What Counts as a “Real” Yoga Practice?
- Sam Turner
- May 13
- 4 min read
The Pressure to Have a “Real” Yoga Practice
Somewhere along the way, many of us absorbed the idea that a “real” yoga practice has to look a certain way. Long classes. Daily movement. A calm nervous system afterwards. Flexibility. Discipline. Consistency.
But real life rarely moves that neatly.
When you first start a practice like yoga, you’re immediately saturated with information on what your practice should look like. Some people will tell you that it needs to be a certain duration, a studio might indirectly suggest it should happen a certain number of times per week through their membership structures, or it might become outcome-driven through the promise that you should feel a particular way afterwards.
All of this feeds into the idea of what the everyday person values as “real” yoga.
I could open this blog by telling you that a “real” yoga practice is whatever you want it to be. I think that’s where we go wrong though. The conversation is more nuanced than that. Because whilst yoga can absolutely be flexible and adaptive, I don’t think the answer is simply “anything counts”.
Instead, I think a real yoga practice is one that honestly and intentionally supports your life.
The Image of Yoga We’re Sold
Navigating conversations like this walks a fine line. Our circumstances are completely unique. Each factor of your life builds a blueprint for your routine. Within that routine, sometimes we create the time for practice whilst other moments require us to work with what’s realistically available.
If you’re constantly working with what’s available, this idea of a “real” yoga practice can slowly transform into a hurdle. You get so caught up in the look or the feel of yoga that you end up missing the practice itself.
Social media has made yoga incredibly visible, but visibility can also create pressure. We start associating yoga with aesthetics, flexibility, discipline and performance. Quietly, yoga can become another thing we try to achieve correctly.
But yoga was never supposed to become another measuring stick.
A “Real” Yoga Practice Is an Achievable Practice
Truthfully though, I’d say it’s mostly about intention. The intention behind why you’re doing something, whether that’s on the yoga mat or off it. As your mindset shifts towards intention, a lot of these external qualities stop mattering quite so much.
A “real” yoga practice is an achievable practice.
Can you get to one class per week? Awesome. Are you so tired that you can only really do a Yoga Nidra? Perfect. Did you take two minutes to become aware of your breath in a tense moment today? Well done.
Instead of forcing ourselves into an unrealistic version of practice, maybe the goal is to find tiny practices — breathing, meditation, movement, rest — that fit into the life we actually have. Practices that we can return to again and again without resentment, guilt or exhaustion.
Because consistency does not always look impressive from the outside. Sometimes consistency means redefining what showing up actually looks like.
When My Practice Changed Completely
I remember a time in my life where I was busy teaching yoga but I had stopped practising yoga myself. Or at least, that’s what I believed at the time.
The only practice I could depend on was Yoga Nidra. I didn’t have the energy for movement. I felt like I was dragging my body from A to B to C every day. I’d have to consciously think about getting up from the sofa to go and do something. It was clear I was submerged in a deep well of exhaustion.
From there, doubt, with a side portion of guilt, kicked open the door and walked straight in. I started thinking about how I wasn’t practising enough. That I didn’t have a “real” yoga practice anymore. Doubt created distance. I was ready to abandon movement entirely because I’d become so wrapped up in the idea of what a “real” yoga practice should look like.
It was totally wrong.
I had simply shifted my priorities away from movement because I was exhausted. Instead of pushing against that feeling, I slowly started finding practices that actually supported what I was experiencing day to day.
I worked with Yoga Nidra recordings to let the body soften and spend some time shifting my focus away from constant thought. I explored a practice called SATYA so I could create subtle movement in my body whilst lying down the whole time. Each practice that entered my routine was focusing more on replenishment.
But a routine focused on replenishment didn’t feel like a “real” yoga practice. It wasn’t those big shapes or flow sequences that matched the imagery that’s subconsciously pumped into our brains through marketing campaigns, social media posts and influencers.
But when I eventually started feeling better and looked back at the bigger picture, I quickly realised something.
By dismissing those quieter practices as “not enough”, I had completely undervalued the exact thing that was helping me reconnect with myself, my people and the world around me.
That sounds like yoga to me.
I don’t think movement deserves more value than rest. I think both have their place. It’s okay for parts of the practice to not be for me. But I think it all has a space whether it’s fast or slow, lying down or standing on one leg, 5 minutes or 90 minutes.
From there, I poured this mindset into my teaching. That’s why I’m always talking about adaptive practices. It’s why I’m so keen on explaining that yoga can be a toolkit of support.
Yoga Isn’t Meant to Pull You Further Away From Yourself
A yoga practice should support your life, not become another standard you constantly feel like you’re failing to meet.
And maybe that means your practice changes throughout different seasons of your life. Maybe movement disappears for a while. Maybe meditation becomes the anchor. Maybe all you can manage is one conscious breath before reacting to something stressful.
This is your yoga practice. It isn’t defined by how impressive it looks from the outside, but by whether it helps you reconnect with yourself honestly and consistently over time.
See you next time
Sam
Comments