I have just moved to Spain and really want to get back to a proper Yoga practice. There is a Bikram studio 10 mins form my house and I really want to go back to practice but I Speak hardly any spanish. I know the series well as I use to practice when I lived in England. Do you think that it would be possible to benefit from a practice even though I wouldn’t understand the majority of instruction? I’d really appreciate your opinions. many thanks. Tink
don’t worry at all.
Just follow. My opinion is the more you are free from mind the more you will gain in yoga!
Hi Tink,
I agree with Onestebeyond, you’ll probably get more out of it.
Plus, you’ll probably learn Spanish quicker.
I moved to Italy in 2000. Knew about 50 words. I regularly attended a yoga meditation service several times a week. On Sundays they’d have a long 30 minute talk. I remember at the beginning I found it very difficult. I only understood a few words. After two years I was understanding 80%.
A lot of people say, watch lots of TV and you’ll learn the language. I never touched the TV in Italy and learned the language by reading and interacting with people. After two years I excelled, while my fellow Canadians were still stubling over verb tenses.
I moved to Holland about two years ago. My language knowledge was at the level that I knew what topic of a discussion is about but that was all. So I also had my doubts the first time I came in a class. I decided to follow a teachers program but I was a complete beginner in yoga and I hardly understood any Dutch. Reasons enough to back off. My teacher was open for everybody but he also said if after one year he doesn’t see anything why we are there he can ask us to leave school. He also said to me that I can use my language fear as an excuse to quit everything or I relax, go for it and enjoy an experience. I’m in my second year now and I love it! My knowledge of Dutch is still not good enough to study from the same books as my co-students but that is not a problem at all. I buy books in English or if I’m lucky I get sometimes also a version in my mother language (Slovenian). It is all about the attitude. Beacuse of my fears I could have robbed myself for a wonderful experience that is practically changing my life.
I would say just go for it Tink, any experience is better than no experience at all:-)
Without going into the nuances of what you might develop or miss out on, my particular reply is “it depends”.
If you are going to a class just to DO the class then it would be fine. Likewise if you are just going for a fun experience.
However, if you are going to class for instruction, AND the primary form of that instruction is verbal communication AND it is provided in a language you do not at all understand, then that would be the information I would use to determine whether you attend or not.
There is one other component which is the idea that every class where you are may very well be in a language you do not understand. In that case you might be faced with the concept of not going to class at all. When faced with this, the choice between yoga in a language you do not “get” and no yoga at all, I would encourage the going over the understanding.