Contortion labeled as yoga on Instagram is cultural appropriation, ableist, and damaging, teachers say

• It's a misconception that yoga is about improving flexibility.
• Eye-catching feats like the splits are often used to sell yoga, but teachers say this can be damaging.
• It's also ableist and off-putting to many, according to yoga teachers.

It's often assumed that if you can do the splits or deep backbends, it must be because you do yoga. However, this is far from true.

Yoga is not about flexibility, and it's a damaging misconception, according to teachers. Yoga is actually a practice for the mind.

As yoga has risen in popularity in the western world, visual platforms like Instagram have encouraged more and more feats of flexibility that are really a result of gymnastics or contortion.

Not only does this make the practice seem exclusive and ableist, but yoga teachers say conflating gymnastics and yoga is a form of cultural appropriation.

Yoga is not about flexibility

Many people take up yoga because they want to become more flexible, having seen photos on Instagram of bendy people in lycra on yoga mats. But improving flexibility isn't the aim of yoga, and often those men and women are either naturally hyper-mobile or former gymnasts.

"A gymnast that starts yoga today and can do the splits doesn't mean anything other than they were gymnasts before they did yoga," WithU yoga teacher Doug Robson told Insider, adding that he sees a lot of so-called yoga, both on social media and in real classes, that is "part fitness, part stretching, all sorts of things."

Kallie Schut, a yoga teacher with Indian heritage, says western culture's emphasis on yoga being about flexibility is another legacy from colonialism, and social media and magazines have created the idea that it is for "skinny, white, flexible women," straying from its roots as a "spiritual mystical Eastern practice."

"Yoga has become homogenized, secularized, and commercialized and now favors physical fitness over spiritual," she said. "In terms of cultural appropriation, it's harmful, because it's been built upon this legacy of colonialism and the ideology of racial hierarchy."

By this, Schut means that by focusing on aesthetics, flexibility, and the physical aspect of yoga, the practice is made more palatable to the western world, which ties into the colonial notion of the western world "civilizing" and exerting power over "primitive" cultures.

It's not that flexible poses can't be part of yoga. They can, and there are some benefits in keeping the body supple and healthy, but yoga isn't designed to improve flexibility, and pushing your body into these positions can be harmful.

"Yoga never had to be exact moves," Robson said. "It was just the stilling of the mind by putting all your effort and your consciousness into doing something, whether that was the stretch or the balance or the strength aspect, it was taking you away from the external world and into your internal world."

Contortion branded as yoga can make it seem exclusive

If all you're seeing of yoga is endless images of slim, white women bending their bodies into unbelievable positions, it's far from accessible.

"That is very far from how yoga is practiced by people of South Asian heritage who are all shapes and sizes, all ages, all body abilities," Schut said. "So it's become a very exclusive practice, only available to those with a particular lifestyle who can access it economically and physically."

Schut says this causes harm to people of South Asian heritage like herself because it leaves them feeling disconnected from their own culture: "They feel disembodied from it. It triggers a history of trauma, loss, and separation as part of a colonial rule."

The problem is amplified when people use their flexibility to sell yoga - sometimes this is done directly, but other times it's when yoga Instagram accounts repurpose photos of gymnasts or contortionists and brand them as yoga, even if that wasn't how they were originally posted.

"Anyone can set up a yoga account on Instagram and just pull other people's memes and repurpose," yoga teacher and founder of The Yeh Yoga Co. Emily Harding told Insider.

"And this is a problem because those accounts do so well and if that's someone's only understanding of yoga, and it's showing them all of these super mobile, really hyper-flexible people, then they are going to start thinking, 'This is yoga, this is the end goal of yoga, or that's what I have to be able to do to start yoga.' It's also continually adding to the harm of appropriating yoga, erasing the history and culture, plus it's really ableist."

Eye-catching poses perform well on Instagram

The trouble is that eye-catching images do well on Instagram, and if you're a yoga teacher trying to drum up business, and you physically can bend your body into impressive shapes, it's an attractive option.

Harding believes we have glorified flexibility and hypermobility, and from an Instagram growth point of view, it sells, so people who want to grow their followings show off what their bodies can do.

"It's lazy to just rely on your easy, crowd-pleasing flexibility because you've been blessed with hips that not many people have," she said, adding that a lot of flexibility is genetic - either you're born with it, or you aren't.

"A big, impressive, wide split handstand is always going to make people say, 'Wow' instead of someone sat in Sukhasana [sitting cross-legged], but that is more of the essence of yoga," Harding said.

She isn't against people making beautiful poses with their body for a photo, but wishes they would call it art, not yoga.

Robson, who is also a stunt man, admits that he and many of his peers have benefited from the feats they can achieve, using them as leverage to encourage people to practice.

But although impressive feats of flexibility can be off-putting to some, to others they make yoga appear more exciting and appealing. In fact, Robson has found that he often meets people reluctant to get into yoga not because they think they're not strong or flexible enough, but because they think it's too boring. People get excited by inversion poses, he says.

The yoga industry needs to change its approach

It's important to consume yoga content, like everything on social media, with caution, and not equate being able to do an incredible backbend, the splits, or a handstand with being a great yogi, an excellent teacher, or a good person.

Be careful not to fall into the comparison trap, Robson says: "Yoga is supposed to be you coming onto your mat and comparing only to how you were yesterday and the weeks before."

But for people to start thinking about yoga differently, the wider industry needs to reframe its approach.

"Teachers need to go back to the source and honor the iconography of yoga, learn about South Asian culture from the inside out by building relationships with people who come from that culture, to create real acknowledgment that in the west, if you are white embodied, you are acting as a guardian of a sacred gift that has journeyed through pain, suffering, and loss," Schut said.

With this in mind, Schut is launching a new teacher training program in June, Radical Darshan, run by all women of color that will educate instructors on the intersectionality of yoga and help them transform their lens on the practice.

Harding is also calling her fellow yoga teachers to action.

"I challenge yoga practitioners and teachers to think about how their content is affecting their community," she said. "Is it irresponsible to always be showing very ableist postures that will never be available to 95% of the population? Is that then about serving in yoga or is it about them? And I think a lot of people would find that very uncomfortable because it's about them."