Nowadays yoga appears to be no matter anybody says it’s. In that sense YOGA is sort of like WOMAN 🙂
Language is at all times only a illustration and as such it would at all times be flawed. Phrases won’t ever be greater than a pale xerox copy of what it’s meant to characterize. In the identical approach a map may be very totally different from the nation or area it is representing.
However nonetheless. The factor that’s being offered to us as ‘YOGA’ usually simply pays lip service to the wealthy and historic custom. To me, it usually feels as if yoga is a picture; a mode or a gown code, like goth, punk rock or hippie (however approach much less cool naturally). We herald some hindu trinkets and put them on an altar, we burn some incense, we chant OM and say namaste after which we proceed with our 45 min core yoga exercise in our costly matching lycra crop prime and leggings.
Everybody who’s hung across the yogiverse for any period of time is aware of that yoga means UNION or that the basis of the phrase means ‘yoke;’ to lock, be part of, harness.
Usually this so referred to as UNION is introduced as ‘the union of breath and motion,’ which is extraordinarily simplified.
I at present attend two weekly courses with two totally different academics. They’re each referred to as yoga. I actually get pleasure from each choices — the academics do create sequences of motion, or so referred to as ‘flows’ which can be enjoyable and is sensible, a minimum of for my physique. They provide good cues that assist me transfer my physique in sure approach, and assist me perceive the place to interact and the place to chill out. These academics additionally assist me discover sure components of my anatomy and so they encourage me to present bizarre shapes a go. They each play music I like (as a result of in my view, so many yoga academics have dismal music style). I sit up for these periods. My physique will get a effectively designed enjoyable exercise, and after I lie down, enjoyable afterwards, in savasana, it seems like I deserve it. And I’m barely excessive on the endorphins and different feel-good chemical compounds that my physique produces.
All of that is AWESOME stuff. However is it yoga?!?
What’s yoga?
I requested Chat GPT, and so they mentioned: Yoga is a holistic self-discipline that originated in historic India and has been practiced for hundreds of years. It encompasses bodily, psychological, and religious practices geared toward selling general well-being and concord. The phrase “yoga” is derived from the Sanskrit phrase “yuj,” which implies to unite or be part of.
At its core, yoga seeks to unite the thoughts, physique, and spirit, bringing steadiness and concord to at least one’s life. Whereas there are numerous branches and types of yoga, they usually contain a mix of bodily postures (asanas), respiration workout routines (pranayama), meditation, and moral ideas.
In line with B.Okay.S Iyengar, one of many world’s most revered fashionable yoga academics (and in addition one of many few who hasn’t been accused of sexually abusing his college students) ‘Yoga is meditation and meditation is yoga.’
These of us who’ve scratched the insta yoga floor only a tiny bit have found that the shapes and sequences most of us follow as of late aren’t historic however a couple of hundred years previous, and the results of a cross-pollination between Scandinavian circle coaching and Hatha yoga. Once more, nothing flawed with that —our our bodies had been meant to maneuver and most of us don’t transfer sufficient — however I really feel we’re dropping out massive time on probably the most useful components after we make yoga a health routine. Plus, so many individuals really feel alienated by a contemporary yoga studio and the individuals who collect there.
I not too long ago learn an article in a giant UK newspaper, the place a yoga instructor of Indian first rate, talked about her experiences within the London yoga scene. Similar to auditioning for instructing gigs and being turned down for having too ‘chunky thighs,’ and basic competitiveness and bitchiness throughout the instructor ‘neighborhood.’ I’ve not been turned down from any instructing jobs due to the dimensions of my thighs, however I can undoubtedly attest to the truth that most yoga academics I do know aren’t any extra advanced than different folks (and I embrace myself right here), and plenty of ‘yogapreneurs’ are enterprise folks reasonably than what I sages.
As soon as upon a time, again after I was instructing at a giant studio, myself and several other different academics there, had been contacted by a giant on-line yoga platform about filming some content material for them. In the long run they determined to not work with any of us, however as a substitute picked somebody with little or no instructing expertise, however who regarded the trendy yogiverse half: younger, tall, very skinny, very conventionally fairly.
Oh effectively. That somebody turned out to be a reasonably switched on and funky, real particular person, and it is not her fault that she was picked for her appears.
If one simply does a superficial survey of the vastness of the yogic custom, it’s fairly apparent that yoga is an consciousness follow. It’s about growing new methods of seeing, that result in extra freedom and readability. It’s NOT a exercise. It’s not about pretzel shapes. Or cool soundtracks. Or ‘flows.’ Or handstands. Or €100 leggings. Or type.
It’s about therapeutic and self-inquiry (which go hand in hand). And meditation is inquiry. It is a deconstruction of the self we maintain so pricey, nevertheless it’s after we let go of it that we flourish. That is what the traditional masters discovered.
Sadly, I see so little of this in what’s being provided as yoga. Perhaps I will the flawed locations?
Many of the courses I’ve taught in my 16 + years of instructing had been undoubtedly not yoga. I really feel that in my previous few years of instructing, I’ve gotten nearer. Regardless of that,
I’m within the technique of (possibly) eradicating the phrase yoga from ALL bodily courses that I supply. As a result of I’m unsure whether or not they’re yoga or not.
And I additionally do not wish to offend anybody’s tradition with my restricted information.
I do know many expert academics which have gone down this path earlier than me. Some have succeeded in persevering with to draw folks. For some it has been actually difficult to search out an viewers when the promoting level of YOGA is faraway from the providing. I am curious to see what occurs. I’d even be curious to listen to your ideas within the feedback beneath.