Women and Yoga

Every time I go to a yoga class in SF, I cannot help but wonder how is it that so many women are practicing yoga. And, where are the men? There are a few in the class that look totally forced into being in the class by their girlfriends and few others seem natural and at home in the class. I see more men in the class if the teacher is a guy. As part of the teacher training class, I see that 90% or more of the students are women.

Being from India, I always thought anything to do with yoga had to do with men. I had only seen yogis who were men, same goes for rishis and munis and all the ancient wisdom being written by men. I am not even sure how common yoga was in India with Sanskrit being studied by the upper caste Indians which was not the majority of India. The students were taught by a guru and they had to live in ashrams and a big part of their lives dedicated to the spiritual life.

So it makes me wonder if all the yoga asanas being invented by men apply equally to both men and women as there could be some differences in the structural make up. All the yoga asana names are either based on animal poses or the names of sages, all men. I am not able to get any references of any women yoginis in the ancient India. The only topic that I have come across discussing women is the tantra, but it seems more about the female energy shakti, rather than women in yoga. It is all about releasing the kundalini which is said to be equal part feminine energy and male energy coiled at the pelvic floor. This part of yoga gets murky as there is so much deviation from the asanas and moves on to the energy aspect.

The references of women in yoga that I could find are BKS Iyengar’s daughter Gita Iyengar, American yoginis Indra devi and Patricia Walden. From this recent generation onwards, the practice has been dominated by women. It is interesting to see that a practice that was started and practiced by men for centuries is so popular with women in the west. And, it has taken on a feeling that yoga is for women and now men somehow seem reluctant to take it on.

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