Functional Yoga. Yoga which is useful for You

Functional yoga means yoga which is USEFUL in daily life. In this type of yoga, the essence is more important than the structure (things like postures, sequences or alignment rules).

Traditional yoga focuses a lot on achieving or attaining particular poses. Some of them, often called 'advanced', balance on the border of gymnastics, acrobatics or circus performance. This extreme flexibility is unnecessary in day-to-day life and could even prove dangerous.

I recently met a lovely girl who suffers chronic pain in the groin and knee after months of intense power and Bikram yoga practice. She's hypermobile, which means her joints have a beyond-average range of motion. Hypermobile people run the highest risk of injury as they do not realise the extreme range of movement available to them could over-stretch the ligaments or make a particular joint unstable. Although hypermobile yogis are most vulnerable, anybody fixated on the goal of 'nailing' an asana despite the signals from the body might end up with an injury.

The connective tissues need SOME stress to be healthy. We also need to engage some body parts to re-educate the nervous system (see my post on somatics). But we don't need to be flexible to be healthy and enjoy life to the fullest!

I had a couple of interviews with people who struggle with pain and reduced mobility but never considered trying out yoga. I asked one man to describe to me a person who practices yoga. He had in his mind a picture of a fit, slim girl in a tight fancy outfit. It's not difficult to understand why this image popped up. We are bombarded with them all the time. Just check your Instagram feed.

But what if I told you that yoga doesn't need to be about reaching one beautifully-looking pose after another? And that it's not even about being or getting more flexible?

Since I began teaching yoga, I always used to say it doesn't matter if you reach with your fingers to your toes. But, to be honest, it took me years to truly stop giving a damn about that myself. It is a long process of going beyond the superficial. Eventually, I did understand WHY I do yoga: to feel the benefits from within, to honour and nourish my whole Self.

Functional yoga aims to work towards an optimal, healthy range of motion necessary to do daily activities easefully. You practice with ATTENTION and INTENTION. Every movement has a reason other than strictly following the rules of alignment invented by this or that guru.

The myth of a universal alignment (that is, alignment rules applicable to every body) is a topic for another post. For now, let's say that functional yoga recognises anatomical variety and the diversity of needs people might have. People are different, so each person's yoga practice is, too! If you don't feel what the pose is for, you are welcome to approach it another way.

Last but not least: intention doesn't mean expectation of an outcome! The biggest lesson of yoga is to be present with what is and acknowledge it. You might not feel much at first – developing so-called felt sense takes time. But you don't need to push yourself to the limit to experience the benefits of yoga.

So, are you ready to try it and join the yoga revolution?