Sixty minutes is the platonic ideal.

May 2, 2017 3:05 AM

From The Atlantic, a plea for shorter yoga classes.
posted by Gordion Knott (41 comments total)

A lot of the yoga studios I've been to offer hour-long lunch classes, sometimes at a reduced rate. They're not great if you don't work right by the studio or if you need to shower or eat an actual lunch, but it's not as if the 60-minute yoga class hasn't been invented.

Yoga classes tend to space me out for a couple hours afterwards anyway - it's part of the appeal - so I mentally block off the whole night if I've got an evening class. I haven't been going lately because I don't have time for yoga and the trip to and from yoga and the spacey time afterwards, but there are plenty of more efficient ways to get exercise.

But as long as we're wishing, I'd really like no-inversion yoga classes. Most classes I've been to will have some sort of headstand/handstand practice about every third class. I can't do them and don't want to learn, so for me it's ten minutes of wasted time. Beginner-level classes usually skip the headstands, but they also skip a lot of things I like doing.
posted by Metroid Baby at 3:59 AM on May 2, 2017 [9 favorites]

Shavasana will be over before the urge to check your phone becomes overpowering.

Every single hackle I possess is now standing with equal, steady, and still attention.
posted by flabdablet at 5:04 AM on May 2, 2017 [12 favorites]

Another L.A. class I was more fond of, but which I attended less frequently because it had fewer parking spots, packed yoga into 30 minutes, rocketing through the basic poses and dispensing with the zen stuff entirely.

I think this sums the whole article up.
posted by sukeban at 5:08 AM on May 2, 2017 [15 favorites]

I've heard there is a yoga machine that can tug you into each pose and get the entire thing over in a matter of minutes, all without any effort from you. And for just three easy payments...
posted by greenhornet at 5:22 AM on May 2, 2017 [11 favorites]

I was just having this conversation the other night (about shorter yoga classes). It can be harder than you think to find hour long classes. Sometimes I just don't have 1.5 hours in me. Also the longer it goes on the more likely I am to get the giggles . (Will accept arguments made that I'm just not built for yoga))
posted by thivaia at 5:30 AM on May 2, 2017

anxious people go to yoga, too

Yeah and I think that might be worth examining more deeply here.

My city has a volunteer-run free yoga class that moves around to different locations. It's basically a 45-minute to 1-hour class, depending on how the participants trickle in. It's much too short, IMO, but I don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
posted by Miko at 5:58 AM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is weird to me. When I was doing yoga, the classes were never, ever more than an hour long, and more like 45 minutes. Maybe it's a location thing?
posted by cooker girl at 6:07 AM on May 2, 2017 [12 favorites]

Not everyone has the luxury of spending 90 minutes in a yoga class. The class itself may be 90 minutes but theres the time spent getting to the class, time spent getting your mat and yourself ready/dressed. Maybe you're rushing to get to the right class right after and juuust making it in time. I have to say for myself, the 60 minute classes at CorePower Yoga (where I even did their 200hr program!) was what really changed my practice. Before, I somehow only managed to get in 2 classes a week to now going at least 3 to 4 times a week.

And if I could do a 45 minute class? With 15 minutes for showering and possibly scarfing my lunch down at my desk. I could go every day and probably be much more mentally sound and stable on a consistent basis.

I don't see any snark yet here (or maybe there is, whatever) but I think having a mix of short and long classes is good. Yoga is (or should be) for everyone, even time and money starved people.
posted by driedmango at 6:08 AM on May 2, 2017 [13 favorites]

Leaving aside the fact that if you’re getting grappled by a silver-haired arty man in Los Angeles, you should at least be getting a long-awaited launch to your acting career for the trouble

Welp.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:12 AM on May 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

I have some of the same complaints about yoga, which is why I have found that I'm much happier if I stick to Pilates. Seriously, Olga: it's not yoga. It's us. We are not a good fit for yoga. If you're allergic to spirituality and want a shorter exercise class, you probably should not pick an exercise class that is also a spiritual practice.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:12 AM on May 2, 2017 [20 favorites]

anxious people go to yoga, too

The quote seems to have been cut off, mods is there a glitch :-)

But anxious people go to yoga, too—it’s how we persuade our therapists that we’re trying to get better.

