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What is Yoga?

A few--just a very few--thoughts on what yoga is from the Web site and blog, yoga-abode.com. As the editor, London writer Lucia Crockcroft notes, no one can agree on a snug definition.

She says, "Perhaps it's sensible to follow the lead of yoga teacher Jo Stewart, and give up the pigeon-hole approach. "Yoga defies a rigid definition and is not practiced dogmatically", she says."

http://www.yoga-abode.com/node/399

Here's another think piece on myyogahealth blog: http://myyogahealth.blogspot.com/2007/03/yoga-explained.html

What is yoga to you? I'm curious.

Yoga Adapts to American Culture

Sigh. It's unstoppable. "J. Crew and Puma now offer yoga accessories and Nike has a yoga shoe called the Kembali. There is yoga perfume and jewelry by the truckload online, and now, there is even yoga skydiving. America has effectively Big Mac-ed yoga, only, unlike the Maharaja Mac, American yoga offers enlightenment instead of high blood pressure."From UC Davis campus paper.

http://media.www.californiaaggie.com/media/storage/paper981/news/2007/02/23/Features/Yoga-The.New.American.Pastime-2739338.shtml

Be Quiet! UK Yogis Disturb the Neighbours

London's most popular yoga center, TriYoga, disturbs the neighbours with its chanting and drumming. Chief offenders are the lunch time Mommy and Baby classes, and the Prenatal classes. Wooo noisy mamas!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2004267,00.html#article_continue

From the Guardian:
"The complaints focus on a mother and baby yoga session in which the women sing nursery rhymes while stretching their babies' limbs in yoga-inspired movements, and a pregnancy class in which music by George Harrison, Bob Marley and Aretha Franklin is played. Camden council has issued an enforcement notice which could result in a fine."

Iraq Vets Outreach includes Yoga

...but not enough, says BlogHer (http://blogher.org/node/15006). Yoga is a great way to work with PTSD, but the Veteran's Administration isn't wholeheartedly behind it yet. Only two classes in the country are specifically designed for returning vets.

In Boston: http://www.socialweb.net/Events/52675.lasso

In Santa Cruz: http://www.vetshall.org/classes.htm

Dudes do Yoga

http://www.readexpress.com/read_freeride/2007/01/fit_boy_meets_mats.php

Evidence that if women are taken out of the scene, and yoga-speak is restricted, men can love yoga, too. In Washington, DC, at least.

I see a lot of men in yoga classes. But I see many, many more women. How to explain this? Because women are more looks-conscious? More spiritual? Because men think yoga is too 'sissy' for them? None of these explanations is very satisfying.

For now, I'm happy to see regular dudes doing backbends.

Watch a video of guys doing yoga, from ABC's 49 News
http://www.49abcnews.com/news/2007/feb/21/yogadance_combination_even_appeals_guys/

McDonald's Teaches Yoga?

Forgive me, regular customers, but since I don't go to McDonald's anymore (loved it as a kid, but as an adult it makes me ill), I didn't realize they'd added Asian chicken salad to the menu, and were offering yoga DVDs to customers.May 2006 issue of Fortune Magazine says the "Asian salad [is] made of orange-glazed chicken, snow peas, red peppers, mandarin oranges, almonds and green soybeans known as edamame. People who buy the salad as part of a "Go Active! Happy Meal" for adults are given one of four 15-minute exercise DVDS, including one that teaches yoga. "Yoga is being roped into helping McDonald's dodge the obesity charges levelled at it. So yoga and Super Size Me are on opposite sides of the obesity debate now?Actually, maybe yoga is on both sides.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/17/news/companies/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm

Humor on Christian Yoga

At last a humorous take on Christian yoga. BC native Shannon Rupp in the independent daily newspaper, The Tyee, skewers Quesnel area woman's objections to yoga in classrooms--because, the woman says, yoga is the work of the devil. Natch.

Here's an excerpt:
"Cummings also complains that yoga in the classroom is the same as prayer in the classroom, and again she's not wrong. You frequently hear prayers of the "oh-god-oh-god-oh-god" variety, especially in beginner yoga classes. An occasional "Jesus!" isn't unusual."

Read, "Me, A Yoga Devil?" at http://thetyee.ca/Life/2007/01/17/Yoga/

(And scroll down to follow the amazing, convoluted commentary that follows the story!)

History Of Indian Yogis 2000 B.C. - 2000 A.D.

