Is This Yoga, or Just Another Performance?

Reflections on truth, performance, and what we call yoga.

Our bodies know the next step.

From the moment of our conception, there was a knowing. Our cells divided, formed organs, built a nervous system, not because anyone told them to, but because they knew. No one instructed us to grow eyes, a heart, or skin. It just happened. There was no to-do list, no performance. Just intelligence, unfolding.

And yet, somewhere along the way, we lost touch with that knowing.

We started to learn what others wanted us to do. How to behave, how to succeed, what to want, who to be. We started following maps that weren’t drawn by us. And slowly, we forgot how to listen to ourselves.

I often wonder, does much of modern yoga in the West reinforce this forgetting?

Think about it. A teacher designs a sequence based on what feels good in their body, or what they think people want, or what they think people think yoga is. Layers upon layers of projections. And then a group of students comes in and receives that sequence, following instructions built on assumptions about what practice should look like.

Isn’t that kind of the definition of madness?

If yoga is meant to be a practice of stripping away illusions, of coming back to what's real, why do we play along with this pantomime? Why do we (facilitators and students) keep adding layers on top of the already thickly coated nugget of truth inside us?

I say this not from judgment, but from deep reflection. I include myself in this. I’ve performed yoga (for many, many years!). I’ve taught yoga with an agenda (based on what I thought people wanted when they showed up to a yoga class in a yoga studio). I’ve chased the ‘right’ way to do it, and I’ve rewarded myself when I hit the target (full classes, positive feedback, feeling great).

I’m part of this pantomime.

So if structure has become a performance, what happens when we try something different?

The truth is, stepping into something completely unheld, (something without guidance or structure) is probably too much for most of us. And that’s okay.

But experiencing pockets of freedom?

That leaves room for exploration.

In Shake the Dust, we move in and out of containers, sometimes held, structured movements like star jumps or squats, into free movement or stillness, and then back into something held. This rhythm allows the nervous system to experience both up- and down-regulation. It gives you, as a human, the chance to notice: What feels good? What doesn’t?

It leaves space for inquiry.
For mess.
For life.

And maybe that’s the point: with its mostly masculine-influenced rules and underlying narrative around ‘getting it right,’ another kind of container may be what’s actually needed to do the work.

This isn't just philosophical musing—it's a pattern rooted in the very mythology yoga emerges from.

This passage from Uma Dinsmore-Tuli’s Yoni Shakti has always made me laugh (and maybe you’ve heard it too):

(Parvati, Siva’s wife) would bathe herself and rub sandalwood paste on her body and she would stretch out in the morning in the sunshine, and she would feel her body. It was so delicious that she would twist this way, and twist a little back that way, and then maybe she would lean back over a rock or a sofa and breathe. She just felt good doing this.

Sometimes Siva, who was madly in love with her, would creep up behind a pillar and watch her. He would peek secretly, because this was her private time. He loved to see her enjoying herself so much.

Then suddenly his mind started ticking, and he said to himself ‘Well, maybe I could do this too?’ So he watched her very carefully and then went out in the jungle and he tried to do some of the things he had seen her doing so beautifully in the early morning light.

Being Siva, and being male of course, he began to perfect these movements and these positions. He organised them and he codified them and he practised very hard to get them all right. When some of his devotees heard about this, they said ‘Lord, please will you teach us?’ So Siva thought about this, and then he spoke: “Very well, all of you, line up. One, two, three, four! And now you’ve got to JUMP! Three feet apart, left foot in, right foot out! STRETCH your arms! More, more, more!”

After some time he said “Mmm. OK, I’m going to give some of you certificates.” He handed out the certificates and then he sent them off out into the world to open up ashrams and yoga centres, and yes, we know the rest of the story!

There’s a deep truth hidden in that myth-meets-satire moment. What started as sensual, private, embodied joy became something structured, taught, performed, and rewarded.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, other than to say:
If your yoga practice becomes something to perform, or achieve, an end goal or another thing to reward yourself with...
maybe it’s not yoga?!

What do ya think?

*thank you Georgie Fearn for reminding me about this wonderful story in Uma Dinsmore-Tuli’s book, Yoni Shakti and for deepening my own exploration into yoga - forever grateful!