namasteph yoga blog

Is the New York Times out to get yoga? You might think so, if you read their recent article, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” a scary tale of injuries, strokes, and hip replacements. The article is adapted from the book “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards,” by William J. Broad, to be published next month by Simon & Schuster.

I’m sure the article upset a lot of yogis, and it was definitely one-sided – the therapeutic aspects of yoga were completely ignored. But I would definitely recommend reading it, because it showcases a darker side of yoga that we don’t hear a lot about in the yoga community. I touched upon some of my concerns about extreme, strenuous yoga in a blog post about the potential dangers of Ashtanga, but it’s not Ashtanga alone that might be the issue. Any yoga that is more about pushing the body beyond its limits could be problematic. I wonder if workout yoga styles like vinyasa flow have taken yoga down a path that might end up becoming more extreme as time goes on – will the yoga of the 2020s be more like frenetic, gymnastic kickboxing workouts than yoga?

At any rate, I’d recommend reading the article, and especially the comments, which are interesting. Here’s a comment I found particularly pertinent:

Laura Maria Censabella of Brooklyn, NY wrote:
Years ago I studied Sivananda yoga in Manhattan after years of studying ballet. I loved the practice for its sanity: no looking in mirrors; few competitive glances around the room; hour and a half long classes with ample warm-up and cool-down time; and 12 or so basic postures repeated from class to class. These 12 postures served as foundation poses so that meditation could occur. Individual yoga teachers added variations that grew out of these basic poses, and one could choose to do them or not. Last year, after years of doing yoga on my own, I decided to return to yoga classes. Imagine my surprise when they turned out to be what felt like yoga calisthenics classes to a soft rock accompaniment. From class to class, even with the same teacher, there was little continuity of poses, increasing the risk of injury since you never mastered anything before you moved on. Who knew yoga had thousands of poses and why was it important that we do all of them in a macho quest to master them all? Surely there are a smaller number of basic poses that are beneficial to the body, and by slowly holding them one can go deeper mentally and physically. I fear that yoga has become Americanized to its detriment, and perhaps this new brand of yoga has become like New York: fast-paced, competitive, and a little mean.

Hmm. Has yoga become a little mean? Maybe it has.

Share on Facebook

I’m always looking for tips on helping my hamstrings. Recently, I found the following interesting comment on Metafilter by a person who found improving day-to-day posture helped with flexibility. I hope it helps someone. Better posture can’t hurt regardless!

I had the same problem. I was never able to touch my toes, no matter how much stretching I did. After I developed some serious back problems this year, I started doing physical therapy and Pilates. A few months later, I can touch my toes and my hands go down about 6 inches lower than they ever could.

The one thing that made the difference wasn’t more stretching, it was paying constant attention to my posture throughout the entire day. Here’s what I learned that worked for me:

Your hamstrings are built for strength, but they’re not designed to stay clenched all day. If you spend too much time with your hamstrings contracted, then you’ll never be able to stretch them past a certain length. There are two telltale signs of postures that force you to clench your hamstrings: slouching with your hips forward, and sticking your head out forward of your shoulders. Also check that your seat isn’t too high when sitting. Your chair should let you put your feet flat on the floor.

The solution lies in strengthening your pelvic floor and deep abdominal muscles, and using them to maintain your posture. Those muscles are designed to be able to stay slightly contracted all day. When standing, slightly contract your urethra and anus muscles, and you should feel your pelvic floor rise and your lower abdominals move inwards. Make sure your gluteus and your outer abdominals (the “six-pack” muscles) are relaxed. At that point you should be able to relax your hamstrings. It’s hard to stay focused on that all day, but after a couple of weeks of practice it will become more automatic, and you’ll start to notice the difference when you do stretching.

Share on Facebook

I was in a yoga teacher training workshop over the weekend, and our teacher mentioned off-hand that a number of senior teachers in a certain yoga tradition that he chose not to name were getting hip replacement surgery! I was, of course, extremely curious to know what tradition he was talking about, but did not want to waste his time after class to ask him about “yoga gossip.” After the workshop, however, I regretted not asking, as it would be a good thing to know if a particular type of yoga was likely to cause such devastating injury.

