It\u2019s a beautiful Saturday morning and I am in, of all places, a yoga studio. While my cycling buddies set out for a ride, I waited by racks of flowery yoga clothes, then filed in for class. While my pals pedaled and, no doubt, rapped about racing, I unrolled my black mat near someone else\u2019s pink one, beside someone else\u2019s painted toenails and a pile of voguish flip-flops. Now, my fellow riders are probably engaged in some testosterone-fueled sprint, while I\u2019m grunting loudly to stay balanced on my forearms. I\u2019m inverted and self-conscious: In a class filled with women, I alone am emitting primal noises.<\/p>\n
A world turned upside down\u2014that\u2019s yoga for most of us men. We still run most of the government and hit the major league home runs, but yoga is a woman\u2019s domain. \u201cWhat I find myself constantly contemplating,\u201d says Michael Lechonczak, a yoga instructor who teaches at\u00a0Equinox Fitness<\/a>\u00a0in Manhattan, \u201cis how to get more guys into class.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that we don\u2019t know what we\u2019re missing. Nowadays, there seems to be a yoga studio on every corner; our girlfriends and wives are walking, talking testimonies to the practice. At home, we watch them rushing out the front door, brows furrowed, only to return standing tall, with big, tranquil smiles on their faces and compassion in their eyes. Because my wife is a yoga instructor and an avid student, I witness this stress-to-bliss transformation several times a week. When she comes home, I often mumble to myself, \u201cDon\u2019t I want to be that happy?\u201d Yet I haven\u2019t practiced yoga consistently for years.<\/p>\n So I asked highly qualified doctors, scientists, and veteran yoga teachers exactly why so many men stick to yoga\u2019s sidelines. I also polled members of that rare breed known as the male practitioner\u2014from pro athletes to busy investment managers\u2014to find out how they came to embrace yoga. In the end, I discovered social, physical, and emotional realities that discourage men from practicing. I also heard about the moments of inspiration that got men over such barriers\u2014and ideas about what might help other men make the leap, too. If you\u2019re a man who\u2019s hesitated to try yoga\u2014or you know a man you\u2019d like to introduce to the practice\u2014read on.<\/p>\n Getting men to identify with yoga has long been a challenge in this country. It doesn\u2019t matter that yoga, since its beginnings in India thousands of years ago, has mainly been taught and studied by men. Restrictive American immigration laws of the early 1900s stunted the spread of Indian culture on these shores, and only a handful of influential yogis arrived here through the decades. One such important teacher was\u00a0Indra Devi<\/a>. Russian-born and Indian-taught, she came to the United States in the 1940s and was championed by none other than celebrity cosmetologist Elizabeth Arden. That name resonated, of course, with the women who gobbled up her products, and Arden encouraged her customers to try yoga. A few years later, teacher Richard Hittleman<\/a>\u00a0published yoga books and landed on TV\u2014but always had women perform the poses. Yoga\u2019s next media celebrity was a young instructor named\u00a0Lilias Folan<\/a>, who began teaching asanas on public television in the 1970s. Folan had a gentle style that empowered millions of stay-at-home moms to follow right along. By the time Power Yoga emerged in the 1980s and began attracting more men, the mainstream view of the practice had, fairly or not, taken root: Yoga was for housewives.<\/p>\n Sure enough, the first thing many men notice on entering a yoga studio is that they\u2019re in foreign territory. \u201cMen walk in needing a challenge,\u201d says Judith Lasater<\/a>, who has authored six yoga books during her 35 years as a teacher. \u201cWomen often come to the mat seeking refuge.\u201d<\/p>\n Lechonczak, who consulted on the book\u00a0Real Men Do Yoga<\/a>, sympathizes. Before coming to the practice nearly 20 years ago, he had a consuming business career and was a weekend warrior who ran and played basketball. Lechonczak thinks more men might be willing to try yoga if they perceived it as yet another test. Albeit a unique one. \u201cThe guys coming to yoga have to be ready for the next level, be ready to let down their defenses,\u201d he says. \u201cThey have to have heart.\u201d<\/p>\n A guy\u2019s first act of yogic bravery, Lechonczak says, is to introduce himself to the teacher. \u201cFind out if the class is appropriate,\u201d he advises. \u201cAdmit any fears or anxieties.\u201d<\/p>\n Once the line of communication is open, a good instructor will tailor a class for individual students\u2014male or female. Scott Achelis, a general contractor in Walnut Creek, Calif., began taking classes locally early last year because his back was tweaked from decades of construction work. The key was a positive first experience at the Yoga & Movement Center<\/a>: a men\u2019s only, one-day workshop held by studio director Diane Valentine. Her agenda? Make it fun, and let guys be guys. \u201cIt was unthreatening,\u201d Achelis says. \u201cWe were all stretching and making off-color jokes.\u201d<\/p>\n Achelis quickly became a regular in a coed class. \u201cIt\u2019s still difficult for me when I\u2019m partnered with a woman. I\u2019m uncomfortable touching anybody who\u2019s not my wife the way you have to in yoga,\u201d he admits. But otherwise being a man among women no longer bothers him. He couldn\u2019t care less who\u2019s in the room, or that some females can enter poses that he can\u2019t. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m doing 10 percent of something being done by a woman next to me,\u201d Achelis says. \u201cI\u2019m doing 100 percent of what I\u2019m able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Get a man past his reservations about asana time with the ladies and he\u2019ll still have a well-founded reason to drag his feet to a studio: Yoga can be painful.<\/p>\n Men, it seems, are naturally tight. Boys and girls may be born equally limber, with an ability to comfortably put their feet behind their heads. But by adolescence, boys generally lose flexibility faster than girls, and as boys become men, the differences in flexibility tend to grow. Researchers have noted<\/a> this gap, although they can\u2019t specifically link it to differences in hormones, musculature, or connective tissue. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to attribute to any one thing,\u201d says Lynn Millar, chair of the Department of Physical Therapy<\/a> at Winston-Salem State University in N.C.<\/p>\n Whatever is to blame, the typical man\u2019s pursuits and lifestyle, from sitting at a desk all day to grabbing beers after a twilight softball game, put little importance on flexibility.<\/p>\n Lasater says stretching takes a back seat in a male\u2019s life as early as high school. \u201cLook at the way they stretch in football\u2014they push on each other and bounce. It hurts,\u201d she says. \u201cHow could anyone emerge from that with a positive view of flexibility?\u201d<\/p>\n Investment manager Ron Bernstein was certainly ambivalent about stretching\u2014until his 80-hour workweeks caught up with him. Back in 1998, Bernstein, a former competitive high school golfer who\u2019s a managing director for the investment firm Marathon Real Estate in New York, realized that \u201ceverything hurt,\u201d he says. \u201cMy wife was doing some yoga and suggested that stretching would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernstein went to a class in lower Manhattan and muddled through. \u201cOn my walk home, my back felt so much better. All those Upward and Downward Dogs really worked.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, a more limber Bernstein is religious about his one-day-a-week private sessions. He attributes his daily vitality and still-strong golf game to Warrior Pose variations that open his shoulders, hips, and back. \u201cMy handicap was 10 as a kid and I\u2019m still at about 13,\u201d he says. \u201cNot bad for a guy who works all the time.\u201d Elasticity also helps men who are determined to play all day. Barry Zito, the former Major League Baseball pitcher who played for 15 seasons with the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants.<\/p>\n Zito began practicing yoga in 1998, when he heard about an offseason training program in Southern California that entwined baseball skills with yoga\u2014\u201dI\u2019ve always been open to alternative forms of training,\u201d he says\u2014and he\u2019s been doing asanas ever since.<\/p>\n Zito\u2019s regimen usually includes groin and hip openers like Pigeon,\u00a0Frog, and\u00a0Warrior poses because \u201cthey\u2019re kind of like the positions in pitching,\u201d he says. Zito was known to demonstrate poses to other athletes, although in the good ol\u2019 boy world of professional baseball, he kept plenty to himself. \u201cIt\u2019s too foreign for them,\u201d he says. Zito believes, however, that such myopia may prevent players from staying in the lineup.<\/p>\n \u201cSome guys aren\u2019t willing to do the things required to keep their health,\u201d Zito says. \u201cI\u2019m not judging anyone. I just know my own experience, and it was really, really good.\u201d<\/p>\n Zito might have an even harder time spreading the gospel of yoga if men knew that, when it comes to life on the mat, their brains as well as their bodies are working against them. Science hasn\u2019t concluded that women have higher IQs. But women can boast about their mirror neurons.<\/p>\n These are brain cells that receive signals from another person and trigger similar reactions in the observer. Watching someone cry, for example, might more easily cause you to cry. While mirror neurons often detect emotions, they also help an observer match posture and breathing. \u201cYou use mirror neurons to watch and imitate your yoga instructor,\u201d says Louann Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California at San Francisco and the author of\u00a0The Female Brain<\/a>.<\/p>\n For men, says Brizendine, the catch is that they don\u2019t respond as well as women to such transmitted signals. Scientists are still speculating whether women have more of such cells, or just more active ones. Either way, the neurons don\u2019t inherently make women superior jocks, since men may have been born or raised with other athletic advantages. \u201cBut because females\u2019 mirror neurons are more easily activated,\u201d Brizendine says, \u201con average, women can mimic better than men.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately, men can raise the performance of their mirror neurons if they consistently employ them. But until then, men enter the yoga studio at a disadvantage. New poses will be harder for them to get right. \u201cThe instructors need to be more patient with the male students,\u201d Brizendine says. \u201cThey have to perform more demonstrations for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if a guy turns a physical corner and starts adapting to yoga\u2019s demands, he may still miss out on many of the practice\u2019s benefits. Yoga\u2019s internal rewards\u2014everything from better focus to less stress\u2014are the hardest for men to realize.