What? What is this "article" (online opinion piece?) (refuge from /r/rants ??) even about?

I personally do six minute yoga, for free with chanting provided by CNN and it's actually pretty good.
posted by sammyo at 6:13 AM on May 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Count me as someone who sees hour yoga classes as the standard in her city, not so much the super duper long ones. I dunno if that's because during the school year, most studios are filled with stressed students, or maybe this is a giant city thing?

I'm usually good for about 30-45 minutes before my brain gets bored. (I want to like yoga and do it upon occasion, but have yet to reach that exhilarating feeling most everyone else gets from it.)
posted by Kitteh at 6:19 AM on May 2, 2017

Huh. The courses I do through the city's parks and rec dept. are all one hour*. I never realized this wasn't the norm.

*Or about 45 minutes, if your instructor is a jackass who likes getting attention from the women in the front row and will joke and make chit chat and show off moves to encourage that, and dude you need to focus.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:21 AM on May 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Filed under "no one has time for this."

Also, the gym I go to, which is at my university and caters solely to staff and faculty, offers group exercise classes throughout the day that are exactly 1 hour long, start to finish. Which means that if you have an hour for lunch, you can't take any classes there, because you still need to walk 5 minutes to and from the gym and change your clothes and get cleaned up. It's annoying.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:26 AM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I personally do six minute yoga, for free with chanting provided by CNN

What? CNN provides the yoga? Or just the chanting? Chakra News Network?
posted by thelonius at 6:26 AM on May 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

For the time- and cash-strapped, I highly recommend YouTube yoga. It's free! And you don't have to drive anywhere to do it! This lady is wonderful, for example. Her 31 day Yoga Revolution series averages about 30 minutes a day.
posted by something something at 6:34 AM on May 2, 2017 [51 favorites]

I live in L.A., home of every power hot core funky flow immersive yoga experience. It's exhausting. I finally found an instructor that I loved and she got an acting gig and doesn't teach anymore (truth). I've been doing it at home on my laptop with less regularity. I desperately want to find a class that isn't hot, has some parking, starts before 7:30 p.m., and doesn't expect us all to be experts doing handstand scorpion pose in our first session.

I love L.A., but come on people.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:49 AM on May 2, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'd like to find a yoga teacher who doesn't talk all the time; it kind of ruins the contemplative aspect of it to have constant exhortations to breathe or whatever
posted by thelonius at 6:57 AM on May 2, 2017

Metafilter: Not everyone has the luxury of spending 90 minutes in a yoga class.
posted by biogeo at 8:15 AM on May 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

This is exactly why I don't do yoga (and I could really benefit from it and have in the past). Here in the SF Bay Area it seems like there has been a drift toward longer classes in recent years. About 5 years ago, I was able to find 45 minute classes. Now they're nowhere to be seen, at least in the places I could reasonably go during the work week.
posted by treepour at 8:28 AM on May 2, 2017

The article is not satire? The idea of rushing a yoga class either misses or mocks what yoga is for.
posted by jet_silver at 8:28 AM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

My sister and I have this conversation every time we don't make it to the yoga class this week. The other thing I wish the instructors would fucking never do is play music.

So I end up doing the routines I find on streaming services, instead of going to class. Its a shame since I really do feel a million times better when I go to the yoga sessions at my gym more regularly.
posted by crush at 8:30 AM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's not about rushing yoga. It's not a request to hold poses for 3 seconds instead of 30--it's a request to have a guided yoga session that's 30 or 45 minutes long, instead of 90.
posted by crush at 8:32 AM on May 2, 2017 [13 favorites]

Huh. Her experience has not been my experience even though some days I don't have 90 minutes in me. Sounds like she would be happier at pilates. (Which I loathe.) It takes all kinds!
posted by Space Kitty at 9:27 AM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Add me to the "never had a yoga class longer than an hour" list. At least partly by choice because I don't think my energy level could handle more than an hour. Heck usually somewhere in the second or third "sun salutation B" I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have skipped class that day.

doesn't expect us all to be experts doing handstand scorpion pose in our first session.