So what was he referring to? I racked my brain to consider the options. Was it Bikram? Well, Bikram might cause some issues due to the hot room, but I don’t think there are enough hip openers in Bikram to cause major hip problems. What about Anusara? I don’t know enough about it, but with its focus on arm balances, perhaps the bigger danger there would simply be falling on your face! Iyengar seems unlikely, considering its focus on alignment and props. Kundalini yoga certainly entered my mind as a good possibility – there’s no alignment, and doing too many frogs could possibly not just cause hip problems but tweak your knees. But I felt that he wasn’t talking about Kundalini yoga, since for many yogis, Kundalini is a bastard off-shoot and not really considered a true yoga “tradition.”

Ashtanga was the last thing to come to my mind, and – apologies to you die-hard Ashtanga practitioners – the one that immediately registered an “a-ha!” Who knows if that’s what he was really talking about, but I decided to take a trip through the Internet to see if there was any correlation at all between Ashtanga and hip replacement. I found one very interesting thread on an Ashtanga discussion forum.

One person shared the following:

Yup, I’ve given up ashtanga as of 7 months ago.  Got too old.  My left hip disintegrated and I had total hip replacement surgery.  Ashtanga may have contributed but if it hadn’t been ashtanga, it would have been something else, maybe.  I’m able to exercise at the gym on a stationary bike, treadmill, and elliptical machine but agree with neti that nothing gives you the total mind /body workout of ashtanga.  I plan to go back to a light, gentle yoga practice starting with an appointment I have coming up with a teacher who has hip replacement students.  Would love to hear from any other board posters who have had hip replacement surgery.

Right off the bat, this post shows one of the problems with assessing the long-term effects of strenuous yoga practices. Was this person’s hip replacement due to Ashtanga or something else? We really can’t know. But someone with a medical background weighed in to say:

After working in orthopaedics I could never justify, let alone recommend, this form of practice for any length of time. It was really the beginning of the end for me.
If I could offer any advice it would be to enjoy it in youth, and prepare to let it go completely in maturity. 

And someone else chimed in:

 …some primary series poses can be problematic to older people with disintegrating bones.  Many of the standing poses, especially the one leg balancing poses, are not good.  Poses that place a strain upon the hips, like bjujapidasana and the maris, contribute to the problem.  When I showed my David Swenson primary series practice card to my physical therapist she recoiled in horror and started pointing out all the poses that would further injure my hip.  I’m not saying that ashtanga causes hip replacement surgery, just relating my personal experience.

Now here’s the big elephant in the living room, not just for Ashtanga but for many yoga traditions. Much of the way we teach yoga now has nothing to do with how yoga was traditionally taught for centuries. It’s only been in modern times that we’ve had big drop-in classes where anyone on the street of any fitness level could jump into a yoga class. We really haven’t done enough studies to know whether certain yoga poses are actually good for long-term practice or some are just good “for show.” By that, I mean, I suspect many of the more complicated and eye-popping yoga poses were created not for regular exercise, but to demonstrate the power of yoga to an audience.

I mean, really, is there any real benefit in terms of physical health or improved quality of meditation by doing  the Ashtanga posture karandavasana shown in the picture above? Is lotus pose in and of itself necessary to achieve deep meditation? No.

One study on Ashtanga Yoga has shown that more than half experienced an injury lasting longer than a month:

The 110 practitioners surveyed, 68 (62%) reported having had at least one injury lasting longer than one month, and some practitioners reported more than one injury. A total of 107 musculoskeletal injuries were reported. The rate of new practice-related injuries was 1.18 injuries per 1,000 hours of practice. If recurrence of pre-existing injury and non-specific low back pain of unknown origin were included, the injury rate became 1.45 injuries per 1,000 hours of practice. Injuries related to the practice of Yoga were most common in the lower extremities, especially in the hamstrings or knees. None of the practitioners reported suffering permanent impairment from their injuries; however, this may be a consequence of the sampling procedure (see Limitations of the sample and survey, below).

I presume one of the limitations of the survey would include the short-term vs. long-term nature of the study. A short-term study would not be able to judge the effects of the body into old age.

Now, I can imagine some Ashtangis will complain and say that this doesn’t really represent Ashtanga or that people who get injured aren’t listening to their body and it’s “their” fault, not the fault of the practice. Look, I’ve done some Ashtanga prep classes where you learn the primary series. There are many things I like about the primary series. But you are in denial if you think that Ashtanga doesn’t have a bit more possibility of injury vs. a more gentle form of yoga, especially when it comes to the more advanced poses.

