Are there differences in a man’s versus a woman’s yoga practice?

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Are there differences in a man’s versus a woman’s yoga practice?

By Christina | February 2, 2009

Recently I heard that men need a male yoga instructor because a man knows a man’s body better than a woman does and therefore the yoga practice would be better suited for, well, men. I must say, I wholeheartedly disagree with this logic but am curious so will be attending a male led class and trying to take note of anything done differently. I have been in several male led classes and have not noticed a difference but then I was not trying to find a difference.
I did some research to see if anyone else out there had experienced this gender difference and found some interesting information but nothing that corroborated the sentiment. Yoga is predominantly taught by men in India, men are often intimidated to attend a yoga class because they think they will not be able to do it well, and many men believe yoga is a female type of exercise. I do hot power yoga once a week and half of the class is men and it is HARD.

Here are some other interesting yoga facts I found:

Yoga is a system of physical and mental practices that was developed in ancient India. Yoga’s focus is to join the mind and body, breath and movement, an enhanced physical ability for joyous experience and spiritual centeredness.
Yoga’s roots are an ancient and long tradition of yogis (male yoga practitioners) and yoginis (female yoga practitioners) who fine-tuned and developed this art and practice that we now know as yoga. Yoga was always intended to be practiced by both men and women (and children!).
You can learn yoga by watching DVD’s and reading books however this can lead to slight misalignments accumulating over time and causing problems down the road.
The number of different yoga schools is a recent phenomenon. In India there traditionally aren’t really schools of yoga but different great teachers. Each teacher learns from his teacher going back in an unbroken line many thousand years.
A beautiful way to think of yoga is that it is a moving meditation. Meditation involves stilling the mind and allowing the conscious mind to focus on one’s breathing. Yoga allows for exactly that with the added benefit of physical toning and perfect health. I often hear about yoga that does not have the mindful connection which to me means it is a stretch class.

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Topics: Yoga, que-ans |

Are there differences in a man’s versus a woman’s yoga practice?

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