Yeah, I was really surprised the first time I went to a beginner class at CorePower, and they've got crow pose in the beginner sequence. It's not a handstand, but it's an arm balance, and I can't really do it. (I have managed it longer than 2 seconds exactly once, that was about two years ago - mainly I just don't practice enough to get good at it.)
posted by dnash at 9:29 AM on May 2, 2017

I don't have a horse in this race at all but the link claiming 90 minute sessions are the one true way actually says "The 26 posture series follows the tradition of 'the Beginners Class' that was developed by Bikram Choudhury, an Indian yoga master, to work all the systems of the body systematically." And y'know, fuck that guy.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:49 AM on May 2, 2017 [5 favorites]

"Bikram yoga" is an adaptation of yoga for fitness purposes, but it's a long way from a pure yoga practice. A lot of people say it's a corruption of it, but so are most of the other branded offshoots.
posted by Miko at 9:55 AM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sometimes yoga is just 60 (or 90) minutes of trying desperately not to fart.
posted by gottabefunky at 9:58 AM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

I just go ahead and fart and hope like hell it's silent and nose-quiet.

I can't attempt zen if I'm trying not to fart.
posted by barchan at 10:10 AM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Another L.A. class I was more fond of, but which I attended less frequently because it had fewer parking spots, packed yoga into 30 minutes, rocketing through the basic poses and dispensing with the zen stuff entirely.


This is sad. Yoga has turned into just another exercise in America. All spiritual/mediation aspect have been completely cut off from its original practice. Why do yoga if no one does the most important part of yoga? Just go on the treadmill for short exercise.
posted by Carius at 10:11 AM on May 2, 2017

Mysore, baby. You're in a room, doing your sequence, at your own pace, in your own time. There's a chant at the beginning, but otherwise, you are left alone.
posted by gsh at 10:12 AM on May 2, 2017

The article is not satire? The idea of rushing a yoga class either misses or mocks what yoga is for.

I don't think so. Yoga is "for" different things for different people. I mean, the original intention, AFAIK, was to prepare people to be able to sit a long time for meditation. These days, some people use it as a spiritual practice, others use it to prevent injury, to reduce stress, to build strength. If they're able to do that in less than 60 minutes, then I don't see why it would be a mockery.

I do yoga for a combination of physical, emotional and spiritual reasons. I have definitely done 60-minute yoga classes that didn't feel rushed. Usually it just meant we did fewer things, which is fine. Just so long as the instructor doesn't eliminate the savasana at the end. Because of course that's the best part.
posted by lunasol at 10:19 AM on May 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

I guess I don't understand yoga. Do they lock the doors?
posted by bongo_x at 11:00 AM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Another L.A. class I was more fond of, but which I attended less frequently because it had fewer parking spots, packed yoga into 30 minutes, rocketing through the basic poses and dispensing with the zen stuff entirely.

Pedantically seethes about how the author is smashing together traditions separated by thousands of miles of distance and hundreds of years of cultural evolution, that have about as much to do with each other as Christianity and Islam, but that's secular appropriation for you.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 11:14 AM on May 2, 2017 [5 favorites]

While I can see the overarching point that 90 minutes is untenable for a lot of folks, sometimes I want the class to be long. After all, I had to arrive 15 minutes early and make a mad dash in order to have room for my mat at all. So I want that obnoxious effort to feel "worth it."