Granted, I’m not an Ashtanga Yoga devotee. I haven’t personally experienced the benefits of a regular Ashtanga practice. But my impression (as an outsider) is that there are some, not all, but some Ashtanga practitioners who let their Ashtanga affiliation go to their heads a little bit. They identify too much with the yoga practice as not just a badge of honor, but their identity. But achieving a challenging pose isn’t about being spiritual, it’s about ego. And from that attachment to the Ashtanga egoic “high,” some Ashtangis seem to have lost their objectivity.

Here’s just one example – a blog post by an Ashtanga teacher who claims that Ashtanga yoga practitioners who turn to Iyenger for help on proper alignment are simply trying to “distract” themselves from their yoga practice! This sentence totally blew me away:

I feel what is really going on is not a wish to learn about alignment but a wish for distraction in what is happening in our own Ashtanga practise, perhaps a wish for distraction for the lack of ‘progress; or the injuries that keep occurring.

Seriously? If someone is having recurring injuries, isn’t it probable that something is wrong? And maybe they really do need to go to a qualified Iyengar teacher for some help!

This teacher then goes on to claim that many injuries in Ashtanga are simply psycho-somatic, and blames this on some sort of deficit of will upon the part of the student:

Again the experience of viewing oneself on the mat daily has become too intense or reached an uncomfortable place and the welcome distraction now comes from injury/pain with the blessing of the healthcare practitioner. 

Seriously, if you find a teacher like this, who blames your dislike of a practice and your actual injuries on your own personal failings, run, don’t walk, out the door.

Now, I’m sure most Ashtanga teachers are not this insensitive and clueless. I’m also not trying to wholesale condemn Ashtanga here. If you are physically fit and flexible, and you want a challenging yoga practice, Ashtanga may be for you. But I don’t think Ashtanga is for everyone – certainly not older people who have never done yoga, not people who are injured, and not people who aren’t talented physically (meaning, people who simply aren’t athletic in nature and have a hard time with basic yoga postures).

Yoga practitioners under 50 who have been athletes, gymnasts and dancers may be the best candidates for rigorous Ashtanga practices. But even then, I wonder if perhaps over time those who have been fit and athletic in their youth might benefit from dialing it down a bit as they get into middle age and beyond.

The most important takeaway in all of this is: BE CAREFUL! Perhaps you are starting out in Ashtanga with a very strict teacher who, like the person I quoted above, doesn’t take injury seriously. Listen to your own body! If you feel Ashtanga (or any other yoga practice) is pushing your body too hard, find another type of yoga! Don’t let someone guilt trip you into injuring yourself. Yoga should not be about achieving difficult postures. Yoga isn’t about asana for the sake of asana. It should be about a whole mind/body practice that nurtures and inspires you, not one that leaves you bruised and battered.

Share on Facebook

I received a NamaSTAY yoga towel earlier this year and I’ve been meaning to review it again beyond my initial impressions. It’s a good idea to test drive something like a yoga towel for a little while before making a final verdict. Since I received my yoga towel, they have discontinued the color towel I have (light blue) and now offer different colors: charcoal and purple, and coming soon, green and reddish orange.

I’m assuming the fabric is basically the same – because the fabric is one of the main features of the NamaSTAY yoga towel. It’s a very thick, plush “microfiber” that despite it’s softness is amazingly non-slip.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here, so let me back up a sec. There are two basic types of yoga towels out there – ones that have little non-stick “grips” on them, and ones that don’t. The NamaSTAY yoga towel uses a simple pocket on each end to keep the towel secured to the mat instead of little plastic non-stick balls. The pockets are nice in that they also help keep the curled ends of the yoga mat more flat on the floor. I’ve also found that sometimes those non-stick grips tend to create a bumpy surface to sit on with other yoga towels – and in this respect, the NamaSTAY towel wins on comfort.

The only downside I’ve found to the stay-put pockets is in Bikram. If you are in Bikram class and you get to the part where they ask you to pull your towel up to cover your ankles (I think this is in tortoise pose? I’ve only done one full Bikram class so far), you have to pull the back of the towel off the mat and it’s just not that quick and easy to do with the pocket. But that’s a minor complaint, and you could just as easily leave the back pocket out in a Bikram class if you wanted to.

