Why I stopped doing yoga.

"You're just doing it for the exercise," Bob told me.

And he was right. But, there were some red flags starting to pop up for me.

I had been doing "yoga" for a while now and I decided to stop. I just want to explain why. 

I just love having a streaming fitness app on my TV. It includes tons of different classes for all levels, and has some very brief ones so when I was in between projects or needed a short break, I could just run in the living room and do a 5 minute stretch, or a 15 minute dance party, or even a 20 minute weights class. (Working from home has its benefits!) I was working my way through the classes, discovering which instructors I liked best, and which ones I definitely didn't like, and saving lots of favorites to do again and again. 

So it was totally natural for me to try some "yoga" classes in the mix. There were several instructors, but I found one I liked best. He seemed pretty down to earth and not "spiritual" - at least not overtly. I followed this guy on social, and when he announced new classes were dropping I raced to the app to add them to favorites to try more. Soon I found myself moving into the intermediate levels, and although I would NOT want to see how I looked doing it, I felt like I was progressing. 

The first red flag I started seeing was how much time I was spending thinking about it. It was sort of becoming an obsession, (which if you have read anything here before you know is not odd for me). However, when I wasn't using the app or doing a class, I was scouring YouTube and the interwebs for information on how to improve my form, finding other videos and voices out there. So it was going far beyond just doing a class and moving on with my day.

Another red flag or "flag-lette" really, was some of the language used by the instructor. It was nothing particularly overt, but something about phrases like "honoring yourself" or certain ways he talked about breathing just were starting to tweak me a little. The instructor I liked best wasn't big on "namaste" but he sprinkled it in and I just skipped over it in my mind, but it kind of hung around like the smell of burnt toast. 

Then this happened. Because I was searching for "yoga" stuff on YouTube, it started feeding me all the videos. Including "should Catholics do yoga" videos. And I started watching them.

I can actually hear the eyerolls happening now.

The thing is, they were just as "all over the place" as you'd expect from the YouTubes. Some said it's no problem at all because you're not practicing the spiritual aspect. Some said "as long as" you are just doing it for exercise it can be fine. Some said Catholics have to be careful, but intention is most important. And finally some said, no, as a Catholic you shouldn't practice it at all under any circumstances.

All that made me even more confused, frustrated, and frankly, angry.

But I had to pay attention to what I was feeling. Something was just off about it and growing more off as time went on. So I decided to do some more digging.

The first thing I learned is that what I was doing was not actually yoga. (Thus the "yoga" references above.) What I was doing was a series of postures (aka asanas). I read that one Hindu leader likens this to calling a single brick a house. Asanas is only one of the eight levels of yoga, with the ultimate goal of union with the universe. (And that is incompatible with Christian beliefs.)

It's not yoga if it is not the complete spiritual practice of yoga. 

So if I am doing just the poses, you might ask: "what's the problem?" I asked myself the same thing. The positions themselves are neutral. They're just movements or postures. I wasn't accidentally worshipping false gods. I am not at risk spiritually by doing downward facing dog. 

But. There were some subtle verbal cues (and some not-so-subtle) in many of these classes I was doing that I learned can be concerning. In his book Counterfeit Spirituality, Brian Mercier wrote, 

"Care should be taken, however, even with yoga instructors who focus more on the fitness aspect. Many studios and online classes accentuate bodily health, physical fitness, and the reduction of stress, yet many teachers unknowingly promote spiritual ideologies or non-Christian beliefs that are inherent in yoga and conflict with Christian beliefs. Certain principles and practices have caught on in the West and are passed down into many local yoga studios, especially through the training that yoga instructors receive. As mentioned above, it is very common to hear or learn about chakras, energy, and breathing techniques, connection to the Universe or the Self, and other ideologies incompatible with Christian beliefs. This occurs whether the instructors consider themselves spiritual or not. From there, they often pass down these teachings in some way, shape, or form to their classes."

This made me go "gulp" because all that was true of the instructors in the classes I was streaming. Now I maybe could have just "closed my ears" and kept going. Bob suggested muting the TV (but I needed to hear the cues). But since this was already sort of nagging at me, I thought maybe this was the Holy Spirit trying to get my attention. 

So I decided it would be best for me and my spiritual journey to stop doing the "yoga" classes I had been streaming. 

I'm going to stop here and make this big-time disclaimer: this is about my journey only. I'm not here to tell anyone what they should and should not be doing. I'm just sharing my experience.

The bottom line on this for me is that if it starts raising more questions than it answers, if I am having to rationalize what I am doing, or if it seems like it's taking up more room in my brain than, say, something like prayer, then I have to pay attention to it and ask for God's help in sorting it all out.

I did check out a Catholic online fitness "studio" that offered some similar classes. Their site detailed why "this is not yoga" and that was nice. They opened each class with Catholic prayer, had patron saints for each class, and some worshipful music. I tried several of the classes that included similar postures and stretches. But, it wasn't for me. It was funny. Doing those classes just made me miss my favorite "yoga" instructor on the app, so it wasn't helping me move on. 

I'm now trying something fun and a little silly for my exercise: calisthenics. That's right, good old pushups and pullups and leg raises and stuff. It's simple, but that seems to be good for my brain and hopefully will be good for my body. Bob told me my 7th grade gym teacher would be proud. 

I said, "Maybe I'll be able to climb the rope this time around."