How long does it take to get good at Yoga?

A really interesting question I came across on Quora. I feel asked by someone who really wants to know what it takes but doesn't really know what it takes. My answer below:

To answer this - I will draw a parallel between your question and what Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book “Blink - The power of thinking without thinking”. We all have limited time and breaths, it depends on what skill you spend that time to hone.

It takes just 21 hrs of practice to learn yoga like anything else. If you do it twice a week for an hr, will take approx. 21/2 months, if you do it daily will take less than a month. More than that isn’t advisable for beginners as your body needs to learn to function as one unit and muscles need to become flexible slowly. This is if you are consistent, else you would need to restart from day 1 if you have taken a break. The key word here is “LEARN”

That said it takes 10,000 hrs to become an expert at anything including yoga - to do it without thinking, to flow from one pose to another with complete ease. The same goes with meditation, there are no shortcuts.

Everything in-between is progress. If you do an hour 5-6 times a week, it will take you a year to feel you are good at it, however this also depends on your expectations of what is good.

Everyones’ body is different. If you have the air element predominant (Vata acc to ayurveda), you will not have a very strong upper body and will tend to be a little inflexible - here perhaps you will take a little longer to loosen your hamstrings or make your back flexible. But the good part is you will naturally be slim. However if you have already worked on it in the past via any sport then the muscle memory is strong enough for you to progress faster. If you the earth element is stronger (Kapha acc to ayurveda) you will have strong joints and a flexible body which tends to put on weight easily. Here you will will tend to improve flexibility faster as you already have a flexible body, you will tend to do the chaturanga (yogic pushup) easily with a little practice and the right alignment as thats how your body naturally is.

So though yoga is for all one size doesn't fit all. You need to know your body, work under the guidance of a trained teacher who is knowledgable and have your goals set right. With consistency you will surely get good at anything you want.

This is why yogis say that they are constantly learning and teaching at the same time. I myself have just 3500–4000hrs of practice and everyday my body learns something new.

By - Arunima Singhdeo