Real Men Do Yoga !

Competitive sports might lack an important aspect of overall health and wellness. Enter yoga.

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The fast paced high-energy of team sports and mano-a-mano competition releases massive amounts of developed energy. This rate of motion can make it difficult to foster inner calm and serene focus. Have you ever considered some yoga before or after a hard-core pump-you-up 1000 reps workout?

High-energy competitive sports and exercises are great ways to release energy, stay in shape, and cultivate general well being. But the whole person needs to balance out these bursts of expended energy with focused active rest. The external release of energy leads to exhaustion and rest. However, the yogic retention of energy leads to focus then rest. As humans, especially as men, in this face-paced techno-world, we need both.

Don’t get the wrong idea; a yoga workout is far from easy. Even though there is not a lot of active movement, those yoga students are feeling physical burn and muscular exertion. Good yoga workouts will fine-tune your physical performance and hone your mental awareness.

In order to face the challenge of yoga a guy will often need to overcome three general challenges:

1. Social Challenge – overcoming social stereotypes of yoga for men.

2. Physical Challenge – opening the body to a broader range of motion and static energy.

3. Mental challenge – Internal competition to quiet the mind, activate the muscles, and not release energy.

The quiet mind leads to sharp focus while at rest.

You will need to overcome the physical and mental challenges when you get on the mat, but Nanci Traynor, a senior yoga instructor with international teaching experience, can help with the social challenges. These are the common stereotypes she has heard about men and yoga around the globe:

“Men are not flexible.”

“Yoga is not masculine.”

“Yoga people are going to judge me.”

“People will think I am there to hook up.”

Nanci blows these myths out of the water!


“Men are not flexible.”

Yoga is not about flexibility. Yoga is about balancing the mind, body, and spirit to free yourself. Flexibility can suffer when certain muscles groups become more conditioned than others. Take the boxer; we are going to see a lot of tightness in the upper trapezius/anterior and medial deltoid more so than other athletes.

This is not a sex-determined factor; it is true of biologically male and female boxers. Lifestyle plays a bigger role in how flexible joints are than sex does. Any person who is physically inactive sitting at a desk in front of a computer all day will have flexibility issues, just like the athletes who condition specific muscle groups for strength.

“Yoga is not masculine.”

Yoga can help some people find out who they really are. It has the ability to show the practitioner how to control thoughts and emotions just like a martial art. There are certain yoga practices, like Astanga, that may develop the internal warrior.

Straightforward yoga is without gimmicks and ideology. It’s a practice that focuses primarily on physical strength and breath control. The more dynamic jumping form in Astanga yoga can help to develop a warrior mind.

“Yoga people are going to judge me.”

People in a yoga class are more focused on their own breath and physicality than they are on judging others. A lot of men find most yoga groups supportive, welcoming and happy to have them participate.

Try to find the yoga communities that are practicing straightforward yoga like Iyengar and Ashtanga. In these yoga families, new male students will be surprised at the other students’ full support and congratulating attitude.

“People will think I am there to hook up.”

The media objectification of yoga tells us that people will be wearing tight-fighting outfits and showing a lot of skin. Okay, so there are some attractive yoga practitioners in class showing off their hard work. So what. It’s not all people. Advertisements and media promotions that use sex to sell you yoga are doing a great job hypnotizing most of us.

A real yoga class is like any other class; people are there to learn and improve themselves. It’s not a place to come and hook up at all. A mind in the moment focused on a yoga session is a mind in the moment focused on a yoga session.

The class is a supportive and safe space to work out the stress from daily life and deadlines, or face your emotional addictions. Straightforward yoga sessions build social and community connections with friendly people ready to share experiences. All we need to do is be aware and communicate clearly.

Okay, no more stereotypical excuses. Whether you are mostly inactive, or highly active in fast-paced sport and exercise, you need to have focused moments of restful fun on your yoga mat today!

If you think yoga is for people who already physically fit, you need to check out Rannoch Donald’s piece.

This article is from The goodmenproject.com


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