How does the towel do otherwise? Well, I find that it soaks up moisture and the fabric is amazingly “sticky” – not literally sticky, but “sticky” in that you don’t slide all over the place on the towel. I’m still amazed that such a plush towel can have such a nice, firm “grip” to it. Granted, no towel is perfect and you shouldn’t expect to be like Spider-Man with it – if you have super sweaty palms I can’t guarantee you won’t slide a little bit in a long downdog – but this towel really does well in the no-slip department.

The towel seems to wear well and it is washable. Overall, I think it’s a great yoga towel and it’s one of my favorites. Thumbs up.

Share on Facebook

A year later, I see a link coming in to this blog from the Accidental Yogist, which is a great Los Angeles-based yoga blog. Apparently, some yoga blog awards were given out, and my blog was on the list – but I must have missed the email. However, in searching for the “Online Nursing Programs & Awarding the Web” website, I didn’t find much of anything, and a search on 2010 Top Yoga Blogs revealed a site that seems to be trying to do search engine optimization on massage schools as a means to generate ad revenue. Are these awards scams or not? Oh well, it’s still a compliment if you get one – the spammers are perhaps looking for blogs with decent traffic to link back to them.

Share on Facebook

U.S. News interviewed me for an article they just published titled “Yoga Teaching Increasingly Popular as Second Career.” I’m the naysayer cautioning that “yoga isn’t a path to instant riches.”

Considering the length allotted for articles, I felt that the writer did a decent job covering a variety of bases, though there were some points I had mentioned to her that she was unable to fit in. I also had a few more thoughts to share on the subject.

One was that it is yoga’s “dirty little secret” that the cost of training often far exceeds the profit-making potential, especially when you add in the cost of CEUs, insurance and yearly registration with Yoga Alliance. Once you get your 200-hour training, you’ll likely want to get a 500-hour training, which will add another $3,000 to your training costs. Yes, this is definitely much cheaper than getting a college degree, but will a mother with kids be able to do what a single 20something can do and take a lower salary with no benefits in order to teach yoga? And once registered with Yoga Alliance, you are required to get a certain number of contact hours to maintain your certification. With weekend workshops running at $400 and up sometimes, this adds up.

If you can become an established and well-known yoga teacher, there is of course the potential to not just make good money, but to become pretty darn rich. But how many teachers really have the potential to be Shiva Rea, who is charismatic, brilliant and able to bend her body like a pretzel at will while doing a one-armed handstand?

For those of us with more modest talents, we might be happy to be teaching regular classes at a small local yoga studio or at the Y. But I would not expect to make a huge career out of yoga teaching, unless I was really determined and found creative ways to put my name out there. It takes a lot of work and dedication to be a successful yoga teacher.

To really make it, I suspect you may have to make your own way. You can’t just put resumes out there. You need an in. This is why it’s sometimes a good idea to take the yoga teacher training at the place you want to work at – they might be more inclined to hire from “within.”

Otherwise, there’s a lot of competition for jobs. Even with new studios, don’t expect an easy in. At least in Los Angeles, there were new studios popping up all the time, and these may be the hardest places to get jobs at if you are a new teacher. Why? They all seem to want teachers with existing followings to bring students to the classes, even though they aren’t willing to pay a lot for said teachers. It’s like they expect their yoga teachers to market their new yoga studio for them.

Second, I hate to say it, a few of those new yoga studio owners I dealt with in Los Angeles were a bit, well, nuts. Or arbitrary. One very anal and unpleasant guy, when I followed up with him about a yoga job, gave me a patronizing lecture for 20 minutes about how no-one was qualified to teach anything if they hadn’t done it for at least three years…and I was like…umm I’ve been teaching a variety of things for over 15 years! Just not yoga (at that time). I emailed him later to tell him that I was coming not just to inquire about jobs but to see the new place as I might want to attend classes as a student, and after his attitude, I was interested in being neither. (Note to yoga studio owners, yoga teachers aren’t just potential hires, they are also potential customers.)

