Is doing yoga in front of a mirror helpful or distracting?

Mirrors can offer useful feedback, especially for yogis who learn best via visual information. This external, reliable, and unbiased reference point can keep you on track and enhance your understanding of alignment principles and relationships—like the tilting and tucking required to find a “neutral” pelvis in Tadasana (Mountain Pose).
However, it’s important to keep in mind that yoga is a state of being realized from the inside out, and mirrors may discourage this intimacy by putting an emphasis on appearance, performance, and external validation. Yoga connects us to our innate wakefulness and basic goodness when it emphasizes nonjudgmental explorations about how
we feel, rather than how we look. While I might suggest using a mirror to augment verbal instructions, years of experience have taught me that a deeper understanding of yoga is only gained from looking inside, not outside.

Cyndi Lee
Founder of OM Yoga, Lynchburg, Virginia
(no byline)

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