Which is to say: I've stopped doing yoga out, because goddamn are gyms expensive and unpleasant places to move one's body.
posted by sazerac at 11:27 AM on May 2, 2017

witchen, I have a new rule for yoga studios - do their promotional photos picture people who are not tall, thin, toned/tanned white women in Lululemon clothes? Then I will give them a try. If not then no way. I was really shocked when I started going to a Crossfit gym of all places and feeling much more welcome and physically comfortable than I have in most yoga studios, as someone who is not and never will be skinny. I really like yoga a lot but I hate how many of them wind up (intentionally or not) promoting this whole ideology of white supremacy (by elevating ideas about ideal white femininity) and body-shaming.

Right now, actually, my favorite yoga class is at my Crossfit gym! It's in a loft above where they do the regular CF workouts, so the music is whatever they're playing for the class, punctuated by the sound of weights crashing onto the floor. But the teacher is phenomenal and very inclusive*, the students are all ages and body types, and the yoga itself is really, really good. It's more physically-oriented than spiritually so - it's basically a mobility class for Crossfitters.

I've also done some more spiritually-oriented classes too that I really got a lot out of - I think yoga classes work best when it focuses on one of these aspects at a time, rather than putting an Orientalist-pseudo-spiritual sheen on what is basically a functional fitness class.

*For those who follow the world of yoga, she's the person who started the Yoga for People of Color class that the "alt-right" got so angry about and that resulted in death threats. But she's still going and is so good.
posted by lunasol at 11:36 AM on May 2, 2017 [8 favorites]

I really like yoga, and especially gentle/"yin"/restorative yoga, but I personally just want a yoga class where no one refers to any pose as "yummy".
posted by chainsofreedom at 11:50 AM on May 2, 2017 [5 favorites]

The last time I did crow pose in a class, I didn't balance myself right and landed on my nose. No shortening or lengthening of the class would've helped. Now I mainly do the Yoga with Adriene YouTube videos mentioned above at home, as I liked the classes I attended when I lived in England more than the ones I've found in the US.
posted by minsies at 12:29 PM on May 2, 2017

Andrea R Jain writes about the commodification of yoga over the years, or - to phrase it less harshly - the changing cultural value of yoga, in the (academic) book Selling Yoga.

Sacred Matters also has an interview with the author in which some of her central propositions are laid out. Particularly relevant to the discussion here:

3. Can you summarize the three key points you’d like the reader to walk away with when finished?

"First, yoga has always been polythetic in the many pathways of its historical development and has remained so through modern postural yoga’s evolution and recent popularization. Yoga has been perpetually context-sensitive, so there is no “legitimate,” “authentic,” “orthodox,” or “original” tradition, only contextualized ideas and practices organized around the term yoga. Yoga is in part what yoga practitioners say it is.

Second, contemporary consumer culture’s emphasis on self-development through rigorous body maintenance mirrors pop-culture yoga’s devotion to fitness and health. Pop-culture yoga is a transnational product of yoga’s encounter with global processes, particularly the rise and dominance of market capitalism, industrialization, globalization, and the consequent diffusion of consumer culture. In short, pop-culture yoga systems are products of consumer culture and contain within them many commodities.

Third, just because pop-culture yoga is a product of consumer culture, that does not mean we can reduce it to the mere commodities of market capitalism. When yoga insiders claim they experience yoga as transformative, extraordinarily powerful, or “spiritual,” we should take those claims seriously and evaluate yoga (even in its popularized varieties) as a body of religious practice. In short, those who have bemoaned the consumerist branding, commodification, and popularization of yoga as the loss of a purer, authentic religious practice are wrong. For many practitioners, yoga’s religious qualities have not been eliminated."

posted by thetarium at 12:40 PM on May 2, 2017 [7 favorites]

I tried yoga a few times in the past (here in ND, never more than an hour), but wasn't really into it. Now I'm 33 weeks pregnant and I do enjoy going to prenatal yoga when I'm able. No way 90 minutes would work for us unless you built in potty breaks for the entire class.
posted by weathergal at 8:17 PM on May 2, 2017

How about yoga with goats? Only in Asheville.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 2:59 AM on May 4, 2017 [1 favorite]