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Over the previous few years, I’ve gotten really frustrated with the way in which yoga is portrayed on social media. I used to be getting sick and uninterested in seeing young, thin, white contortionists demonstrating elaborate postures. They appeared to me to be misrepresenting what generally is a truly accessible and transformative indigenous practice from South Asia. I might even block individuals who shared pictures of themselves in skimpy clothes doing twisty yoga poses on the beach.

But then my 16-year-old daughter began sharing her excitement about Instagram reels. She showed me popular yoga videos, and we talked about making some together. It was a way for her to become involved with my work, so I jumped at the chance to create something together with her.

At first, we created some basic tutorials on ways to make yoga accessible. Then I began asking other accessible yoga teachers to “remix” my chair yoga poses, recording their video reels alongside mine. It was a fun recent method to practice with other teachers I do know.

Still, the platform appeared to me to be mostly about voyeurism, until my friend Deanna Michalopoulos challenged me to search out ways to make use of it to have interaction and encourage people. It occurred to me that I could use reels by yoga teachers who do complicated poses and remix them to reveal accessible chair versions of those shapes.

Using Social Media for Good

I reached out to my friend Kino MacGregor, who is thought for her intense Ashtanga yoga practice, and asked if I could use certainly one of her reels of her yoga posts, and her immediate reply was, “After all!”

In her reel, she’s sitting on the sand in a brilliant red bikini, smiling and waving because the wind blows her hair. She moves into a couple of variations of Baddha Konasana, Sure Angle Pose, and ends by putting one leg behind her head in Compass Pose.

How could I make that accessible? Selecting the only approach I could consider, I filmed myself sitting on a chair, leaning over one bent leg, after which doing a side bend. With my daughter’s help, I edited the reels so my timing and positioning mirrored Kino’s. Almost as soon as I posted it, a lot of positive feedback began flooding in. Comments like:

“That is so good, best post I’ve seen shortly.”

“Pure gold.”

“Love the choices! So, so, so many individuals say that they’ll’t do yoga due to a scarcity of flexibility. It’s pretty infuriating, actually, since it’s simply not true they usually count themselves out robotically.”

I could feel how useful this was to so many individuals.

I started to explore the “popular” yoga world on Instagram. My daughter guided me to reels with dizzyingly complex poses, high production values, and literally hundreds of thousands of views. As I slowly opened the door to a virtual yoga world I had previously shut out, I ended up learning greater than I expected.

Social media reveals a false divide in yoga

Every time I desired to do a remix, I first reached out to the practitioner to ask if I could use their reel. Their replies were so friendly they usually often expressed sincere interest in my work. Almost everyone I reached out to had such a positive response to me wanting to reveal a more accessible type of their yoga practice. Actually, the virtually universal response was that they’re dedicated to creating their very own teaching accessible.

To be honest, that surprised me. For my part, their presentation on social media would have had the alternative effect. It really made me wonder: Does sharing a physically complex practice on social media encourage people to practice yoga, or does it discourage the hundreds of thousands of people that don’t have thin, flexible, young bodies?

It jogs my memory of watching the Olympics on television. I sit in awe of those inspiring athletes who’ve dedicated their lives to their sport. Their skills often seem superhuman, and I’m at all times impressed. But that rarely translates into me wanting to try practicing any of those sports myself. Let’s just say, I haven’t taken up ski jumping or slalom. And that’s my concern relating to yoga. We scroll through these images on social media in awe and appreciation, but I can’t say that it translates into modified lives.

At the identical time, what I learned through making these reels is that I used to be being judgmental and making assumptions. I began to see that I had preconceived ideas about these Instagram yoga teachers. This experience has offered me a likelihood to achieve out and connect with teachers whose work seemed really inaccessible, and to construct connections across these false boundaries that I had created in my mind. After initial contact, we normally find yourself following one another and supporting one another’s work, which has been very healing for me. Actually, that’s the side of this experience that has been strongest.

Yoga is an internal practice. You may’t see that on social media

I used to be pleased to search out that a lot of these yoga teachers also called themselves contortionists— often what they’re demonstrating really is contortionism and never yoga. I actually appreciated their honesty about that. Yoga is a universal practice each for flexible people and for those of us who aren’t in a position to put our foot behind our head. We just must be clear about what we’re calling this practice.

Yoga is an internal spiritual practice focused on calming the mind and connecting with the reality inside our heart. Asana, the physical poses, are a useful technique for working with…the mind. Contrary to public understanding, even physical yoga poses should not a lot about bending the body as they’re about quieting the mind.

Since yoga is about what’s happening mentally, how are you going to tell if someone is doing yoga? The actual fact is, you’ll be able to’t. Someone could possibly be sitting back in a chair or lying in bed and still be doing yoga. Or they could possibly be twisted up like a pretzel in a posh pose and never be doing yoga. Yoga happens when the mind is engaged or focused in some conscious way. It might be focused on the breath, a mantra, or a sensation—in a posh pose or an accessible one.

Actually, I don’t know what’s happening within the minds of those practitioners any greater than they know what’s happening in mine. I could not have the opportunity to inform in the event that they’re practicing yoga or, say, serious about how indignant they’re on the photographer for making them do the identical pose time and again, but I can know in my heart that we’re intimately connected. That’s my yoga practice.

Social media can connect us

As a few of my remixes became popular and stacked up tens of 1000’s of views, each like and share fed the small, hungry a part of my ego that was eager to be loved and to be seen. Sure, I began with an unselfish goal—to share a positive message of accessibility and equity—but I’m still human. The acknowledgement felt good. It quickly became a sort of addiction—a way of feeding my soul from the skin. I needed to step back once in a while and stop myself from checking my phone to see what number of views the reels had received.

Patanjali identified this type of attachment as certainly one of the important obstacles to our spiritual realization. In Satchidananda’s translation of sutra 2.7, he explains, “Attachment is that which follows identification with pleasurable experiences.” The issue with attachment is that it misleads us to consider that happiness comes from outside, relatively than from inside. The actual fact is, the love and a spotlight that comes from outside can never really quench our thirst.

Yoga’s important message is to stop the external pursuit of success and to show inside to attach with our own good divinity. However it’s extremely difficult in a world that’s continually pulling at us to perform and to provide. It’s like capitalism is the ego’s perfect muse.

During this process, I began to see the way in which social media works. It looks like one big shared mind. There are parts of it that feel completely uncontrolled and dangerous. There are parts which are focused on healing and connection. It’s as much as me to make your mind up which parts I would like to nurture and grow. I can get caught up in selfishness and desire, or I can connect with others in a meaningful way. It’s the latter type of practice that I hope to share.

Watch Jivana Heyman and Kino McGregor collaborate live to tell the tale Instagram to indicate you easy methods to find your personal version of flexibility.  

About our contributor

Jivana Heyman (he/him), C-IAYT, E-RYT500, is the creator of Accessible Yoga: Poses & Practices for Every Body, and Yoga Revolution: Constructing a Practice of Courage & Compassion. Jivana is the founder and director of the Accessible Yoga Association, a world non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings. He’s also the co-founder of the Accessible Yoga School, a web based portal specializing in equity and accessibility, where he leads the Accessible Yoga Training. More info at jivanaheyman.com