There’s a certain amount of politicking that can go on with yoga jobs. The worst I experienced was when the new manager at the gym I subbed at ignored all the existing subs (who were hired by the previous manager and next in line seniority-wise for a regular class) and hired outside the gym…someone whom I suspect was actually a friend of hers. I had emailed the new manager repeatedly asking when I might take on a regular class, because that was why I was initially hired. She blew off every email and then, when I questioned her after her announce of the new teacher, she claimed I wasn’t proactive enough. But the new yoga teacher? She had shared her yoga poetry. What? Hello? I emailed you constantly…you never responded…you never showed up to one of my classes to check in on me…I thought that was your job, to observe my class once in a while…what did you want me to do, stalk you? What can you do with people like that?

This speaks to the fact that if you truly want a yoga career, you might consider brushing up your skills as a sycophant and go become buddy buddy with all the fitness managers and yoga studio owners in your area.

I was naive when I first started teaching yoga and had this silly expectation that people who hired yoga teachers would be magically enlightened, nice people. Nope. Don’t get me wrong, not all yoga studio owners and gym managers are jerks, some are super nice and wonderful. But be aware that some are going to be difficult.

Then there are the studios that are just plum out of openings. My friend here in Austin has been on a wait-list for six months just to get an audition to teach. Six months! And if he’s lucky, he’ll get on the sub list with that.

You also have to consider your age and abilities. Unfortunately, I’m going to guess that the trend is towards really young teachers who can do the difficult poses, but don’t necessarily have the life wisdom or experience to be good teachers vs. flashy yoga gymnasts. And yet, I feel there is a huge need for older teachers who can work with the aging baby boomer population. The thing is, there aren’t as many yoga studios out there – yet – who cater to the 50 and older crowd.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are plenty of good 20something teachers out there. But when it comes to the spiritual side of yoga, I like my teachers to be aged, wizened wise men and crones…like Gurmukh…she’s what, 70something now? There’s value in that.

Does all of this sound like sour grapes? Perhaps, but I think it’s important to go into the yoga jungle with your head on straight. Expecting magical yoga riches to fall down upon your head easily after getting your RYT is perhaps a little bit of a fantasy. Yes, you can definitely pick up some classes and make some part-time income without totally busting your yoga butt, but a full-time career may take some effort.

Those people who do make yoga a full-time career really work at it. And that includes, networking, putting up your website, marketing yourself, and perhaps taking on crappy jobs you don’t like (such as registering people at the front desk of the yoga studio) to get your foot in the door. If you really love it, and you want it badly enough, you can make it happen.

Now, as for me, since I’ve moved to Austin last fall, I haven’t been teaching yoga for money. I am making enough money right now in my business that I don’t need to make extra cash doing yoga. For this reason, I am enjoying teaching yoga for free as a seva – I teach chair yoga to a bunch of little old ladies, some 80 and up, at a local church. And I’m really enjoying it.

At some point I may start looking into picking up some subbing here and there, teaching a regular class, or offering privates, but in some respects I’m enjoying yoga without needing it to be a job for me. That feels freeing in a strange way. I no longer have a compulsion to check Craigslist for yoga openings. I’m even enrolled in a mix-and-match 500-hour training…just for the fun and learning I’ll get from it. Not because I need to profit from it.

Share on Facebook

I had previously felt that I would never try Bikram or hot yoga, because I was concerned that the heat might be too much for me. With my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I have mild orthostatic intolerance, which basically means if I have my head down (say in standing forward bend) and stand up too quickly, I can get a bit dizzy and faint. But there’s a Bikram yoga school within walking distance, and there was a sale on one of those group coupon sites. So I took the plunge.

The first thing that concerned me was that this particular yoga studio has one big rule, which I frankly feel is unsafe, and that is this: You cannot leave the class early. They tell you to rest if you feel dizzy or sick, but that you must stay in the hot room. Well, I decided, rule or no rule, the yoga practice room was not a prison, and if I wanted to leave, no one would be stopping me. And that’s the thing – you have to remember that we voluntarily go to yoga and no-one forces you to do anything. Nor can anyone hold you anywhere against your will, unless they are the police and they have a reason to arrest you.

With that peace of mind, that I was ultimately free to leave no matter how they might berate me later for it, I suited up in a boyshort bathing suit bottom and sports top and entered into a stuffy, smelly room that felt like a sauna for old wet socks. No amount of mental preparation ultimately matched up to the real hotness of the room. But I found a spot in the back corner and got ready.