<\/p>\n Brizendine says that this problem, too, begins with men\u2019s wiring. Men\u2019s brains have a high capacity to process emotions like fear and aggression. Put an average, aggressive-feeling man on the mat, add thoughts about hostile takeovers or Shaq dunking a basketball, and you get someone who isn\u2019t looking to quiet his mind but to let go of pent-up energy. That\u2019s easy in traditional recreational sports, with their scores, times, and rivalries. But guys in\u00a0Downward Dog\u00a0may still be looking for something, or someone, to beat. \u201cFor men, physical activity\u2014nonsexual physical activity\u2014has always been closely associated with competition,\u201d Brizendine says. \u201cStudies have shown that for the last 40 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Brizendine adds that with time and training, men\u2019s brains can get past such competitive urges, and the proof lies in the men who have found enormous benefits from tapping into yoga\u2019s more emotional offerings. Bill Gross, chief investment officer for asset management company Pimco and one of the most powerful men in his business, appreciates what 12 years of yoga has done for his head. Every morning, Gross leaves his Southern California office to gather his thoughts in a gym. Part of the workout always includes yoga. Gross loves doing\u00a0Headstand. \u201cSome of my best ideas come during Sirsasana,\u201d he says. And, he adds, often after his routine, \u201ca light bulb turns on, and I\u2019m on to something.\u201d<\/p>\n Away from the multiple computer screens and trading-room hubbub, Gross gets more than inspiration. The mat offers him a place to calm his nerves and breathe deeply. He returns to the office rejuvenated and relaxed, ready to work with a purpose. \u201cFocus is a huge part of what I do,\u201d Gross says, \u201cand when you are trusted with nearly $700 billion of other people\u2019s money, you\u2019d better be focused. Because of my practice, I can sift the noise from the facts of an investment.\u201d<\/p>\n Yoga can also teach a guy who\u2019s overwhelmed by his many responsibilities that the best way to get things done is by being present\u2014focusing on one thing at a time.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I go from breath to breath, I\u2019ll find myself at the end of class,\u201d says Zito. Similarly, when he was pitching, he says, \u201cIf I went hitter to hitter as opposed to letting my mind drift, I\u2019d suddenly be in the seventh inning.\u201d<\/p>\n Men, like women, can get addicted to yoga\u2019s emotional benefits.\u00a0Mehmet Oz, neurosurgeon otherwise known as Dr. Oz, is also a sports nut. But the doctor, who played football at Harvard and has a basketball court in his basement, sees his daily yoga practice as an escape, whether it\u2019s from surgery or scorekeeping.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s where the freedom comes in. You can let go,\u201d he says. \u201cYou realize that the bigger game you\u2019re playing in life isn\u2019t about competitiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n What life is about, Oz says, is awareness, equanimity, and keeping one\u2019s ego in check\u2014after all, the world is a bigger place than any one\u2026man. Indeed, in topping off the list of yoga\u2019s benefits for his male colleagues, Oz even uses the word \u201cspirituality,\u201d although he\u2019s aware that some men might find that term a turnoff. \u201cTry to get a man in contact with the spiritual element of yoga right from the start, and he\u2019ll be lost,\u201d he says. \u201cHe isn\u2019t ready for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernstein, the investment manager who has practiced yoga for seven years, admits that he still doesn\u2019t like \u201cchanting Om too many times and closing my eyes.\u201d But these days Bernstein\u2019s biggest problem concerning yoga is an inability to share his experiences with the very wife who persuaded him to try it. She abandoned yoga eight years ago. \u201cI have no idea why Keri quit,\u201d he says. \u201cShe just won\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe she needs a few more male practitioners to tell her what she\u2019s missing.<\/p>\n Guys have the world to gain by practicing yoga. So what’s holding them back? Here’s why men should be hitting the mat as often as women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":549,"featured_media":28792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"uuid":"350a514be88a55b3ad42ea6d156fa001"},"categories":[539],"tags":[409,541,1035],"byline":[1856],"ad_cat":[],"legacy-category":[],"acf":{"post_video":false,"iframe_hero":false,"add_square_crop":false,"longform":false,"sponsored":false,"membership_content":false,"exclude_post":false,"table_of_contents":{"header":"","content_sections":false},"review_toggle":false,"pom_layout":false},"yoast_head":"\nSocial Obstacles: Yoga Takes a Brave Man<\/h2>\n
Physical Hurdles: Overcoming Groins and Gray Matter<\/h2>\n
Physical Benefits of Yoga for Men<\/h2>\n
Men\u2019s Emotional Challenge: Try Beating Yourself Instead of Others<\/h2>\n
Related:<\/h2>\n
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