive range of motion, or the ability to get into a stretching shape with leverage, body weight, or gravity is not that valuable physically and perhaps leaves us weak and vulnerable when we are pulled to our max. How many yogis do you know who’ve had pain in their hamstring attachments or hips? Many teachers now are encouraging an active range of motion: developing flexibility alongside strength by means of eccentric and isometric contraction, resistance work, and otherwise broadened approaches to range of motion development. I know the idea of changing the way you stretch might sound like a bummer, but for me it delivers an opportunity to feel and explore more in my body. When you add strength, there is simply more feedback and sensation to focus the moving meditation.  

Extreme poses are divisive 

There are very flexible people. There are very non-flexible people. And there are the overwhelming majority of us somewhere in the middle. I now emphasise postures and forms of practices that bring us together rather than divide us into haves and have nots.  Let’s not forget that this is a practice that is about the cessation of suffering rather than developing elite gymnastics skills or social media followers. There is an endless list of postures that are simply not available to most people (is legs-behind-the-head really necessary for your life?). In seeking big, weird postures, most of us are pushing too hard and compensating unhappily. And the few who may have the range might not actually have the strength and control to navigate it healthily time after time. Before practising them, we have to ask if poses are realistic for an average human body. Some poses might need to be swept into the bin and some may have to be recycled and revamped. I believe this process of compassionate and critical reassessment keeps yoga alive for us as individuals and collectively for all who practice.