If your yoga teaching is not functional to begin with…
By Kristine Kaoverii Weber | July 13, 2023
The other day I was speaking with a new teacher. She told me that she did a 200 hour training. “But when I got out there and started to teach,” she said, “I realized that what I had learned in my training was completely inappropriate for the people who were turning up for my classes.”
*Sigh* – I’ve heard this story way too many times.
My first experiences with yoga were slow and mindful in the 70s and 80s so I was surprised when, after returning from living in Asia for 4 years, I went to a class in 1995 in New Jersey which was a fast, sweaty, thumping-with-music kind of workout. The teacher and her front row students could do all sorts of amazing things with their bodies – and those of us hiding in the back were labeled “beginners” (in a friendly enough way) and encouraged to work harder because, eventually, we’d get there too.
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But, I would later learn, “You’ll get there eventually” isn’t accurate. Mobility is largely genetic and use dependent – if you were trained as a gymnast or dancer, you have some advantage – and, if your mom was Gumby, you’re probably golden.
Thankfully, very soon after that, I found some Viniyoga classes and in them, something that resonated with me and how I’d originally learned to practice. It also dovetailed well with the Qi gong I had studied. These classes weren’t easy, but they also didn’t feel out of my flexibility league, or risky. They were intentional – I was confident in what I was doing with my body and I felt like every pose had a purpose and there was a mindful, logical order to the sequences.
Clearly things have changed in the yoga world over the past 30 years. With a growing body of promising research and increasing recognition from health care professionals, yoga teachers are more aware that many people are coming to yoga for reasons other than flexibility or fitness, like stress relief and the mental health benefits.
Which means yoga teaching is necessarily changing.
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Recently, I’ve been hearing and reading about “functional” yoga. It’s a term that’s being used to describe more adaptable ways of teaching and practicing. Instead of creating goals around accomplishing poses, the idea is that you use asanas as a way to support movement in your daily life.
“Functional yoga” is an offshoot of the functional movement trend in the fitness industry. It’s being positioned as an alternative to “aesthetic” yoga practice – or doing asanas to create pleasing looking shapes. So instead of focusing on trying to do the pose “the right way”, you focus on how your body feels with the movement and how the movement supports your needs.
This, in turn, is meant to help you develop strength, flexibility, balance, and stability. Like other functional fitness training, functional yoga may target specific functional movements like squatting, lunging, twisting, reaching, and bending.
And all this is great – because asanas should be functional. I’m a big fan of function.
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However, I’m left wondering… If your yoga practice isn’t functional to begin with, what have you been doing to yourself? and, for teachers, what have you been teaching others?
Have the past 3 decades of yoga in the west been such a dysfunctional mess that now the consensus is that a new style of asana practice must be developed to counter the effects? In order to rectify the problems created by ignoring biomechanics and individual differences for so long?
The older I get, the more I enjoy and need asana practice and I know many people who feel the same. It’s great that yoga teachers are working on trying to teach yoga in a more functional way. But if may teachers have been trained to teach a fundamentally dysfunctional practice, what is the scale of the harm that has been done? What is the scale of harm is still being perpetuated by not focusing on the functional?
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Recently I saw a video of a physical therapist saying, “We do too many forward bends in yoga and so our hamstrings are weak, overstretched, and thin. And we do too many quad exercises in yoga and so our quads are overdeveloped and tight.”
Which left me wondering, who is she talking about when she says “we”? And what kind of yoga is she referring to exactly? What kind of yoga did she learn when she studied it? What kind of yoga does she believe everyone is doing?
The answer of course is the mainstream stuff. Which, it appears, fitness and movement professionals are now starting to call out as dysfunctional and to dismantle.
Of course I feel empathy for people who’ve spent a lot of time and money learning to teach yoga that is not functional to begin with; however, the alternatives are out there – and they’ve been out there for a long time. You will have to chip away at the veneer that’s crusted over social media in order to find yoga that has always been taught functionally – but it’s there, mostly ignored or labeled “beginner” or “gentle.”
I always thought more functional ways of practicing were overlooked because they weren’t exciting, but who knows, it looks like functional may become the new sexy. 😎😘
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Thanks for this blog and support for those working with people in a more “functional”way.
Thank you!
You have summed it up brilliantly. Function over aesthetically pleasing form…teaching people first!! Thank you for taking the time to write this.
I was lucky in my teacher, who has from the outset focussed on teaching to the room, taking care of everybody and ensuring that adaptations are always available. I teach mainstream classes and special needs, encouraging people to listen to and respect their bodies. People are sometimes surprised that what I teach is even yoga. That’s how far we’ve deviated from what should be completely normal.
Keep up the good work.
yes you were so lucky!