This particular yoga studio also has another rule – which I’m not sure is a Bikram rule or a specific rule to this studio – that you cannot have your first drink of water until after the first four exercises. Once again, I decided no-one would stop me if I truly needed a drink, though I would try to make it through. Because of this rule, I made a point of drinking a little Gatorade before class started, and I brought Gatorade and water. I did make it through the first four exercises without dying of thirst, but I could tell during these exercises I would need hydration soon. Once we got past the first four exercises, we were given a brief water break and then told we could only drink between poses, so as not to disturb the other class mates.

A note on hydration: I probably drank more Gatorade than actual water during the class, but I drank both. Gatorade is used by a lot of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome because the electrolytes help with low blood volume, which is often a factor in CFS. I absolutely believe that the Gatorade saved me from having any major problems with the heat during the class. I don’t know if Gatorade is for everyone, but I would absolutely not attend Bikram yoga without it. If you have any sort of syndrome that entails low blood pressure or low blood volume, you might want to have ample Gatorade with you in hot yoga classes.

Now, about the poses. I have done the Bikram series at home occasionally, and I also have a yoga video that offers a Bikram-inspired practice. The actual series itself is not overly difficult for me, except that I am unable to fully do some of the postures due to my lack of flexibility. (I can’t lay down in “Fixed Firm” for example.) But one thing that struck me right away in the class was how much harder everything was to do in the heat. I could feel my heart working harder, and so I made sure I took it easy and did not push myself too much. In Bikram each pose is done twice. Even though I might have been able to plow through two times, I decided, especially during the standing series, to rest during the second iteration, unless the pose was super easy.

You must “rest” by standing still and looking straight forward, or, you can go down to your knees. I did see someone sitting quite a bit, but I managed to rest just fine by standing during iteration two of each standing posture.

I also discovered that the heat does, indeed, make your muscles more flexible. This was a nice benefit when sitting on my heels “Japanese-style” (as the teacher called it), because normally I feel some discomfort in the tops of my ankles and feet. In the hot room, I felt no discomfort at all.

On the flip side, my body would suddenly have pains in areas I didn’t know needed attention. In bringing my foot up for the “Standing Head to Knee” pose, my right hip suddenly hit me with a sharp pain I’d never felt before. I backed off immediately. It is important to back off if you feel a sharp pain in any kind of yoga! My left hip also didn’t like “Standing Head to Knee” pose, so I bowed out of this one.

I knew Camel would be a problem, because it makes me dizzy in normal temperatures. I tried it briefly and chose to sit it out – it was the only pose where I felt I might have dizziness problems.

Otherwise, the main side effects of the heat were profuse sweating and one in a while a little tingling in my head, which told me it was time to drink more water. (I am very sensitive to this sort of thing, having gotten heat exhaustion once while hiking out in the hot sun.)

The day after the class, I feel pretty good. I’m not sore or achy like I feared I might be. My body feels strangely “lighter” – I think that’s maybe the detox effect of the sweating. I can tell my heart had a workout though – it’s a subtle thing, but I can tell my heart is tired! How funny is that! So despite the admonition by Bikram to do hot yoga daily, there’s no way I’d be going back to hot yoga class today. My body needs recovery time.

So the million dollar question is: Did I like it?

Well, I can’t say that I left the class feeling like I just “found” the magic yoga wand. Nor did I leave the class feeling like I hated it. I think I have mixed feelings about it.

On the positive, I can see how the heat may be beneficial to a certain extent. It does loosen you up, and the sweating is certainly detoxifying.

I have always liked the Bikram series of postures and I prefer that style of yoga – i.e., a set sequence – to vinyasa flow. I particularly like the floor sequence because it reminds me of what I loved best about Sivananda yoga, which sadly isn’t available here in Austin.

I wasn’t crazy about the teaching style. I didn’t hate it, but it was very militaristic in a way. I can imagine that if the eccentric Bikram was teaching, his personality would make that style a bit fun. But a tiny young woman in her 20s barking out orders from a raised platform just doesn’t have the same panache as some crazy old Indian guru. The teacher certainly did a decent job, and she even remembered people’s names to give them tips in class (including my own)…it’s just that the style is a bit brusque.

On the negative, I feel the high heat is perhaps more dangerous than the Bikram people want to admit (or care to admit). And what’s strange to me is that in a style of yoga where everyone should be extra careful and listen to their bodies, where people should be drinking water as much as they need, and where people should feel free to leave if they are feeling unwell, you get a series of rules to discourage you from doing that.

