I was asked this question for an interview I did a couple of days ago, and I decided to make it the blog for this week. It’s a question I get asked quite often, and even though I’ve answered it indirectly in almost everything that I post, I’ll go ahead and write it down directly in this blog.
Before I get started, I want to let everyone know that there isn’t a blanket set of guidelines that work for getting every friend, boyfriend, and husband to do yoga with you. Lots of men have different goals and reasons for doing yoga. Some guys don’t want the spirituality. Some don’t want to meditate. Some think it’s girly. I’m just letting you know what’s been effective for spreading Man Flow Yoga.
First, I’m going to start by letting you know what doesn’t work. If I see one more “7 reasons for guys to do yoga” list, I’m going to flip my shit. Writing out reasons to do yoga doesn’t work. Writing apologetically works even less. You look like a wuss. (I refrained from using another word.)
The best way to get guys to do yoga is to provoke an unconscious decision for them to do yoga. You need to know your target audience, you need to be specific with your message, and you need to be authentic. My method for advertising yoga to men is simple:
Here is a picture of a guy doing yoga.
That guy doing yoga has the body type that you would like to achieve.
He’s doing a pose / exercise that you can imagine yourself doing, or would like to do.
Your mind makes the subconscious decision to yoga so that you can look like and perform the guy doing yoga in the photo.
That’s it. There’s literally nothing more to this blog. The point: The decision to do yoga has to be subconscious. It isn’t done by making a list or making an argument. That won’t ultimately sway someone to do yoga. You need to provoke emotion or desire. The same as any other decision.
Be authentic. Provoke emotion. Know your audience. Don’t make a fucking list.
Straight and to the point… They will never stay if they are drug there by some overzealous girlfriend
In my case, it was kind of a subset to that: I need to get THAT type of flexibility in my shoulders, back, hip flexors (etc.) or I will always be limited when it comes do doing things I like to do, and I will not be able to improve. If I don’t work on this crappy lack of flexibility and deal with it systematically instead of only when it REALLY becomes annoying, it will only become more limiting. As far as specifically, why I decided to go with Dean’s stuff, I have purchased WAY to many Introductions to yoga by famous Yogi personalities–mostly from Hawaii or California, and I could not get past the breathy sing-song presentations; the lack of SPECIFIC, TARGETED instructions and demonstrations on how to do the pose, and the lack of specific explanations of what the pose does and how. I didn’t want to learn Sanskrit, or reach Nirvana, I just wanted to get instruction on how to do Yoga that will target my situation. I don’t have any goals to bend myself in half and do a single arm handstand on the edge of a cliff though, so I will just not go THAT far.
So you are enticing him by the sana practice…rather than yoga as whole right? I think this is the reason most people get into ‘yoga’ it’s certainly the reason I started. And probably most people will just stick to asana practice rather than exploring the other parts of the system. But what I am mostly intrigued by is why call it yoga…and not gymnastics or stretching or flexibility etc. Or if it’s simply the physical practice just call it asana, rather than yoga.
Hey Mary – Man Flow Gymnastics just sounds silly. 🙂 But honestly, the reason why I call it Man Flow Yoga is because it is a unique brand of yoga. I don’t call it Yoga with Dean, or Yoga for Fitness. Quite simply, it is what it is. You should check out this blog I wrote a few months ago for clarification. https://manflowyoga.com/is-man-flow-yoga-yoga/