I’ve taught yoga since 2007 and hired teachers since 2009. I can count on one hand the amount of teachers who could tell me the 8 Limbs of Yoga from memory when asked at their interview.
Of course, this does not include teachers who graduated from one of the approximately twenty Good200 teacher trainings I led, because it was the very foundation of our curriculum because it is THE CORE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PRACTICE OF YOGA!
It absolutely boggled my mind that anyone would call themselves a “Yoga Teacher,” let alone expect payment upwards of $50 per class, without knowing the mere 18 words (36, including Sanskrit) that ARE Yoga.
This is the fundamental challenge of Neo-Capitalist Contemporary Yoga. People who have no understanding of it seek to redefine it to suit their comfort. “Yoga means different things to different people…“, “There’s more than one way to practice yoga…,” “Yada, Yada, Yada…“ as all three of my eyes roll into the back of my head.
Yoga IS very much a thing. The language quoted above is cultspeak. It’s an evidence based practice that requires a sequential method for success. If you add more flour or less baking soda, your dough won’t rise.
I’ll be tackling each row above in it’s own dedicated post as the week’s progress so you can bake a Buddhaful cake (Yes, Buddha was a Yogi…). In the meantime, I encourage you to innocently ask your yoga teacher to tell you about the 8 limbs of yoga. If they don’t know them, don’t trust them with anything but your workout…and maybe not even that. Ask them to name all 4 Quadriceps, first.