The yoga industry in Bermuda is diverse in terms of the types of classes offered — hot yoga, goat yoga, beach yoga, hatha yoga, laughing yoga and Iyengar yoga are just a few of the choices.

However, when it comes to the diversity of students, some local yoga teachers think the industry still has a long way to go.

Tiffany Paynter, cofounder of wellness and yoga hub Treehouse Bermuda, on Trott Road, Hamilton, said when she started taking yoga classes 20 years ago, there were very few people in the class who looked like her.

Most of her fellow students were thin, young, White women.

There were few Black students, and none featured in marketing materials.

She opened Treehouse Bermuda two years ago with Caitlyn Conyers, hoping to appeal to a wider range of students.

“How could the yoga market in Bermuda be saturated when we haven’t yet scratched the surface of 70 per cent of the population who are people of colour,” she said. “We are just getting started.”

On the ground floor of Treehouse there is a bulletin board carrying flyers for different classes. Ms Paynter is proud of the variety of people in the advertisements.

When Robin Holder started taking classes more than ten years ago, he was often the only male in the class, even when taking them overseas.

He teaches yoga at the Courthouse Gym, does some work for big corporations and also teaches karma classes — free classes to help the community — at fitness studio Shamana Circle.

Mr Holder believes things are getting better.

“I have seen more men coming to classes,” he said. “Although it is not better to a huge degree — there are still more women in yoga classes than men.”

He believed the Bermuda yoga market was far from being saturated.

“The industry here is not like it is in Toronto — the yoga capital of the world,” he said.

“There is no yoga studio on every corner. The different studios attract their own clients. Some of the clients go to different studios. There are opportunities for more yoga studios to come online.”

Mr Holder thought that as Bermuda’s older population continues to grow, more local yoga studios will focus on this demographic.

“People over 65 can definitely benefit from yoga,” he said. “Yoga has an enduring appeal. It transcends fitness trends.”

One issue that has dogged local studios is spirituality. When yoga was just heating up on the island, some saw yoga and meditation and its connections to Hinduism as a contradiction to Christianity.

One anonymous person remembered how when he suggested doing meditation to clear his mind, his mother was horrified stating that clearing the mind would let the devil in.

Yoga originated in ancient India more than 5,000 years ago as a spiritual, meditative practice to unite the body and mind.

Today, many modern yoga studios feature artwork of elephants, a symbol deeply rooted in Hinduism and Indian culture, representing spirituality and wisdom.

Ms Paynter has seen some studios in Bermuda throwing out their elephants and changing the Indian names of poses to English ones in an effort to not offend anyone on religious grounds.

Joanne Wohlmuth, veteran yoga teacher and co-owner of the Yoga Centre on Victoria Street, has written extensively about yoga and spirituality.

“That has happened in western yoga,” Ms Wohlmuth said. “It has happened because some people do not understand how to make the connection between Christianity, yoga, spirituality and religion. I am a Christian.”

She said by the time spirituality is sanitised out of yoga, all that is left is a bunch of poses and stretches.

“That is not what our centre is doing,” she said. “That is not what we are interested in.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, yoga saw a meteoric rise in popularity. As social-distancing measures ended, the trend reversed, causing some studios to close.

Ms Wohlmuth said the studios that survived were those that offered more in-depth teaching of yoga.