I Thought Yoga Was About Stretching

I first found yoga on YouTube when I was about 24, and honestly, I had no idea what I was doing. All I was looking for was a good stretch. I hadn't even heard of spirituality or all the woo-woo stuff that would eventually become such a big part of my life. As you know, I'd grown up dancing and had spent years stretching every day. Dance was so important to me that I would even attempt to sleep while hugging my leg in the splits! I was used to having a teacher standing in front of me, telling me to push further, hold longer and get my leg a little bit higher, so when I stumbled across yoga I naturally considered it the same.

So one day I searched for something like “stretching for flexibility” and somehow found Boho Yoga. This beautiful blonde woman appeared on my screen with an incredible body, moving in ways that made me think, Who's this?! I was hooked. I don't even remember owning a yoga mat at the time. I think I used to use one of those little travel towels.

I wasn't interested in going to an actual yoga class either.

I remember thinking, Why would I pay money to go stretching when I can do it at home for free? I was in my twenties, travelling around with very little money, so I had to choose where to spend it, and yoga definitely didn't make the list. For years I followed Boho Yoga on YouTube because I liked watching her move, I liked how flexible she was, and I liked that her classes didn't feel particularly spiritual or intimidating. There was no chanting, no talk about ancient philosophy, nothing that made me feel like I'd wandered into something I didn't understand. It was just stretching, and at that point I had absolutely no idea there was a much bigger world behind it.

Eventually, I went to my first actual yoga class, and this is where my introduction to yoga gets slightly ridiculous. We finished the class and came to the Om. I'd never done it before, and I remember feeling really uncomfortable about making a sound come out of my mouth. Then, during the Om, the lady in front of me let out the loudest fart. Oh my gosh. It was so funny, but nobody else around me laughed, which obviously made it even harder not to laugh. You know when you absolutely cannot laugh, so suddenly it's the funniest thing you've ever experienced? I was trying so hard to keep it together. Ohhh it was so funny.

My next experience with Om was outside in the forest, surrounded by at least fifty people all chanting together. As soon as we all Ommed in unison, holy moly, it was like I'd somehow been transported into another dimension. I felt deeply connected to the earth, melting to the ground, whilst the sound of everyone seemed to lift this energy to the centre, upwards, surrounding us and moving through up into space. It was one of the most unbelievable feelings I'd ever experienced.

Takes me back to the talk with my Grandad, aka Gramps, and thinking, Energy IS a thing. It does exist, Grandad! I could never win that argument, but I suppose that's the thing about certain experiences. You can explain them to someone, but sometimes they have to experience them for themselves.

I think that's actually been a bit of a theme throughout my life. I've always been willing to try things, even when they initially seem strange or completely outside my world, and sometimes those experiences have opened up a different way of seeing things. I still didn't really know what yoga was, but I was curious.

Then life started getting harder around my 30’s, and I began looking for something deeper without really knowing what I was looking for. I went through heartbreak and relationships that forced me to look at myself in ways I hadn't before, and I started questioning why certain things kept happening and why I kept responding to life in certain ways. I knew for a long time that I wanted to go to India and properly study yoga, but I kept putting it off, thinking ‘it’s not that important’, therefore chased other hopes, dreams and experiences.

Eventually, I did go to India to do my yoga teacher training. Woho! For the first time, I was introduced to the much bigger world behind the physical practice: breath, pranayama, meditation, philosophy and the different limbs of yoga. I can't pretend I understood it all because quite honestly, I was lost a lot of the time. But I met a philosophy teacher, Swamiji, who left a huge impression on me. I remember his kindness and gentleness more than anything else. He encouraged us to keep practising, keep learning and never stop exploring, and by the end of our month together I remember sitting with him and crying. He didn’t say anything. He simply looked at me with this devotional, tender gaze. It was though he were witnessing something deeply beautiful in me, quietly rejoicing in it without needing to say a word. I didn't fully understand why the tears came, but definitly something was beginning to open. After that, I found myself enrolling in course after course, workshop after workshop. Anything connected to yoga and movement I wanted to understand, so I tried everything! Iyengar Yoga, Yin Yoga, Shakti Dance, Contact, Tantra, Buddhism, Kundalini, Breath Work, Nidra, Ashtanga, Yogalates, Qi Gong, the list goes on. The more I learnt, the more questions I seemed to have, and instead of putting me off, it made me want to explore even further.

Then came Vipassana, ten days of silent meditation in Sri Lanka. Oh my god, what an experience that was! This was probably one of the most profound experiences I've ever had in my life! I didn’t have even the slightest idea what I was signing myself up for. Sitting cross-legged for twenty minutes can be uncomfortable enough, so imagine sitting for two and a half hours at a time, for around ten hours a day, with nothing to distract you from your own mind. Blimey. The physical pain was intense. Your legs hurt, your back hurts, everything starts screaming at you, and you're just sitting there wondering how on earth you're supposed to keep going and last 10 bloody days! But somehow, that wasn't even the hardest part…

The mind is absolutely mad!

