Yoga is a discipline which has emerged as an ideal Practice for women, especially in the Western World. You might have noticed most of the Yoga studios are run and taught by female instructors in the Western countries. Not only instructors but also we find the jarring dominance of women in the yoga community. This particular mechanism of the practice prevailing in those countries has somehow intimidated the male community further stemming inside their head the idea that “yoga is only for girls”.

A 2012 Yoga journal report showed that there are more than 20 million practitioners in the US. Out of 20 million 83 percent of them are women. We see that the number of yoga practitioners in a Western country like the US is massive.

So the reason being yoga, a female-dominated practice in the West has inspired many other women to also pursue their career in this field. As a result it leads to more female instructors teaching this discipline. The larger number of female yoga instructions causes a divergence making men likely to be interested in a practice like yoga.

Origin of Yoga

If we travel back to the origin of yoga, this practice was authentically practiced only by men. This practice dates back almost thousands of years in India. India, its birthplace where yogis used this discipline purely as a spiritual practice. However, the practice slowly evolved over the years emerging as a lifestyle to help people manage their physical and mental health. The transition not only influenced the people living in India but also spread across the world through seekers who came to acquire the ancient knowledge in its birthplace. The practice of yoga did take a long time to reach the Western World. However, when it did reach, it took a completely different turn becoming a practice that mainly caters to the women community.

You must be wondering how a practice which was originally “meant for men” changed course over the years turning into a “female-oriented” practice in the West. In order to understand this transition, let us shed light on some of the important aspects of the practice including the history of yoga and its introduction to the west and the perception of the practice by Westerners.

A brief history of Yoga

Yoga, a practice that dates back to more than 5,000 years began as a sacred discipline performed by ancient forest dwelling yogis as a means to escape the physical sufferings by embodying spirituality to attain “superpowers”. The practice initially focused on deep meditation practices.

Later the practice slowly advanced into a physical and mental practice, which aims to balance the body, mind and spirit. The discipline slowly emerged as a way of living to achieving a healthy physical and mental state of being. Hatha yoga, which is one of the foundational asana-based yoga forms, only was popularized only until the Middle Ages. Hatha yoga is a yoga form originally performed by a group of militarized monks known as the Nath Yogis. Ironically, now we can see that this is a particular yoga taken to mostly by women yoga practitioners in the West.

How yoga became a fad among women in the West

Indra Devi- a female yoga pioneer who introduced Yoga to the West

By contrast, yoga was introduced to the Westerners through T. Krishnamacharya, a patriarchal guru who was more or less against teaching yoga to women. While T. Krishnamacharya was teaching yoga under the patronage of the Maharaja of Mysore in India, a Russian- born actress Eugenie Peterson sought to learn the practice from him.

Krishnamacharya initially declined the request of Peterson who was later known as Indra Devi as she was a woman and a Westerner. However, he agreed after he was approached by the Maharaja of Mysore who happened to be a friend of Devi’s. It is believed that Krishnamacharya was keen on breaking her determination to learn yoga by training her hard physically. However, he was impressed at how she embraced the practice and her strong willpower that did not make her give up.

In 1947, Devi spread her love for yoga across the West through Hollywood when she taught yoga to sensations like Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo and others. Elizabeth Arden, a famous cosmetologist who also trained with Devi developed yoga-based health spa programs that catered to the rich and famous. Soon enough, the practice took the world by storm and many women adopted yoga to stay fit inspired by their idols.

How Lilias, Yoga and You brought the practice to the mainstream?

Lilias Folan is another women pioneer who familiarised the concept of the practice to the commoners. Folan also known as “The First Lady of Yoga” in America hosted her PBS show called Lilias. Yoga and You that first started airing in the 1970s.

Although Indra Devi was initially the first person to bring Yoga to the West, Folan brought the practice literally to millions of people right in their homes through her TV show. Back then, televisions were “a thing” every household owned which turned into an advantage for Folan to help her spread her love for the practice to many across America.

Folan’s classes encompass a range of gentle movements and asanas ideal for beginners. The show ran successfully for years proving quite beneficial to homemakers who got access to yoga classes right in their living rooms. Thus, yoga classes with Lilias’ became a huge thing especially for women in America, which further stemmed the concept that “yoga is for girls”.

Why Yoga is an “unmanly” practice in the West?

Despite the above factors adding to the concept of Yoga being a “girly practice”, another perception along the way contributed making it even more difficult for men to reach out to this practice.

This is one of the most common aspects every one of us subconsciously acknowledges it in the back of our minds. Before going straight to the point, what do you think men usually associate with when it comes to physical exercises?  Men mostly look for exercises that will make them look and become strong, sturdy, masculine and as much as macho as possible. And these fitness goals are possible but rather hard to achieve with yoga which is often synonymous with flexibility and suppleness. The association of the practice with such “feminine movements” scares the male society to an extent as the associations itself sometimes get on to their egos as well. Why? Because if a man starts stretching and if he became flexible, they probably feel the machoness will somehow fade away.

This reason may seem absurd but if you ask any guy who does not practice yoga the reason why he doesn’t want to get into the practice, trust me most of them will say they are not “flexible” enough as they don’t really want to be flexible subconsciously.

Other possible aspect

We cannot surely validate it but there is another possible aspect that adds to shooing away men from yoga. It is nothing but the techniques of the practice itself. We all have observed that yoga is a practice that gives a lot of focus on meditations. It actually a deep way to contemplating and exploring the inner self. Yoga being a practice focusses on the inward of the body and mind. It may also serve as a potential reason why men are not inclined towards this practice. Although this point might try to generalize men’s behaviors a little, however, we ourselves might have also noticed that men do not like getting sensitive, emotional or deep in many cases. So that may be as well another reason why men do not like being associated with this practice.

Although these points might not substantiate the fact why yoga is a female-dominated practice in the West, we sure did get some ideas of the situation there.

Yoga Products

The massive number of female yoga practitioners is not only giving more power to budding practitioners but are also contributing to the booming success of yoga pants and yoga products producing companies like Lululemon, Nike, Reebok and other sports brands. Moreover, we often see celebrities and our idols endorsing these brands and their products.

The popularity of yoga pants and other sports apparels endorsed by celebrities and known faces. Further it inspires other women to take up a trend like yoga where they can also put on their favourite yoga pants and sportswear.

The above explanations almost sum up everything. And if we are still not sure why there are more female yoga instructors than male yoga instructors in Western countries, the answer is right in front of you. Well! If we have to explain it, it is simply a chain reaction. If there are more female yoga practitioners including the serious ones, they would by default want to pursue further in this field and later those same aspirants would later become yoga instructors. So as long as there is more number of female yoga practitioners, automatically there would more female students pursuing their teaching careers in the field of yoga.

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