In traditional Ayurvedic medicine, these questions would be baseline knowledge: practitioners spent years learning constitutional assessment before treating anyone. But Western yoga divorced the poses from the medical system they came from. It took the movements but left the diagnostics.
Your teacher probably learned from someone who learned from someone who took a 200-hour training that covered anatomy in a weekend and spent the rest on sequencing and Sanskrit they can’t translate. The medicine got stripped out, the franchise model got built in. And now you’re paying someone who thinks downward dog is universally healing to potentially damage your nervous system while both of you pretend this is ancient wisdom.
You’re about to pay for another month, another workshop, another training.
Stop.
Ask these questions first. Watch your teacher scramble.
Table of Contents
1. What’s My Constitution And Why Does It Matter?
Your yoga teacher: “We’re all one. We’re all connected. Labels don’t matter.”
Reality: Your constitution determines whether that hot yoga class is medicine or poison for your system. If they can’t assess your dosha, they’re teaching generic movement, not yoga therapy. They’re playing roulette with your nervous system and calling it healing.
Red flag: “Everyone can benefit from this practice!”
2. Why Is This Practice Good For MY Specific Nervous System?
Your yoga teacher: “Yoga is good for everyone’s nervous system!”
Reality: A Vata-dominant nervous system needs the opposite of what helps Pitta. If your teacher doesn’t know the difference between sympathetic overdrive and dorsal vagal shutdown, they’re not qualified to regulate anything. They’re just repeating what they heard in their 200-hour training.
Red flag: Blank stare followed by something about “releasing trauma from the hips.”
3. What Are The Contraindications For Someone With My Dosha?
Your yoga teacher: “Just listen to your body!”
Reality: By the time your body screams loud enough for you to hear it, the damage is done. Contraindications aren’t suggestions…they’re physiological realities. Hot yoga for Pitta insomnia. Intense breathwork for Vata anxiety. Long holds for Kapha depression. These aren’t modifications…they’re mistakes.
Red flag: “There are no contraindications if you practice mindfully.”
4. Where Did You Learn This Would Help My Specific Condition?
Your yoga teacher: “In my training/from my guru/it’s ancient wisdom.”
Reality: Which training? What lineage? Based on what clinical evidence? They’re charging you medical prices for medical claims with zero medical knowledge. They diagnose “blocked chakras” but can’t explain basic anatomy. They promise to fix your anxiety but don’t know what your vagus nerve does.
Red flag: “Yoga has been healing people for thousands of years.”
5. Can You Explain The Physiology Of Why This Works?
Your yoga teacher: “It works on an energetic level beyond science.”
Reality: If they can’t explain the basic physiological mechanism, they don’t understand what they’re teaching. Period. Energy doesn’t move through mystery…it moves through your nervous system, your fascia, your endocrine response. Real teachers know the science AND the spirit. Frauds hide behind Sanskrit.
Red flag: Any mention of “quantum” anything.
What Happens When You Ask These Questions:
They’ll get defensive. Call you difficult. Say you’re “too in your head” or “resistant to the practice.” They might even suggest your questions show you need MORE yoga, a deeper commitment, maybe their upcoming workshop on “releasing resistance.”
That’s not spiritual wisdom. That’s a con artist protecting their income.
I spent 22 years in a system where these questions weren’t allowed. I just told that story on ‘Was I In A Cult?’ – about what happens when teachers can’t answer but won’t admit it.
Here’s The Truth:
If your yoga teacher can’t answer these basic questions, what are we doing? They’re charging you premium prices to potentially harm your specific constitution while calling it healing.
The Real Question:
Why are you paying someone who knows less about your body than you could learn in a weekend of reading?
Take your money and run. Your constitution will thank you.
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