Men & yoga:
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Where are all the men?

Yoga and men...or Men and yoga... This text is dedicated to the male gender. Men, it’s high time to step up and give yoga a go. This little text might encourage you to may be think about it...give it a try...be careful: you might get hooked!

Yoga classes in our studio are usually crowded with women, it’s quite rare to have more than 1/3 or more men in the class which we (Chris (m) & Anke (f)) find quite weird and ask ourselves what the reason(s) could be. Because, there are in fact numerous reasons why yoga is perfect for men too!

Good Reason #1 ;-) You’ll meet a lot of good-looking women in a yoga class. If you become a ‘regular’ (2-3 classes per week) you’ll probably find yourself getting a significant amount of female attention.

Good Reason #2 You will become physically and mentally stronger as well as more flexible. As your body will increase in strength and flexibility, so will your mind and emotional state. You are creating the perfect combination to ‘flow’ through life with more ease. (Did I already mention that you’ll look great, too?!)

Good Reason #3 Yoga is perfectly complimentary to sports. There are already a whole heap of professionals in the sports field who have added yoga to their training program to improve and ensure their success rate. As the infinite and repetitive movements of traditional training tend to make the body stiff and can be boring for the mind, many sportsmen and women find that practicing yoga postures can teach the mind to stay alert while observing the sensations in the body. You may find that after a while this may even increase your awareness whilst practising your favourite sport.

Surfing and yoga		Yoga and running		Improve your climbing!
Certain sports benefit from yoga in particular. Chris and I spent a month on surfing Mecca - Maui island in the summer of 2008. Over there the attendance of Ashtanga yoga classes (a physically demanding yoga style) was 50/50 men and women. Most of the men were surfers or had been involved in surfing and testified that a regular yoga practice was beneficial to their surfing. I did some climbing before I became a serious yoga practitioner.		I'm a runner as well. As I've been running for the last 14 years, I can tell that my running experience went through some changes as well. Before starting yoga on a regular basis I used to run 4-5 times a week for 30-45 minutes. Due to being more busy then in those years I now run, if I can make it, once a week, sometimes I only make it once in 2 weeks. Yoga keeps my condition absolutely on the level I need to still feel great when I run!		I did some climbing before I became a serious yoga practitioner. Then I went climbing again after I’d been practicing yoga for a couple of years and was amazed how much easier I could climb a wall! There was more ease in holding myself close to the wall because of y hips being more open and having much more strength in general, especially in the legs, felt very convenient to me.

Give yoga a go - if you dare... So where are all the men? Isn’t it time to let go of old-fashioned beliefs like; ‘yoga is for women’, ‘you need to be flexible to do yoga’ (well you have to start somewhere!) and this one makes me laugh every time; ‘yoga is for softies’. It’s also time to banish pre-conceived ideas. For example, yoga means sitting still for hours. Or indeed the other extreme: yoga is trying folding yourself in a pretzel. The good news is that there’s a golden midway: practicing postures while using the body’s actual capacity and accepting what there is. A good yoga class is accessible to everyone. Chris and I welcome every man coming to our classes. I for my part may even pay more attention to them because I feel like I need to treat them like something special ;-) I’ll finish off with what I hope is an encouraging story in my little ‘more men at yoga’ campaign. Here’s something that happened last week in our studio. I had just taught a Power yoga class to – what a surprise! – a 100% female class. After the class a student posed the question why no men were attending this challenging but fun class. She answered her own question straight away by saying that men probably couldn’t handle a class like this anyway... Men, it’s high time to step up and give yoga a go - If you dare. Written by Anke (owner Yogashala), March 2009 with many thanks to Helen Preston

Give yoga a go - if you dare...

So where are all the men? Isn’t it time to let go of old-fashioned beliefs like; ‘yoga is for women’, ‘you need to be flexible to do yoga’ (well you have to start somewhere!) and this one makes me laugh every time; ‘yoga is for softies’.

It’s also time to banish pre-conceived ideas. For example, yoga means sitting still for hours. Or indeed the other extreme: yoga is trying folding yourself in a pretzel. The good news is that there’s a golden midway: practicing postures while using the body’s actual capacity and accepting what there is.

A good yoga class is accessible to everyone. Chris and I welcome every man coming to our classes. I for my part may even pay more attention to them because I feel like I need to treat them like something special ;-)

I’ll finish off with what I hope is an encouraging story in my little ‘more men at yoga’ campaign. Here’s something that happened last week in our studio. I had just taught a Power yoga class to – what a surprise! – a 100% female class. After the class a student posed the question why no men were attending this challenging but fun class. She answered her own question straight away by saying that men probably couldn’t handle a class like this anyway...

Men, it’s high time to step up and give yoga a go - If you dare.

Written by Anke (owner Yogashala), March 2009
with many thanks to Helen Preston

Men & yoga: . Where are all the men?

Surfing and yoga

Yoga and running

Improve your climbing!

Give yoga a go - if you dare...

Men & yoga:
.
Where are all the men?