Fat Yoga

“Do overweight ladies do yoga? It seems to be for the thin and flexible.”

In one form or another, the sentiment above is one of the most common ones expressed to me ever since I started doing yoga. It is infuriating!

YOGA IS FOR EVERY BODY. Repeat after me: YOGA IS FOR EVERY BODY.

It doesn’t matter whether you can touch your toes or even see them. Everyone can practice yoga. And it makes me angry to think that maybe someone or something has made a person feel like she can’t come to yoga because she’s too fat.

As an overweight person will there be poses you can’t do or have more difficulty doing? Yes, of course! There are poses I can’t do simply because my arms are too short. That doesn’t mean I can’t do yoga – only that modifications have to be made. Because we are all so anatomically varied, yoga is different for every person. If you think you might be more comfortable, there are plus-sized yoga classes like Annie Carlin‘s “Larger Bodies Miniseries” at Golden Heart Yoga. Find and take the class where you will feel the most secure and at ease.

Every teacher is trained and prepared to teach yoga to students of all shapes, sizes and different levels of ability. So that is never an issue when you walk into a yoga class. But I can’t pretend that every yoga class is a judgment-free haven. Rest assured, those classes do exist and it’s important to keep looking until you find one. Why? Because yoga is good for you and if you enjoy it, nothing should stop you from doing it.

Yoga’s popularity in the U.S. exploded these past few years and I’m glad people are practicing but I worry that others who could benefit from it feel too intimidated to come or tried it and felt unwelcome. When I look out at my classes, the majority of my students are thin, white women. More often than not, I’m the only minority in the room. That reality is probably a combination of where I teach and where yoga is at this time (or at least people’s perception of it). Organizations like Decolonizing Yoga are working to dispel the notion that yoga is only for certain types of people.

So you mustn’t feel discouraged. There is a yoga home for every person. When you find it, I promise you it will have been worth the search. Now go out there and do some yoga!