28/08/2026
5 reasons I take my socks off before yoga โคต๏ธ
1. I want to feel the ground
The science:
Your feet provide important sensory information about pressure, contact and body position. Practising barefoot gives you direct sensory feedback
The yoga view:
Yoga asks us to become present through direct experience. The ground beneath the feet becomes something to feel.
2. I want my feet to
participate in the practice
The science:
The feet contribute to balance, stability and movement.
Without socks, you can more easily feel and adjust your contact with the around.
The yoga view:
The feet are part of the foundation of many asanas.
Rather than treating them as passive supports, yoga invites us to develop awareness of how we establish our base.
3. I want to notice what is actually happening in my body
The science:
Yoga interventions have been associated with improvements in body awareness.
The yoga view:
This is one of the reasons I practise.
Not to escape the body-but to listen to it.
The sensation in my feet, the breath, tension in my shoulders, resistance, ease...
4. Taking off my socks helps me arrive
The science:
Repeated actions can become cues associated with particular behaviours and mental states.
A simple ritual can help create a transition between one activity and another.
The yoga view:
For me, taking off my socks is a small act of pratyahara-turning attention away from the constant pull of the outside world and toward experience itself.
It's my little signal:
I'm here.
I'm practising.
I'm listening.
5. Because yoga isn't about becoming better at escaping yourself
The science:
Research on yoga and mindfulness suggests
potential improvements in body awareness and interoceptive awareness.
The yoga view:
This is where yoga becomes much bigger than flexibility.
We don't practise only to make the body look different.
We practise to become more intimate with what is actually here.
The uncomfortable sensation.
The restless mind.
The emotion we'd rather avoid.
The breath.
The body.
We learn to stay
