Equal Number of Men and Women in Yoga Classes
“These days, I see almost an equal number of men and women in the classes for yoga teachers, and also in the studios where yoga sessions are conducted for the public,” says Reshma Sood, a 38-year-old yoga instructor certified by Bhavan’s Yoga Bharati—Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Yoga Academy and Research Institute in Mumbai.
Abhishek Sharma, a 39-year-old Mumbai-based yoga teacher and author of Fitness On The Go: The Anytime Anywhere Holistic Workout for Busy People, says: “The ratio of men to women in most yoga classes is 30:70. It used to be even more skewed just a couple of years earlier.”
Sharma, a Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan-certified teacher who has attended advanced workshops at the Bihar School of Yoga in Munger, believes men are often intimidated by a yoga class because women tend to be naturally better at yoga than them. “Yoga involves quite a bit of stretching and flexibility. Men find it more difficult to either attain or hold the perfect posture when they first start because they are usually less flexible. They feel out of place among women, who seem to do it effortlessly,” says Sharma, who gave up a career in art photography to pursue yoga full-time because he found it more rewarding and satisfying. Yoga’s new converts – Livemint