It’s been a while since we’ve opened the studio in our fitness gym, House of Reps Fitness Center, at Polomolok, but I still keep hearing misconceptions about yoga.

I was glad that I never had much idea what yoga was all about when I started my practice 5 years ago. Otherwise, I might have the same misconceptions about the practice and never would have started my journey.

Don’t let the misconceptions stop you from exploring the practicing.

Here’s the five common misconceptions about yoga

1. Yoga is a girl thing

The social media may have contributed to this a lot. Scroll through instagram using #yoga and most likely the first photo you’ll see is of a woman doing yoga.

But if we go back to the history of yoga, tracing back from the classical period up to the modern period, all the teachers are men (at least mentioned in texts available). It was only when Indra Devi was accepted in Krishnamacharya’s yoga school with the request of the maharaja that a woman was admitted in an ashram.

We can go back to Instagram and scroll through deeper using the same hashtag and we might find more and more men are practicing yoga in this age. 

2. Yoga is a religion

Yoga originated in India but it is not completely exclusive to Hinduism, or any religion for that matter. 

The modern yoga that we now know is more on the asana side and only very few practice traditional yoga like Bhakti Yoga, which adheres to the belief of God. 

The practice doesn’t insist their students to take on any religious prayers, or worship any deity. This also means that yoga doesn’t discriminate over any other religion.

3. Yoga is only for the thin ladies

This is one of the many stereotypes in yoga and we can see the influence of social media with this. There are only very few teachers and practitioners that represents body diversity in the yoga community. 

Take Diane Bondhi and Dana Falsetti for example, they have helped a lot of individuals start their practice and changed the perception that yoga is only for one body type. 

4. Yoga is expensive

Maybe what this meant to say are the yoga gears and wears because to practice yoga, you don’t need most of these expensive things. You even practice barefoot, right?

The essentials for me are comfortable clothing and a yoga mat that I can trust. I only bought two yoga mats in the six years, one is my heavy thick mat and the other one is a yoga mat towel that I can carry when I’m travelling.

And yes, I am aware that there are parts of the world that yoga class fees are expensive, that’s the same reason why I started my yoga channel so I can offer free classes that anyone can easily follow for FREE.

Go check out my youtube channel here for free yoga classes.

5. Yoga is ONLY for the flexible

While flexibility is one of the possible effects when you practice yoga regularly, yoga is not exclusive for the flexible people.

While I am more flexible, there are still yoga poses that I still can’t do, like hanumanasana (full split). Your body’s restrictions can be improved when doing yoga but it’s not exclusive for those who can do all the poses with ease. We all start from something, and from there we can build our strength or flexibility.