I could not agree with you more. My teacher training was not particularly geared to functional yoga, but I was lucky to have a continuing teacher with whom I studied that was 100% functional yoga. As I felt the difference in her teaching, I could never take a class that didn’t honor that process. And naturally my teaching and continuing education reflected that as well. So grateful to have found it early on and to be able to continue learning from you, Kristine. Thank you.
Thank you Devon and you are lucky to have had such a good teacher!
What’s most challenging is finding those ways to be functional when you’ve been taught vinyasa, hot yoga, etc. Options for poses seem limitless in those subsections of yoga but it seems almost impossible to find creative ways to teach gentle classes that aren’t yin. Like you mention here, there’s not enough emphasis on beginner or gentle. Even beginners who truly have the potential to keep up with vinyasa need a balance of beginner poses/gentleness so they are not overwhelmed or discouraged.
Yes “finding those ways to be functional when you’ve been taught vinyasa, hot yoga, etc.” is exactly the issue here. And I would suggest that it requires an entire reframing of what yoga is – what it’s for, how to approach it. Perhaps keeping up with vinyasa classes, even if you have the potential, is not necessarily the best idea or approach. And perhaps a re-training is necessary as well. Unfortunately, yin as an alternative is not sufficient. Because many of the poses – like butterfly or “saddle” for example and seated forward bends are quite yang actually. They are not accessible for most people.
Maybe do a bit of cross training and connect to qi gong to soften up…some of the concepts behind internal martial arts are very compatible with yoga and offer a way to personally internalize a practice and access functionality/whole body awareness.
yes lovely!
I’m so very grateful that I was a physical therapist for 33 years before I was trained as a yoga teacher. Because I was 58 when I went through my 200 HR, I knew that there were some things in yoga that I would never do – and I was fine with that – subsequently I attract the older beginner student. We were told in our YTT that the beginner market was the largest, most untapped market. I find that when I’m talking to people about yoga the most common response I get is “I can’t do yoga.” It’s so hard to overcome what people believe yoga to be based on the images and marketing and the athletic execution that yoga has become in America. Also, it’s sad to me that in many of the studios and certainly in the health clubs, the more spiritual components of yoga – those components that make up the bulk of yoga philosophy – – are at best minimized and at worst completely ignored. When people leave my classes, I want them to feel better physically, mentally, and spiritually. If that isn’t happening, I’m not doing my job.
Thank you Brenda. Yes it is hard to overcome the images of yoga and also I totally agree that the “beginner” market is where it’s ag and that spirituality is very important to incorporate into the teachings. So thank you for doing what you are doing!
And again, as I mentioned in the blog, what I would offer is that the “things in yoga” that you were taught and wouldn’t do because of your PT training are things in the specific style or lack thereof that was addressed in your specific training. They are not universal and there are much more accessible and biomechanically sound lineages out there.
I have been trying to find a yoga class or a pilates class that just does what the original principle of each discipline taught originally. What happened to it all? I went to a pilates class recently and the teacher kept referring to yoga poses of Downward Dog and Warrior and I came away with my head whirling – was I in a pilates or yoga class and did Joseph Pilates teach Downward Dogs? The same in a yoga class I tried out, I couldn’t tell the difference between it and a fast paced ‘Bums, Tums and Legs’ , and I am so glad to see that I am not alone in wanting to know the philosophy and teachings around the original aspects of each of these disciplines to be able to learn the balance. I would love to find a yoga class that was taught as you were Kristine, in the 70’s and early 80’s.
please look for a Viniyoga teacher or someone who teaches in Desikachar’s lineage. You may also do well if you look for a Kripalu or a “hatha” teacher.
I think the practice of yoga ( at least in the US) as a “fitness class” has passed. With all the new classes and kettlebells and all that stuff, people who are looking for a sweaty have moved to the next “in” thing. Those that come to my classes are looking for slow stuff embracing the parasympathetic side.
Yay! I think you’re right!!!
As a Physical Therapist who has to write “functional goals” in order to get reimbursed, I have to put a different spin on yoga poses. I put them in more of a “pain science “ and “motor control” category in Order to expand movement options and break cycles of repetitive movement that is many times painful. How functional is triangle, really? I don’t move that way in daily function. But I do triangle with my patients to create new habits of moving when old habits aren’t working for them anymore.
thank you for sharing that insight Stephanie! And I would offer that when triangle is taught with a focus on lateral flexion there is some functionality to it!
Thank you so much for making this course and material available. I have been teaching Gentle Yoga for 10 years. Though I have taken many of your other online courses here at Subtle Yoga, this one is the one I have been waiting for and didn’t even realize it (“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”). I need this for myself first and foremost and then to be able to incorporate the work in my teaching. Thank you Kristine and Brett for this collaborative effort!!
Thank you Kathleen, we hope it’s helpful and that you enjoy it. xo