History Of Indian Yogis 2000 B.C. - 2000 A.D., course at Loyola College, CA

https://www.lmu.edu/extension/catalog.aspx?id=2641

From the course catalog:

"Most reconstructions of the history of yoga in India have focused on the term "yoga" as it is found in a selection of major religious and philosophical texts, including the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Bhagavad Gita of the Mahabharata, and the Hathayogapradipika of Svatmaraman. These reconstructions have tended to emphasize a body of ecstatic and meditative practice. When, however, one traces the history of the term "yogi," the presumed agent of yogic practice, the reconstruction changes radically. From the very earliest accounts of yogis, as found in narrative passages of the Mahabharata, and down through the Tantras and medieval and modern non-scriptural accounts, the image of the Indian yogi has been one of a phenomenally powerful, but also dangerous possessor of supernatural powers, who exits his own body, often to take over those of other people. Using archeological, iconographic, and textual data, this course will survey the image of the Indian yogi from the earliest times down to the present day. The conclusions it will draw will be most surprising."

Rodney Yee's New Love: An Old Story

The NYTimes covered Rodney Yee's wedding to Colleen Saidman (Sag Harbor yoga studio owner) last weekend.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05EEDA1430F934A35752C0A9619C8B63

The story was first covered in New York Magazine in May 2005 http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/12023/?imw=Y

It was much talked about, and even covered in yoga magazines as an ethical issue. We sure hold our teachers up to high standards.

Yoga in "Children of Men"

In the arresting movie, Children of Men, there was a brilliant characterization of yoga/healing culture. Several times, the midwife character who's helping Theo and Ki, invokes Shanti and chants Om Mani Padme Om. She even gets skeptical Ki to chant when when they are burying the leader of the Fishes, Julienne.

The midwife character is a bridge--she is key to the escape and she gives her life for the child about to be born. But she doesn't get to see Ki delivered into the right hands. That's left to morally exhausted Theo.

The midwife is struggling to live in an unlivable world, do what's right, and have hope. You get a sense that she has to deceive herself to do this. Chanting Om Mani Padme Om gently underscores this: Julienne has been shot in the neck, murdered by her own people. She's buried in an unmarked grave in the woods, in desperate circumstances. There is no redemption. If there is a soul, if there is a god, if there is a healing power, or a guiding light, we don't see it in this movie. The midwife character invokes Shanti in spite of the overwhelming evidence that Shanti is meaningless here.

Sometimes this is how the "healing" around yoga culture seems: harmless when times are good. But how effective would it be if the government and the terrorists were trying to kill you?

Yoga is Big Business

The New York Times reports that (gasp!) yoga makes some people a lot of money. Their business reporter Susan Moran dropped in to the Yoga Journal conference in Boulder, CO, in early January 07 and found people not just blissed out with Shiva Rea, but dropping $100 on necklaces said to help with "expression issues."

As the mainstream embraces yoga, expect to see more and more shopping opportunities wherever yoga is practiced. Retail therapy gets literal.

Meditate on this: Yoga is big business http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=150919#

Read a Canadian angle this story: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070113.TEAYOGA13/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Style/

NPR looks at the Business of Yoga

From NPR's Web site:
"Talk of the Nation, December 26, 2006 · Guests explore yoga's path from the margins to the mainstream, and its transformation along the way from spiritual meditation to a mass-marketed workout.

Guests:
Hanna Rosin, staff writer for The Washington Post and author of "Striking a Pose," an article in Harper's magazine that examines yoga's potency as both exercise and market force.

Robert Love, contributing editor at the Columbia Journalism Review. Love's recent article "Fear of Yoga" traces yoga's origins in the United States and its rocky rise to popularity.

Miriam Nelson director of the John Hancock Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition"

Listen HERE http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6681341

Russell Simmons Does Sun Salutes

I've heard a lot about Russell Simmons doing yoga. He's often mentioned with the roster of stars who once (and might still) practice at Jivamukti. He's hip hop's biggest yogi.

In a somewhat erratic interview, Lime.com presents Simmons explaining his practice. Watch him demonstrate sun salutations. He's got good form. But does he always practice with his shoes on?

http://www.lime.com/tv/living_well_with_oz_garcia/video/6883/living_well_russell_simmons

India Patents Poses

This from a 2005 article from the London Telegraph. Dated, but still news: outraged that Americans and Europeans are making money off yoga, India started a project to record and patent 1,500 yoga poses.

This argument has been bubbling beneath the surface for a long time: who owns yoga?

Are Americans like Baron Baptiste and John Friend really corrupting yoga? Or, as with Western interpretations of Buddhism and meditation, are they reviving the practice as well as putting their American twist on it? Would yoga be so popular in India today if it hadn't first caught on in America? After all, yoga was nothing to get excited about 50 years ago.

Hmmm...