Why Go to Yoga Class?

As much as we all love yoga, sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to head to a yoga class outside our home. While home practice has its own set of perks, engaging with your local yoga community is always a great way to feel inspired and motivated in your own practice. In this blog, Erica Rodefer shares why she loves going to yoga class and encourages us to explore our own motivations. After reading her take, tell us, why do you love heading to yoga class?

A few months ago, I went to a weekend workshop led by Jason Crandell, one of my long-time teachers. I had been feeling pretty bad about my yoga practice because (as I’m sure I’ve mentioned on this blog) I work nearly every minute of every day and I don’t make it to yoga studios nearly as often as I’d like. In the workshop, Jason talked a lot about developing a personal practice and he mentioned that right now it just doesn’t work for him to go to a yoga studio. He gets more out of practicing at home because it gives him the freedom to take his time and experiment with the things that he finds interesting and helpful, and he goes to a teacher a few times a year when he feels he needs to. It makes perfect sense.

Of course, it made me feel better about my practice to know that one of the yoga teachers I respect most in the world doesn’t attend regular yoga classes. My home practice, no matter how irregular, at least gives me the opportunity to go inward, which is what the practice is all about. It’s liberating to feel like when I go long stretches without setting foot in a studio, I don’t have to feel guilty or disappointed with myself! This is what I love about yoga. It’s good stuff.

But I will always love a good yoga class. I want to go to class when I can … not because I need to or because I can’t get what I need out of a home practice, but because it just feels right to me.

Here are 10 reasons I make every effort to go to yoga classes whenever I can:

1. I like it.

2. I still have a TON to learn.

3. It inspires me; it gets my creative juices flowing.

4. It’s fun to meet new people, especially other yoga students!

5. I benefit from the positive energy of the collective group.

6. It makes me practice poses I know I’d never work on on my own.

7. Classes challenge me to hold poses longer, work a little harder, and push my limits. It’s in classes that I’m capable of more than I ever thought possible.

8. A different perspective gives me new things to work on later.

9. Two words: Yoga Buzz.

10. Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else guide you through the practice so you have to think less and really feel the present moment.

Now it’s your turn—why do you love to go to yoga class?

Erica Rodefer is a writer and yoga teacher living in Charleston, SC. As the former online editor for Yoga Journal magazine, she lived and breathed yoga at work and at home. She practiced with amazing teachers every day, went to yoga conferences, and had a supportive environment to live her yoga. Now, she’s trying to navigate yoga in the real world, and blogs about her journey to find contentment and live in the present, no matter what. Her loves include yoga, writing, crafting, her cat Gracey, and her dog Penny.