заня́тия йо́гой пошли́ тебе́ на по́льзу

[Anita hk]

I continue to have questions regarding the use of the instrumental case. Why is йо́га in instrumental case in the above sentence? Thanks in advance.

 

[HotIcyDonut]

Because the noun can employ it, so why not?

Меня интересуют занятия верховой ездой, он хочет подумать над занятиями плаванием, есть большая польза от занятий тяжёлой атлетикой для мышц…

You may use genitive if you desire instead:

Занятия йоги пошли тебе на пользу.

Nothing wrong grammatically, just a few sentences I googled:

Приходите на занятия йоги в наш спортивный клуб Фитнес Лига.

Занятия йоги вызывают изменения в организме на энергетическом уровне.

Среди людей, кто вкладывает духовный смысл в занятия йоги, реже встречаются посетители спортивных клубов.

С ноября 2014 года по апрель 2015 посещала занятия йоги для будущих мам, которые ведет Наталья.

 

[Awwal12]

I continue to have questions regarding the use of the instrumental case. Why is йо́га in instrumental case in the above sentence? Thanks in advance.

Because of the government model of the noun заня́тие (which is inherited from the verb занима́ться).

 

[Awwal12]

You may use genitive if you desire instead

"Занятие йоги" is fine as long as it means, basically, a lesson ("йогой" wouldn't be even applicable there), but otherwise it sounds outright weird to me, to be frank.

 

[Anita hk]

"Занятие йоги" is fine as long as it means, basically, a lesson ("йогой" wouldn't be even applicable there), but otherwise it sounds outright weird to me, to be frank.

Thanks Awwal 12. The Google translate of заня́тия йо́гой is doing yoga, is it a correct translation?
I know that занима́ться is followed by instrumental case. But I wouldn't be able to recognize that Занятие comes from занима́ться. Are there any word formation rules that can help in this respect?

 

[Awwal12]

But I wouldn't be able to recognize that Занятие comes from занима́ться. Are there any word formation rules that can help in this respect?

Sadly, here we have an ancient morphological alteration obscured by subsequent phonetic developments. So the relationship (often unproductive for specific verbs, but still obvious) between -(н)им- and -(н)я- (from the proto-root related to possession and taking) must be simply memorized. Cf. взима́ть (imperf. "to collect from smb", formal) and взя́ть (perf. "to take"), the pairs "отнима́ть" and "отня́ть" ("to take by force from smb"; "to deduct"), "принима́ть" and "приня́ть" ("to accept") etc.

To think about it, you could also say that "заня́тие" is formed from "заня́ться" (the inchoative perfective pair to "занима́ться"). Obviously (I suppose), reflexive postfixes are always removed during formation of deverbal nouns.

 

[nizzebro]

he Google translate of заня́тия йо́гой is doing yoga, is it a correct translation?

'Yoga classes' as well.
Я сегодня занят, у меня занятия йогой. (purely 'classes')
Занятия йогой - то, что сделало его таким гибким. (doing yoga; still it is in the plural as the process considered a set of sessions)
Йога - это прекрасное занятие. (abstract process: you cannot tell if it is viewed as a repetitive or as an ongoing flow).

As Awwal12 already noted, some ambiguity arises when you need something like
Я пропустил одно занятие ...
To me, the most appropriate here would be the genitive case: '... одно занятие йоги.'
Some people could also say '... по йоге', even though is sounds as if it is a field of study such as a foreign language or physics.
Note there's no issues with 'Я пропустил одно занятие' itself, without a complement - since it is used as a suitable word for a single 'session'. 'Урок' is, again, related to something that is more like sciences, 'класс' has a broad meaning (class, grade, category), 'тренировка' is about sports.