When you take away your phone, conversations, music, books, entertainment and all the usual ways we distract ourselves, there is nowhere left to go. You're just there with yourself. And suddenly your mind can produce absolutely anything. Thoughts, memories, emotions, old stories, completely random nonsense, things you haven't thought about for years. One minute you're furious, the next you're crying, then you're laughing at something ridiculous your brain has decided to bring up. You can feel every possible emotion, sometimes within the space of a few minutes. At points I genuinely felt like I was going to go mad. I wanted to escape my madness, I wanted anything that would make it stop, but it wouldn’t.

Then, amongst all that, there would suddenly be these tiny gaps. For a few seconds, the mind would become quiet, or there would be this little blip of calmness or bliss that I couldn't explain. I'd notice it and think, What was that? Then, almost immediately, my mind would start chatting away again. It wasn't that I suddenly understood meditation or knew what was happening. I just started to experience these little moments of space within all the noise, and they fascinated me.

Then I read The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V. Desikachar, and something finally clicked for me. I realised I wasn't getting onto my mat simply to become more flexible. I wasn't there to touch my toes or make my body look impressive. The physical practice was giving me somewhere to listen: to my breath, to my body and to what was happening inside me. If I was holding a posture and only thinking about how much further I could get, I was missing something much more important. It became less about forcing my body into a shape and more about paying attention to where I actually was in that moment.

Now I’m starting to see how everything is connected. The movement, the breath, meditation and philosophy weren't really separate practices anymore. They were different ways of exploring the same thing, and slowly I was beginning to see the bigger picture.

But even after becoming a teacher, I realised I still had ideas about what yoga was supposed to look like. Nepal taught me that lesson all over again.

In 2024, I was invited to join a yoga class in a town at 5am. My first thought was, 5am?! OMG. But I thought let’s give it a try? I turned up and witnessed one of the most interesting yoga classes I've ever experienced. They sang their national anthem, marched on the spot, did aerobics, and danced. The only asana they held was a very interesting version of Trikonasana.

And I judged it. I remember thinking, This isn't yoga. What is this?! I was laughing through most of the class and clapping along to the music, but in my head I was still comparing it to what I'd been taught what yoga was. Then I spent more time with these people, and slowly I started to realise. Over sixty people had come together in the early hours of the morning! Wow! They weren't trying to look like yogis, they were simply together, connecting on a deeper level.

It made me think about the word yoga itself. The word comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, which is connected with the idea of yoking, joining or uniting, and suddenly that meaning felt much more real to me. I'd been so focused on what yoga was supposed to look like that I'd forgotten to think about what it could create between people. There is something incredibly powerful about humans coming together with a shared intention.

And the funniest part about Nepal was that they later asked me to teach a class. Of course I said yes. I can only imagine what they thought when I started teaching my style of yoga. What the hell is she doing? I look back at it now and laugh at the class I gave, but I'm incredibly grateful to those people because they showed me something I hadn't realised I still needed to learn. Yoga doesn't have to look one particular way for it to create connection.

And becuase of that yoga has made me more sensitive to life in general.

I started with becoming more aware of my own body: noticing pain, tension, tiredness, how much I move, how much I rest, how I sleep and what I put into my body. Sometimes, if I feel pain, rather than immediately reaching for a painkiller, I try to sit with it and listen to what my body is telling me now. I'm not saying I never take one, but now I see, it’s the body telling me somethings up and that I shouldn’t suppress it.

That awareness naturally started extending to the food I eat too. I began thinking more about where my food came from, and how it reached my plate. Naturally, thoughts kept evolving, I started thinking about the living beings involved too. Animals stopped feeling like something separate from me. I became more aware that they are alive. Then that relates to nature. The trees around me aren't just tress anymore. They give me air to breathe, food to eat, shade, homes for other creatures and so much more. The more I notice the world around me, the harder it becomes to see myself as separate from it. I'm part of it, completely dependent on it, and yet most of the time we walk around thinking we own it. It has also made me more aware of my own words and actions, the way I consume things, and how I spend my time. So much its unbelieveable isn’t it!

I think this is where gratitude naturally comes in. I find myself feeling grateful for so much more than I ever used to.

To conclude, I still love stretching, obviously. I still love moving my body and feeling strong and flexible, and the physical practice is a huge part of what I enjoy about yoga. But now I understand it differently. The body was simply the doorway. I walked through it looking for flexibility and found something much bigger on the other side, which I hope you can see.

Note, you don't have to know everything before you begin. You don't have to be spiritual, you don't need to be flexible, and you certainly don't need to look like a yogi or be able to stand on your head. You can simply start where you are and see where the practice takes you. For me, it took me from a little travel towel on a bedroom floor, trying to stretch my hamstrings, to sitting quietly and trying to understand my own mind.

And perhaps that's what yoga has really given me: not just flexibility, not just strength, and not even just a better understanding of my own mind, but a greater sensitivity to being alive. The more I notice, the more connected everything seems. My body, my breath, food, nature, animals, people, my words, my choices and my time…none of it feels quite as separate as it once did.

I'm still learning, still questioning, still getting frustrated in traffic, still reacting when I wish I hadn't, and still having days where my yoga practice feels beautiful and days where I absolutely cannot be bothered. But perhaps that's yoga too. It's not about becoming some perfectly peaceful version of yourself. It's about becoming more connected to yourself, to the world around you, and to the life you're actually living.

I thought yoga was about stretching. Turns out, the stretching was just the beginning.