10 Problems Every Yogi Knows All Too Well

Yoga has gotten super popular. It’s easy to see why.

There are tons of benefits both mental and physical that come with a regular practice, and when you take part in classes you make great new friends and learn new things about yourself and your limits that you never would have discovered otherwise.

However great yoga is, the reality is that it isn’t always easy.

Yoga, at times, is damn stressful and can cause a good deal of anxiety.

But it’s the kind of short-lived stress and anxiety that instantly washes away as soon as you sit back and unwind in savasana. It’s that great feeling at the end that keeps millions of people coming back for more!

Every yogi, be you new to the practice or a seasoned instructor, has experienced some frustrations in their practice.

It can be anything from getting ready for class to actual frustrations with certain poses. Still, we’re all united in the fact that we have very unique yogi-specific struggles!

The Too-Familiar Struggles of Yoga

You’ll probably read the following list and think, “man this is too real”. And I honestly feel the same just writing it.

These are the kinds of things that make you shake your head lovingly at yoga in all its silly, sometimes stressful, glory – but you love it all the more for it because they’re your struggles.

So, here are ten problems that all of us in the yoga world know all too well:

1. You always take the same exact spot every single class… but the ONE day you’re late somebody else has taken it. Now, your entire class session feels “off”. Better luck next time, tardy Tammy!
2. Forgetting literally any part of your essentials and having to borrow from the studio. You have to wonder how often they wash those towels or what they clean the mats with. Still, even if they had been autoclaved it just somehow still feels gross.
3. You secret hatred for the teacher’s pet of the class who has insane flexibility and seems like she’s been doing yoga since it was first invented. You want to be her, but you can’t so you’ll just stark at her in your head.
4. That person who thinks it’s okay to talk through the class and keep asking questions. You get where they’re coming from but it’s totally breaking class etiquette and destroying your focus in the process.
5. Yoga brain. The compulsive urge to morph your body into a yoga pose at random times. You’ve practiced yoga so much at this point that your body just naturally wants to become some sort of pretzel. It feels good!
6. The insatiable need to keep buying new yoga gear. You already have a closet full of yoga pants (and some quite expensive) and more gear than you could possibly use, but when your favorite yoga shop sale pops up… I weep for our wallets.
7. Needing to fart but not wanting anybody to hear it or smell it. I mean, smelling isn’t a problem as long as they don’t know that you’re the source, right? But you can never tell if it’s going to be silent or not so you just hold it in and keep yourself really uncomfortable for the sake of keeping it classy in class. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
8. The yoga smell that never goes away. It’s a mix of sweat, musk, and that chemically smell that comes from yoga pants, yoga mats, and blocks. No matter what you do it never seems to totally go away. We’ve pretty much just accepted that it’s essentially a yogi pheromone that attracts yogis to each other, so they can form a community. It’s in our blood, now!
9. No matter where you’re going, you always have your yoga mat with you. You could be going on a business trip for a day and you still feel the need to pack your mat with you just in case. “We don’t have space for it” is never an acceptable reason to leave your mat at home. Never.
10. Usually the music in class is on point, but there’s always ONE song that you can’t stand, and you hear it every class. Once it comes on, you want to scratch your ears off and curl up into a ball. But you power through it and just hope and pray that the next song will be better. Any song is better than that ONE song, though.

We can pretend that yogis are always cool, Zen, and collected, but from one yogi to another…

We know that’s not true.

Yoga doesn’t make us perfect even though we wish it would. It has benefits for the mind, sure, but none of those benefits includes a superhuman ability for tolerance.

Yoga is a part of our routine and we like it a certain way! We’re all in this together. There’s no blame in this game. We just have our preferences 🙂

Anyway, what really matters is the relaxing effect it has on us after every yoga session 🙂

If you want to laugh a little, check our post about the 10 funny thoughts most people have during yoga classes 🙂

The yoganum family