Are Your Yoga Photos on Social Media Discouraging Students?

Yoga

Are Your Yoga Photos on Social Media Discouraging Students?

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December 15, 2023

Are Your Yoga Photos on Social Media Discouraging Students?

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Despite efforts lately to make the physical practice of yoga more inclusive, including increased awareness around language decisions and secure spaces for marginalized communities, a technique teachers should still be inadvertently alienating students is something many do each day: posting to social media.

Instructors capturing video and photos of themselves practicing yoga may be an efficient and provoking marketing tool. That is nothing latest. But when aspirational poses, corresponding to arm balances and intense back bends, are all that current and potential followers see in your social media feed, the pictures may inadvertently perpetuate stereotypes about yoga as an exclusionary practice and discourage some students from even trying.

“How the practice of yoga and asana is portrayed in lots of photography makes it very inaccessible,” says Amanda Marks, a yoga teacher and therapist who focuses on body image issues. “It might probably alienate and intimidate people from ever starting a yoga practice.”

Do you have to stop posting skilled photos of your most “difficult” asana, or poses, out of an abundance of caution? Not necessarily.

How Yoga Photos Shape Perceptions

To be clear, imagery of you nailing a bucket-list pose may be completely wonderful for brand constructing when that’s the way you teach. It’s marketing, in any case. Your social media posts needs to be authentic to you.

Nevertheless, when these photos are all that a prospective yoga student sees from an instructor, the takeaway could be the false notion that yoga isn’t for one and all. In some cases, seeing streams of conventional yoga photography could unintentionally reinforce the perceived have to look a specific way or have a baseline level of flexibility or perhaps a certain checking account to afford certain yoga attire.

When people in larger bodies only see slender yogis in images, it could actually feed into weight stigma, warns Caroline Young, a yoga teacher and weight-inclusive registered dietitian. The identical may be said for other ways people might feel excluded, corresponding to for his or her gender, race, age, or socioeconomic status. If most images only paint the image that yoga is for a particular form of individual, those that don’t fit the mold might hesitate to step onto the mat. That may not only cost you students, it could put your teaching out of sync with the very principles of yoga that you just teach.

“We would like to incorporate people of all sizes, genders, races, and skills if we wish to be consistent with ahimsa,” says Young, referring to the yogic principle of non-harming.

But you might be who you might be. You possibly can’t change your age, race, shape, or proficiency. Nor do you have to present yourself and your teaching inauthentically. So how can your social media posts change into more inclusive?

Keeping Yoga Photos Inclusive and Authentic

Images showing asanas you’ve mastered through years of practice can have a spot in demonstrating your competency. But finding ways to bring context to those images might help be sure that you’re conveying the message that yoga is about greater than the poses.

“If you happen to’re going to point out some fancy stuff, show yourself falling out of the pose, too, or tell the story of how long it took to get you there,” suggests Jacques-Jean “JJ” Tiziou, a yoga teacher, photographer, and creator of “The Image of Yoga,” a photography project that reminds people yoga may be accessible to everyone.

One other method to add context is by sprinkling in some images that show a more routine version of your practice. Do you ever stop and deal with the fundamentals in your practice or together with your students? You should utilize your images to remind students that you just’re not all the time doing Handstands on the beach during a luxe yoga retreat—you’re also coming into Child’s Pose on the ground in sweats at home.

“There’s no shame in photos of you hosting yoga retreats in an exquisite place, and after all you ought to share those photos,” says Young. “But balancing them with more on a regular basis photos of you as a human being, living your life, doing one of the best you possibly can, and letting that be normalized may be really helpful.”

Even an off-the-cuff shot of you bonding together with your students after class might help emphasize community and variety, adds Marks. “If I were to take an image with my classes, I’d see older students and folks of various ethnicities and races,” she says. “There can be a skinny line between exploiting that, but showing who was there would create more feelings of connectedness, inclusion, and belonging.”

6 Ways to Keep Your Yoga Photos Real

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating your yoga images more inclusive while remaining authentic to your practice. “The primary thing is to start out where you might be,” says Tiziou. “Take into consideration where you possibly can work to be a bit more inclusive and accessible, push against stereotypes and preconceived notions, and still recognize that you’ve got to sell your stuff and reach an audience.”

Listed below are some options to contemplate as you make your yoga photos feel more inclusive.

1. Include Props

“Props make lots of poses more accessible for lots of people, but there may be lots of shame around using them,” says Young. Posting photos where you’re reaching for a block or using a chair or the wall brings diversity to your images and makes it easier to your students to succeed in for props.

2. Rotate in Casual Clothing

Occasionally wearing something apart from pricey yoga attire reminds students that they’re welcome in yoga spaces even in the event that they don’t have—or don’t care about—the newest trending brands.

3. Include Photos From On a regular basis Environments

If nearly all of your yoga photos are shot on location in luxe destinations, it could actually create the impression that yoga is inaccessible to students who can’t afford to take a retreat. Yes, you possibly can share images out of your travels to Costa Rica, but consider balancing them with ones of you practicing in on a regular basis locations, like your front room or local studio.

4. Show Your Teaching in Motion

Sharing images of you teaching, not only practicing on your individual, may be one other method to add context to your photos. This also provides a possibility to incorporate photos of scholars from all walks of life (with their permission, after all).

“It doesn’t should be a glamorous photo shoot, but you could possibly offer free classes to a couple of people in exchange for being models, and be sure that you’re being clear with consent on how the pictures can be used and where they’ll go,” says Tiziou.

5. Include Beginner-Friendly Poses

Showing yourself in asanas corresponding to Child’s Pose, Mountain Pose, or a standing forward bend together with your knees bent conveys to students that yoga invites everyone to start out wherever they’re. They don’t should be super flexible, come into complicated poses, or have a certain body type to experience the advantages of a practice.

6. Consider Illustrations

Using illustrated silhouettes of individuals practicing yoga, somewhat than photos of yourself or others, might help remove stigmas around age and race, says Tiziou. You possibly can source these silhouettes from some online stock photo agencies, create or own, or commission them from a neighborhood artist. You could possibly also do the identical with illustrations.

“It’s vital to keep in mind that after we’re doing yoga for the camera, it’s becoming a performance,” says Tiziou. “The more we are able to show the behind-the-scenes reality of it alongside the polished, finished product, the more we are able to make it feel accessible and comfy, and help people see themselves in it as they’re.”

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About Our Contributor
Joni Sweet is a seasoned author, editor, and content strategist. Over the past 12 years, she’s built expertise covering the intersection of travel, wellness, and adventure. Her travel writing has also been published by TIME, Forbes, Real Easy, Frommer’s, The Christian Science Monitor, Travel Weekly, and TripSavvy—simply to name a couple of.