| Pose photos are inescapable in yoga world. Scroll through a hashtag or two, click on a Pinterest board, or open up a yoga magazine and you’re sure to be bombarded with images of seemingly-impossible shapes. And more than likely, the people doing them will be young, slender, white women. These images dictate not only how yoga is portrayed in our world, but also how it’s seen by those outside it. And that’s a big problem. My degree is in Visual Communications, so I’ve been trained to analyze what images communicate (and usually what they’re trying to sell). But even with that knowledge, I was sucked into the pose photo trap for years. I modeled for yoga magazines and advertisements with perfect hair and carefully chosen clothing. I thought I was building my career, and I didn’t stop to think about the message these photos sent. I was communicating exclusivity, an unreasonable practice (even for me as a hypermobile person), and an illusion of a perfect life. But the truth is that while I was experiencing the most outward “success,” I was at a very low point. I was going through a divorce, and thanks to stress I was soon the thinnest I’d ever been. Suddenly opportunities were flooding in. I told myself it was because of my teaching, but on an unconscious level, I knew that it was tied to how I looked. And then I felt like I had to hold onto that. Gaining weight was unacceptable, and it took me to a very unhealthy place. In those photos, I was communicating to people that the least well version of myself was something that people should try to attain. This was not the message I had learned from my yoga practice, and it’s certainly not the message I wanted to spread. These days, I work to help people realize that they are inherently whole and worthy and that nothing will ever change that. Imagery that’s about attaining a goal or looking a certain way contradicts that message. That’s why you won’t see me taking these photos anymore (plus, I don’t do these sorts of poses anymore). I’ve heard a lot of counterarguments about pose photos. A lot of people are very proud of them as a measure of what they’ve attained. And that’s totally understandable, but often it’s because they haven’t really learned yoga. They don’t know the philosophy, they haven’t had a rich experience with yoga. They’re being sold the idea that reaching these poses is the ultimate goal. Others see the photos as art. Sure, these images can be beautiful, but if they’re truly art why do they only portray a certain type of body and a certain type of practice? The harsh truth is that pose photos are simply a very pervasive expression of commoditized, capitalist yoga culture. It took me a long time to realize that I was getting so many modeling opportunities was not because I was a good teacher or a skilled practitioner, but because images of me sold products and made money. The pressure I felt to maintain a certain size was a hint in this direction, but the culture of the yoga “ideal” is so inescapable that it took me a while to see what was really going on. The pressure to match that image was deeply damaging to me, an already-slender, hypermobile white woman. Students who don’t fit into this narrow box, who don’t have the anatomy to easily achieve complex shapes, tell me all the time that they feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in studios and in yoga culture in general because of that false and unnecessary ideal. And the messages these images send create a vicious cycle. They primarily draw in students who already fit the mold, and the more dominated yoga classes become by a certain type of body, the more exclusive they become. Discussions about the damage caused by exclusive imagery have been going on in social justice circles for many years, but it’s a newer topic in the yoga community. My perspective may seem a bit radical here, but at this point, I think it’s incredibly difficult to find a truly inclusive and welcoming way to do pose photography. Even if we change the types of bodies that are in the photos, the poses are still highly exclusive and usually still cause people to feel they’re “not flexible enough” or that they somehow don’t quite fit. I’m not saying we need to stop taking these images overnight. The fact is, they’ve unfortunately become central to business success for many yoga teachers (if this is you, let me know—I have ideas). But I think it’s time for a gradual evolution. For me, that looked like a shift from simply posting pose photos on social media to photos plus more complex captions and then to using memes and graphics instead of images once I realized that the way I was using the photos didn’t align with my message. These days, I use old photos with commentary and markups to make my points. And I still have some pose photos on my site. This is an intentional choice. I’m hoping to draw in people who might stop at the photo and see what I have to say. And I think these photos are an important illustration of my journey. I’m no better than anyone else, and I understand the personal and financial pull of these images. I’ve done the things that I criticize, and I think that’s important to acknowledge. Ultimately, the key is to examine what we’re communicating—be it through words or imagery—with a critical eye. If it doesn’t align with our core beliefs or intentions, what is driving us to send that message? Images are one of the most impactful ways we communicate, and our decisions about how we portray ourselves are central to our identities as teachers. How have pose photos influenced how you think about your own practice and teaching? |
