If any of you are on Instagram, I’m sure you’ve come across at least one person posting yoga pictures. If you aren’t into yoga, you might find these annoying just like when someone posts too many photos of their kids. Another thing I may or may not be guilty of!
For the month of October I’ll be partaking in the YogaFlightFest challenge on Instagram, so if you’re looking for some motivation and want to join me click here for details.
There are a million yoga challenges on Instagram every month and a few months ago a co-worker decided to do one and I figured, why not? I’ve followed a few yogis on Instagram, most of them I found through following BexLife, and had already been inspired to practice more, why not join in a challenge while I was at it? I had already been doing some yoga on my own at home through my subscription to yogaglo.com, so I wasn’t jumping in blindly. I’ve practiced yoga off and on for a few years, but never anything consistent and unfortunately haven’t gone to many classes due to my schedule. But I found that doing a yoga challenge helped me be more consistent in my practice, even if I wasn’t able to do all the poses yet.
The photo above and the ones below are photos from the first challenge I did called YoGratitude back in August
Let me make one thing clear, I’m no yoga expert. I wouldn’t even consider myself intermediate. I enjoy doing yoga and I know my limitations. I know there are some yogis out there of the mind that yoga challenges on social media are not safe or healthy because it does not necessarily encourage regular practice. You see all these super advanced yogis doing amazing feats of strength and flexibility and if you try these things without knowing what you are doing, without being properly warmed up and without knowing how to listen to your body, you could end up injured.
I definitely see that as a valid standpoint, and I completely agree with the notion that people shouldn’t jump into a yoga challenge as an ego boost. However, I do think that yoga challenges can be a source of motivation and inspiration. I don’t like the notion that I’ve seen people bring up, that people who do yoga challenges are somehow doing a disservice to the practice itself as if yoga is only to be practiced by people who are “serious.” To me, if someone is inspired to get up and move and is motivated to do it because of an Instagram challenge, then more power to them. I also don’t think there is ever any harm in spreading the goodness of yoga to the masses and possibly changing anyone’s preconceived notions of what yoga might or might not be.
With that said, I will post occasional updates here on my progress throughout the challenge. And also, if any of those photos I posted seem deceiving, well they are. Because this is really what doing yoga around our house looks like:
xo,
c.
