Yoga Jumps the Shark
April 20, 2011
Image: Courtesy of Yoga Deck II by Olivia H. Miller and Nicole Kaufman
I took my first yoga class in June 2000 at the corporate gym inside CNN Center, just after I moved to Atlanta. Yoga seemed like a cosmopolitan sort of thing to do and very foreign to me, but at first I didn’t quite get what the fuss was about. It was just so-so and even though I didn’t feel terribly challenged, for some reason, I stuck with it. About eight months later, I signed up for a special lunchtime class on Valentine’s Day dealing with heart chakras. I was single, and that sounded like just the thing to avoiding downing a bottle of wine later that night solo while wearing a chocolate mustache, candy wrappers piled around me, not that I cared too much about occasions like that in the first place, but it could happen. At any rate, I knew my heart needed to be taken care of, and I couldn’t think of a more fitting place for it.
The best I can describe it is that I had some sort of spiritual experience during the class. I started to understand what yoga was about and why people are such devotees. Then, two weeks later, my dad died. I channeled my healing into yoga, and that is when I truly became hooked. Throughout the poses I moved through my grief—depression in the rabbit, anger in the breath of fire, denial in downward dog, bargaining during bird of paradise, and acceptance in eagle. Each day was different in what I felt and how I moved, but yoga, to be blunt, saved my life. It gave me the life I never thought I could have, one that strives for balance both on and off the mat.
So imagine my surprise when my private Prozac, my own special pill, becomes dare I say it, trendy. I’ve seen a rise in articles on the therapeutic theory—with everything from The New York Times running a great piece in February on fertility and the link with yoga as a stress reliever (you can read it here) to Town & Country last year publishing an article titled “Prescription Yoga” (What? I read it while I was at the eye doctor.) about yoga as the cure all for whatever ails you. Yoga for anxiety, yoga for anger, yoga for anorexia (seriously), yoga for depression–why can’t it just be what it is? I realized more than a decade before Town & Country told me so that yoga is in fact my prescription; I need it like I need other things in my life to feel whole, and I can certainly tell when I haven’t had enough (my family will also vouch for that). But it’s frustrating to see this ancient practice broken down in a way that strips it of its original meaning. Are we so far gone in our fitness and quick-fix pill state to take something so basic, pure, and wonderful and turn it into a dumbed-down version that’s hardly recognizable? It just worries me that once the buzz factor of the practice dies down and the pendulum stops swinging which part of yoga will remain, the old or the new?
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5 Responses
Ranjit
Posted on Apr. 20thExcellent piece!! As an Indian-American I take pride in the fact that my ancestors developed yoga, and so I have felt many of these same sentiments for a long time. On one hand, I don’t want to seem like an cultural “crank,” complaining about the way “Americans” have ruined an ancient practice. But on the other hand, it troubles me to see yoga reduced to granting us “the perfect bikini body.” As you mention, yoga is meant to be a spiritual practice; it is supposed to settle the body and mind in preparation for meditation. Instead, we have distorted it to the point where it’s about treating specific chronic ailments or giving us better muscle tone. It’s true that yoga provides those things, but it is much more powerful than that. My fear is, like you say in your last sentence, that the wrong version will persist, and that the ancient wisdoms and spiritual awareness the originators intended will become extinct–like other cultural jewels we are losing (languages, foods, music). In any case, I really enjoyed this piece–it gives me hope to know that a non-Indian would care so much about the integrity of yoga as you do.
Ranjit
Posted on Apr. 20thExcellent piece!! As an Indian-American I take pride in the fact that my ancestors developed yoga, and so I have felt many of these same sentiments for a long time. On one hand, I don’t want to seem like an cultural “crank,” complaining about the way “Americans” have ruined an ancient practice. But on the other hand, it troubles me to see yoga reduced to granting us “the perfect bikini body.” As you mention, yoga is meant to be a spiritual practice; it is supposed to settle the body and mind in preparation for meditation. Instead, we have distorted it to the point where it’s about treating specific chronic ailments or giving us better muscle tone. It’s true that yoga provides those things, but it is much more powerful than that. My fear is, like you say in your last sentence, that the wrong version will persist, and that the ancient wisdoms and spiritual awareness the originators intended will become extinct–like other cultural jewels we are losing (languages, foods, music). In any case, I really enjoyed this piece–it gives me hope to know that a non-Indian would care so much about the integrity of yoga as you do.
Elisabeth
Posted on Apr. 20thLoved this piece…
As a fellow yogi…there’s nothing else that can get me out of a cozy night of spooning at 5:30am like my 6:00am hot power fusion class!
I introduced myself to yoga in the early part of 2008 after a separation that left me not knowing which way was up and which way was down. For a few months I quietly cried in savasana, I stuck with it and it too saved my life per se.
Unfortunately, I experience exactly what you reference in your blog piece. Living in Southern California (ummmm, “the O.C.”), I find that half, or more, of my classes are filled with desperate housewives that actually roll their eyes if an instructor chants or even mentions chakras. I find that the earliest morning class I can get to, the better, more dedicated (for the right reason) yogis attend. These classes I experience a better energy in the room. I just can’t bare the 5p class where the women swap babysitter & plastic surgeon’s numbers!
The secret for me is finding a teacher that moves me and sticking with he/she. That and going to my special place in my practice as not to allow any outside influences to sway me. Hopefully we can always find teachers/studios that practice (at least some) of the OLD!
Thanks for sharing!!
carla
Posted on Apr. 20thA spiritual reply to a spiritual writing….I believe the version of yoga that “lives” will the the one the person utilizing the practice “needs”~just like people gravitate toward the therapist that tells them what they want/need to hear…..people will get out of the experience what they need to move to the next level of their own development.
People tend to get out of things what they put in to them. Yoga, a job, relationships, a home even; I believe it’s all cyclical and karmic. If all they want it a bikini ready body, they’ll gravitate toward the type of instructor to make it happen and that’s all they shall receive. If they are searching for meaning and unity, perhaps they may find that instead through an instructor who values that approach.
Synchronicity.
I took a class in Arizona at a fitness club hoping for a meditative and spiritual experience. They had all the “right” music, low lighting, etc., but the approach and the energy in the room really did nothing to make me want to go more than a few times. It was a bikini body class, and not what I was looking for, however it had many regulars.
I do believe, however, there are many people out there who would keep searching for the class that would give them the spiritual journey instead of the gym workout. As long as the demand exists, so will the supply.
Awesome article!
carla
Posted on Apr. 20thA spiritual reply to a spiritual writing….I believe the version of yoga that “lives” will the the one the person utilizing the practice “needs”~just like people gravitate toward the therapist that tells them what they want/need to hear…..people will get out of the experience what they need to move to the next level of their own development.
People tend to get out of things what they put in to them. Yoga, a job, relationships, a home even; I believe it’s all cyclical and karmic. If all they want it a bikini ready body, they’ll gravitate toward the type of instructor to make it happen and that’s all they shall receive. If they are searching for meaning and unity, perhaps they may find that instead through an instructor who values that approach.
Synchronicity.
I took a class in Arizona at a fitness club hoping for a meditative and spiritual experience. They had all the “right” music, low lighting, etc., but the approach and the energy in the room really did nothing to make me want to go more than a few times. It was a bikini body class, and not what I was looking for, however it had many regulars.
I do believe, however, there are many people out there who would keep searching for the class that would give them the spiritual journey instead of the gym workout. As long as the demand exists, so will the supply.
Awesome article!