I have never been in a yoga class before with so many rules. I can’t say I am keen on this aspect of Bikram. A lot of these rules probably came from the man up top, Bikram himself, but I am guessing that certain Bikram studios are a bit more “rigorous” than others on these points. Bikram seems to me to be a bit of an ideologue, and I think individual studios might do better to bring some common sense and caution into hot yoga.

What amazes me is that this type of yoga has taken off like it has! With all the crazy rules, and military style, and high expectations (they encourage you to take classes daily for two months when you start), it’s absolutely astonishing this form of yoga has hit the big time. I’m surprised people come back after the first class – especially people new to yoga.

But, judging by the number of young people in the class (and don’t get me wrong, there were a few older people as well), I wonder if this type of yoga has brought a different type of person to yoga – perhaps sports people who really want to get their asses kicked in a hot and sweaty yoga class. And while I’ve seen tattoos in regular yoga class, the Bikram class was Tattoo City. Given this is Austin, the tattoos are an indication of someone perhaps being part of the music scene, so maybe Bikram appeals more to hipsters than a regular yoga class. These people may be totally bored or put off in softer, gentler yoga classes where the teacher is giving fluffy platitudes about connecting body and soul. All I knew was, this Bikram studio had a vibe unlike any other yoga studio I’ve ever been to. It was definitely different.

I will go back – in part just because my coupon was a very cheap class pass and I have a bunch more classes I can take. I will reserve final judgment on Bikram until I’ve gone to at least a few classes. I won’t be going daily or even every other day…maybe once or twice per week. I still have a kundalini yoga practice and also regular hatha I like to do. Will that be enough to adjust to the hot room? We shall see.

P.S. If you are new to Bikram, this article is also helpful: How to Have a Better Bikram Yoga Experience

Share on Facebook

I know some folks truly hate Walmart and see it as the store of Satan. In my neighborhood, a smaller, urban Walmart revitalized a strip mall wasteland that had formerly been a mall. Local businesses who were struggling in the area have seen an increase in business by about 30% since the Walmart arrived. I can also walk to Walmart, so I figure it’s better to walk there than get in a pollution-creating car to shop elsewhere. So I’ve gotten to know my local Walmart and found that they sell yoga props and clothes!

Walmart is known for its low prices, and in the past it’s had a lot of so-so in-store brands to choose from (Faded Glory and “George”). Lately, you can find more “name” brands at Walmart (including the bizarre Max Azria/Miley Cyrus combo), such as Danskin.

I remember Danskin as the “leotard” company in my youth. Well, leotards are out, and Danskin now sells a bunch of fitness wear. At Walmart, you may find Danskin yoga wear, including yoga tops in bright colors and patterns, as well as yoga pants (with rollover waist). I actually prefer the simple cargo sweatpant that Danskin sells…it’s comfortable for yoga and not overly tight so I don’t feel compelled to wear an uncomfortable thong.

Dankin’s yoga shirts are terrific for the price, which you can’t beat. The yoga shirt pictured here sells for $8. It’s a layered look, with a built-in shelf bra and that sort of “Dri-More Tech” material that’s supposed to wick away moisture. They also offer cotton/stretch shirts in patterns and solids.

I’ve worn the Danskin yoga wear to yoga classes and found the clothes to be comfortable and attractive. I don’t see any perceivable difference in quality between Danskin’s yoga shirts and most of the pricier stuff you’ll find at a yoga boutique. I have tried Dankin’s full length loose fitness pants and found them to be a little high for me (my legs are long) but that’s my only complaint. The shirts, on the other hand, are generous in length, so they should cover your torso and have enough fabric left over to cover the top of your rear so you don’t have to worry so much about your pants sliding down when you lean forward. I really like my shirts to have that length!

I realize there is the concern that an $8 shirt is potentially supporting sweatshops. I cynically feel that most $50 shirts are also potentially supporting sweatshops, but the markup is simply higher. Then I wonder…would I rather that people in Asia had no jobs at all? Maybe it’s better that they at least have some businesses over there offering jobs as opposed to none. A crappy job is better than no job. Well, the ethical considerations are up to you. However, I feel that pricey yoga clothes should not be a barrier to yoga entry, and more affordable yoga clothes can help those who are on a budget and might not otherwise be able to ante up for $80 swanky yoga pants.

