Does a Mirror Help Or Hinder Your Yoga Practice?

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It’s an extended debated subject: Ought to we be training yoga in entrance of a mirror or does self-reflection, the outward variety, diminish our capability to show inward?

“I’ve a fluctuating relationship with the mirror,” says Rachel Lawless, a yoga instructor in Ottawa, Canada. “Some days I admire the flexibility to verify my alignment or see the distinctiveness of my physique in a pose mirrored again at me. And a few days it compounds the battle of silencing the ego.”

An apparent device for reflection, mirrors are thought-about a go-to alignment device for the bodily follow of yoga by many lecturers and college students. Though if the intention of the follow is to transcend the restrictions of the physique and the thoughts and encourage consciousness of the self, are mirrors extra of a distraction than a profit?

So how will we discern whether or not mirrors are an asset to our particular person and collective yoga follow or a detriment? The reply shouldn’t be essentially as clear as our reflections.

What Are the Downsides of Mirrors in Yoga?

In a society that tends to see greater than it feels, we might not want one other realm which may encourage obsessing about what we appear like as a substitute of what’s occurring inside.

Mirrors Can Overemphasize the Outward Expression of a Pose

Every pose asks us to create a form with our our bodies. But yoga additionally asks college students to really feel into their expertise and acknowledge the subtler sensations which can be taking place. Eradicating the distraction of outward reflection might help college students, particularly these newer to the follow, tune into the much less apparent elements of their expertise and develop self-awareness round their breath, power, feelings, and different much less tangible sensations.

That features changing into snug with the delicate physique, or the unseen energetic side of 1’s being. All of that is an act of svadhyaya, which is usually translated as “self-study” and is a necessary tenet of yoga.

Mirrors Can Encourage Unhealthy Comparability

Reminders from lecturers to not evaluate your follow to anybody else’s are widespread. However eradicating mirrors from a follow area helps restrict the comparability recreation that’s rampant in most of up to date society, together with yoga studios.

A study by the University of Minnesota surveyed feminine college-aged college students earlier than and after training yoga in rooms with and with out mirrors. Researchers discovered that the presence of mirrors elevated the probability of scholars evaluating their our bodies to others. Mirrors additionally considerably heightened the scholars’ nervousness round being noticed or judged by their bodily look.

After all, in any group yoga class, the our bodies in your visual view can invite comparability. However not introducing a mirror to the follow area might assist college students preserve their focus extra on the non-public and inside.

Mirrors Can Distract

Many college students who’ve developed a house follow don’t miss mirrors in any respect. Longtime yoga pupil Deb Malave says that she switched to training on-line as a substitute of in a studio since Covid. “I’ve come to understand my follow is extra of a sense than a glance,” she says. “I pay attention for audio cues from the trainer on find out how to higher a pose and I flip inward to really feel the sensations greater than flip outward to look. Doing yoga with out mirrors has helped to deepen my follow versus the visible of myself, others, and shedding my footing in Tree!”

Training with out a mirror also can assist us escape insecurities and self-judgment which may happen if our reflection doesn’t match how we understand ourselves.

Mirrors Can Conceal Our True Reflection

Who must see a mirrored image of their physique when the follow of yoga itself is already a mirror to the self?

Brett Larkin, founder of Uplifted Yoga, likes to remind college students that the follow of yoga on the mat is a microcosm of your life off the mat. The poses train college students when they should decelerate and pressure them to follow in keeping with their bodily, psychological, and emotional wants within the second. Isn’t that essentially the most real looking mirror one may ask for? A mirror that precisely displays not solely bodily actuality however life in its entirety?

How Can Mirrors Be Helpful in Yoga?

We are sometimes inspired to maintain our consideration on our personal mat, prioritize our personal follow, and focus our consideration on our personal expertise. For some college students, mirrors can facilitate this.

Mirrors Permit Us to Discover Alignment

The apparent argument for counting on mirrors throughout yoga is the flexibility to watch one’s alignment within the bodily postures and develop proprioception.

Proprioception, or physique consciousness, develops over time. By having the ability to see what your pose seems like within the mirror, it may be simpler to make small changes to your kind based mostly on verbal cues from the instructor. That visible understanding of the pose can inform the sensation the pose creates within the physique.

For instance, a instructor might instruct a pupil to decrease their shoulders away from their ears to keep away from creating stress within the higher again. Whereas a pupil might not instantly grasp what decreasing the shoulders seems like, seeing themselves decrease their shoulders in a mirror, after which feeling the feeling of doing so, might create a faster connection.

The training doesn’t finish there. “Deepened physique consciousness provides extra tangible experiences with the postures, which may result in extra delicate consciousness over time,” says Tamika Caston-Miller, who curates yoga experiences and trainings in service of collective therapeutic and neighborhood restore. With follow, embodiment of the poses results in embodiment of different integral but non-physical parts of the follow, explains Caston-Miller.

Mirrors Can Assist Us Grow to be Extra Self-Conscious

“The last word intention of yoga is to tune inward,” says Larkin. However for those who’re refining your posture, she says, the mirror could be a useful device find protected alignment.

