Caroline Knight teaches naked yoga to Londoners from her home in the Peruvian rainforest. She explains why nudity is key
Sitting outside a hut in the scorching heat of the Peruvian rainforest, Caroline Knight, 34, is a million miles away from her previous life in Stoke Newington. Her job as a naked yoga instructor and body love coach has now become part-time to accompany her work on a cacao farm, after her initial 10-day trip turned into 13 months and counting; thanks in no small part to the coronavirus pandemic.
Knight said: “I see naked yoga as getting all the benefits of yoga itself. But the practice of doing it naked is amazing for body confidence, getting over shame and desexualising nudity.”
It’s learning how to be comfortable with your natural state, combined with yoga. Yoga gets you into feeling present in your body, and that state I’ve found is important for getting out of the mental chatter around how your body looks. People aren’t there to judge your bodies; everyone else is naked, so it’s not like you’re the only one.”
Naked yoga may sound like a fever dream to some. Picture it now: the thought of baring all, being completely vulnerable in a whole host of positions and surrounded by strangers who are all naked too. Feeling bent out of shape yet?
But doing yoga in your birthday suit has only grown in popularity recently, and not just in arty enclaves of the capital like Notting Hill or Camden. Different versions of yoga, most more garment-friendly scenarios such as gin and tonic yoga, have proliferated faster than Disney sequels in recent years.
For many, this may be a fad too far. For a sordid few, it’s a loophole for posting nudity on mainstreaming sharing platforms such as YouTube. But for those who practice seriously, the values it promotes of body positivity, fighting sexual shame, and desexualising the human body have never been so important.
I care so much more now about letting myself breathe, and about how I actually feel, not what I look like
Knight worked as a naked yoga instructor back in London until last year. Now living in Peru with her new boyfriend, she still manages to give classes over Zoom and works as a body love coach; all while battling mosquitoes, working through sweltering conditions, and overcoming a patchy 4G connection.
Knight feels that being naked while feeling great is a form of positive reinforcement. she said “People who come to the naked yoga class for the first time tell me: ‘At the beginning, I was a bit nervous. But then after the 5-10 minutes, I didn’t even realise I was naked.’”
London is home to a large naturist community; and according to Knight, a lot of her clients are part of that. “They just like being naked,” she said “And it’s another chance for them to do social naturist events. For those classes, most of them are men, because unfortunately, the naturist community is still mainly men.”
For a lot of people in female bodies, being naked in a mixed environment does not feel as safe. The fear of being preyed upon is a problem that makes Knight “really sad.” But it is something which she understands, and, “is why I started doing online classes of female-identifying and all pussy owners only.” This class is run separately from the mixed class, which tends to be mostly men.
Knight believes that the growth of naked yoga has run parallel with the worsening of body image issues, which she attributes largely to social media. “There’s so much more ‘compare and despair’ culture. I think in general people are a lot more exposed to images in media, like films and magazines, where there’s so much reinforcement of these ideal beauty standards.
But coming to a naked yoga class, you can see what real naked bodies look like; there is no photoshop, no filter. You can say, ‘Okay, so not everyone’s body looks like what I see in an airbrushed photo or on a catwalk.’”
Rose, from Utah, USA, started attending Knight’s female-identifying zoom sessions around a month ago and is already feeling the benefits.
“What surprised me most was how beautiful my body is in its movement,” they said. “It just happened that my yoga mat was in front of a mirror, and it struck me how beautiful my tummy is when it’s expanding and contracting with my breath; when it’s not cut up by the lines of my underwear.
“Naked yoga has helped me fully breathe and relax even outside of class. I don’t give a f**k anymore about sucking in my stomach. I care so much more now about letting myself breathe, and about how I actually feel, not what I look like,” she added.