If you don’t have a Walmart near you, Danskin yoga clothes are also available at Walmart’s website. Yes, I know, supporting the evil empire. But if you truly cannot afford $50 yoga shirts, then these are a really good alternative.

P.S. I own this purple shirt. It’s super cute.

Share on Facebook

As a follow up to my last post on Yoga Journal’s model search, I wanted to share an email I wrote to the woman who first alerted me to the contest with her “vote for me!” email. I had actually sent her the link to the blog post she inspired. She wrote back to say she did not disagree with me entirely, but that she was not shallow or doing this for vanity, but doing this “for fun.” She said she wanted to “touch a larger audience” with yoga, which she loves. Here is my response:

That’s right, I don’t know you…so why did you email me to vote for you, except that somehow I got put on your email list because I have a yoga site? And really ask yourself honestly…if it’s not about vanity on some level, then why would you email strangers asking for a vote with no other commentary? Why do you personally need to “touch a larger audience” through a picture in Yoga Journal, when Yoga Journal already reaches a large audience? How would *your picture*, versus someone else’s, help the cause of yoga?

Isn’t there another way to reach people, without “showing off” your scorpion pose, a pose that not everyone is physically capable of doing?

I’m just asking you to reflect on these points, because ultimately when we, without deeper consideration, support things like yoga model searches in a magazine that has routinely showcased only one view of yoga on its cover – mainly young white women – we’re hurting not only women but yoga in general. Who do you really want to reach with yoga? Just limber young women like yourself capable of doing gymnastic poses? Or is yoga something more to you? Is it something deeper, more spiritual? If so, how does a model search support that? Did you stop to consider that you having “some fun” could be scaring off overweight women from yoga? Old people from yoga?

All that said, I felt your photo was nice and not “exploitative” in the way a lot of the bikini shots are on the site. So I didn’t personally find your picture offensive. It was more that you were contributing to this horrible contest, and sending out this “vote for me” email to everyone you knew and did not know, without really considering the deeper meaning of what you were promoting.

In our Facebook/celebrity culture, it seems everyone wants their 15 minutes and to ask people to “vote for me!” is just a symptom of that.

So please don’t take this as a personal attack…I just hope you’ll think about these things more and so will other young women in yoga. I feel young women have been brainwashed so much by our culture that they don’t even realize they are swimming in exploitation, and end up contributing to it by wanting to “join in” on the supermodel culture. I hate that this culture is now affecting yoga.

Namaste

P.S. I did find a picture of a 60-year-old woman in the “Talent” Search. You can vote for her here:
http://talentsearch.yogajournal.com/view/570

Share on Facebook

Someone I don’t know just emailed me with the subject “Vote for me!” – upon opening this email, I was asked to vote for this person to become the next Yoga Journal “model.”

UGH.

This “talent” search is *everything* that is wrong about yoga today. So what do you see when you go to the talent search website? Mostly a bunch of narcissistic people, mainly young women, some seriously wearing skimpy bikinis, who are contributing to the body dysmorphic problems our teenage girls face today. Because what’s really important in life is showing off your hot bod in a yoga pose, not considering that by showcasing only one form of the female body – i.e., skinny – you are contributing to eating disorders, low self-esteem, and the objectification of women.

Example: This young women doesn’t look like she’s dressed for yoga; she’s dressed for a burlesque show.

My recommendation? Besides burning your Yoga Journal subscription? Give high votes for the men, the older “models” and anyone who does not fit Yoga Journal’s skinny young white woman formula.

I unfortunately found no plus-sized women or older women on the many pages I viewed.

I did find some guys you might want to give high votes for, just to prove a point:

This guy isn’t doing an amazing pose. He’s also not wearing a bikini. He just looks normal, relaxed and happy: He gets 5 stars from me.

This guy is 53. He’s also not wearing a bikini. He gets 5 stars from me.

Here’s an actual black man doing yoga! Wow, did black men do yoga? You wouldn’t know it from Yoga Journal covers. Not only does he get my affirmative action vote, he gets a vote for being serene, and not wearing a bikini.

Yoga Journal has seriously gone off the deep end with this model business.

PS I am working on launching a new online yoga magazine that is more inclusive and not focused on shallow models like Yoga Journal. If you would like to contribute, please contact me. I intend to lead by example.

Share on Facebook