She provides the instance of scholars having the ability to discover if their proper facet is extra versatile from their left, or if their head is in step with the remainder of their backbone, or if their hips are sq..“Taking the time to actually watch and examine your self in a mirror could be higher than a non-public lesson,” she says.

Larkin asks her yoga instructor coaching college students to buy a full-length mirror and to {photograph} themselves in yoga’s key postures. “All through this course of,” says Larkin, “you study a lot about your self—your posture, your habits, and tendencies.” These awarenesses are troublesome to derive from sensation alone. And discovering protected alignment on your physique lets you expertise the supposed results of the posture

Mirrors Can Assist Some College students Grow to be Extra Snug With Their Our bodies

The follow of yoga is an ongoing alternative to reconnect with the bodily self. Many college students marvel at how their physique twists and turns, folds and arches. Though our yoga follow shouldn’t be about appearances and even shapes, it’s a place the place we grow to be extra self conscious.

The repeated expertise of observing their reflection can convey acceptance for some college students. For higher or for worse, the presence of mirrors in a yoga setting can really feel considerably like publicity remedy, an intense intervention typically utilized in cognitive behavioral remedy that confronts a person with one thing that instills nervousness and worry. Whether or not intentional or not, publicity to uncomfortable conditions can occur throughout on a regular basis experiences, together with yoga.

Nonetheless, the easy publicity to 1’s reflection in a yoga class shouldn’t be confused with a therapeutic and supported strategy to physique picture points. Analysis suggests mirror exposure therapy is useful for some though not for others.

Mirrors Can Help Academics As Properly As College students

Yoga lecturers typically verbally cue alignment in a pose however they won’t exhibit it. A mirror might help college students expertise the form of a pose by permitting them to attract data from their very own reflection and that of others. Observing others also can afford college students an opportunity to learn to modify a pose in a approach which may additionally work for them.

The reflection of mirrors is usually a profit for lecturers in addition to college students. “I occur to be dyslexic, and instructing with out a mirror and mirroring a category [“mirroring” refers to facing the students and moving the opposite side of the body so it appears as if students’ movements are mirrored] was and is a big problem,” says instructor Chrissy Hammer of Lake Arrowhead, California. “With some dedication, I’ve been capable of do it. Nonetheless, I discover my college students favor me to be going through the identical route as them with a mirrored room.” Each she and college students profit from her reflection.

So, To Mirror or To not Mirror?

There isn’t any proper or unsuitable reply to the query. Every particular person could have a novel relationship with their follow, their bodily reflection, and their emotional response to a mirror.

At Pure Yoga Ottawa, a number of the yoga studios have mirrors whereas others don’t. Co-owner Amber Stratton explains this was a design determination that has inadvertently allowed college students to pick out what works higher for them. “The nice factor is,” says Stratton, “the deeper you get into your yoga follow and work on your self, the much less time you’ll concentrate on the bodily and the much less distracted you’ll grow to be, whether or not there’s a mirror there or not.”

Yoga instructor and coach Kristi Kuttner appreciates her early years of yoga and the mirrors in these studios. “My follow created an area to be a lot kinder and compassionate towards my reflection,” she says, referring to yoga as a “gateway to self-love.” Years later, her follow not contains mirrors. “I discover they distract me from seeing my truest reflection—my spirit.”

3 Ideas for Training Yoga Mindfully Close to Mirrors

The one solution to know whether or not utilizing a mirror feels proper to you is to stay conscious as you follow with one and with out one. Grace Secker, a psychotherapist and yoga therapist who has expertise working with consuming problems and physique picture points, advocates for college kids to follow in no matter setting feels greatest for them though she feels mirrors are nonessential to the follow. She presents just a few strategies for college kids preferring to follow with out their reflection however might discover themselves training in an area with mirrors:

1. Preserve Your Distance

Attempt to distance your self from the mirror to attenuate the distraction. That normally means placing your mat nearer to the center or again of the room. You may have to arrive at class slightly early to safe one in every of these areas.

2. Follow Your Yoga

In the event you look on the mirror and self-critical ideas come up, draw on the instruments that yoga offers you: shut your eyes, gradual your breath, and convey your consciousness again to what the instructor is saying and the way the pose is feeling in your physique. Repeat as wanted throughout class.

3. Discover As A lot Ease As You Can In Your Reflection

Though yoga shouldn’t be about appearances and clothes shouldn’t be an answer to physique picture points, contemplate sporting one thing that’s each straightforward to maneuver in and that’s pleasing to you. In the event you do look within the mirror, this might help you from changing into overly essential of your self.

About Our Contributor
Taylor Lorenz is a journey and yoga author, yoga instructor, and self-acceptance advocate from Ottawa, Canada. Her writing and yoga lessons train that journey is a type of growth as a substitute of escapism and  that self-acceptance is the treatment to a lot of life’s woes. She goals to assist others really feel snug and assured of their our bodies and their goals to allow them to reside their lives freely. Comply with her on Instagram and YouTube.