Yoga or Gymnastics?

Laughter yoga, SUP yoga, horseback yoga, slackline yoga… so many styles of yoga these days. Yoga with music, yoga with no music, yoga for footballers, yoga for males only. Yoga for hangover. Mimosa yoga. Yoga has become such an effective way of selling things, that’s for sure. 

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana aka king pigeon. Looks good, feels good, is this yoga?

Everything that makes you feel good about yourself is certainly a good thing, so no judgement on alpaca yoga. But really, not everything deserves to be marketed as yoga. (I would call it alpaca asana, at most...)

My main concern is not that we are disrespecting an ancient system by misusing it for our egoic purposes. More than that I am genuinely worried that these new age yoga styles blind us from the real beauty and potential of it. Also, the lack of knowledge in our practices can actually cause more harm than good. The world is over-cooking, and so are most modern day yogis with their overly heating practices. Prana is power, do we know how to use it?

If we continue this way, the powerful teachings of yoga as a way of living a more fulfilled and harmonious life will be long lost and forgotten within the next century. It’s already hard to find genuine teachers and practitioners. There are teacher trainings with zero study of the ancient scriptures, and the main focus on how to create a brand out of yourself. Meditation is a missing component in most drop in classes today. 

Yoga in its very essence is a practice designed to guide us back to who and what we are. Of course there are many paths to self realization... but I dare to doubt that stretching with alpacas or consuming alcohol while doing asana is leading anyone closer to awakening. 

It was never about asana

Yoga is rooted in the Sanskrit word “yuj”, which means “to yoke, to join, to unite”. It’s not only about bringing body, mind and spirit into harmony but bigger than that: yoga aims to bring the individual consciousness into union with the universal one.

Yoga appeared first in the Vedas, ancient sacred texts that date older than I can understand (3300-1500 BCA). The wild market of yoga today has gone far from these sanskrit scripts written on palm leaves... The word asana, which is how yoga is primarily known in the west has very little room in these texts. And when it does appear, there are no mentions of Warriors or Triangles. That stuff has developed much later, within the past 100 years, and the story tells that it’s actually inspired by Scandinavian gymnastics. (LOL, seriously)

One of the oldest (5000+ years) yoga texts, The Bhagavad Gita defines asana as "the place where one sits for spiritual practice”. Same thing with the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: asana is explained as a sitting posture that is stable and comfortable. Sage Patanjali would also probably ask us, where are the other 7 limbs of yoga, and why would 2020 yogis lean on asana solely. :-)

Much later, around the 15th century, the first detailed information and introduction on asana was made. The foundational scripture of classical yoga and most modern yoga styles, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, puts more emphasis on asana but still sees it just as a purification and preparation for deeper yogic practices (pranayama, mudra, bandha, meditation). 

The message is clear: traditionally, yoga was never about exercise and those flip dogs play very little to no role in expanding one’s consciousness. 

Adho Mukha Svanasana aka down dog, origins in 1930s.

From Himalayas to heated studios

Change is inevitable: life looks very different today compared to 5000 years ago. I am not suggesting that we should all quit our jobs and move to the Himalayas to meditate in caves all day long. Yoga will keep adapting to our needs, and that is okay. The question is, do we know what we need, and does the wild west of yoga know how to respond to those needs? 

As mentioned before, the lack of real understanding of why we do what we do on our mats can actually take us backwards in life. The world is heating up and so are we. Rising temperatures, climate hazards, anger based politics, violence and riots going on in the world can all be seen as expressions of excess heat. Our lifestyles are already over stimulated: smartphones, social media, Netflix, overuse of stimulants such as coffee, alcohol and tobacco, are all adding up to our already busy lives. Our yoga practices should support our lives and bring us back to harmony, not further away from it. 

Strong heating vinyasa or hot yoga can be beneficial when practiced in an intelligent way. A kaphic person (someone prone to heaviness and dullness, stagnancy or depression) or people living in cold circumstances may benefit from a bit of fire. But to be honest, that’s a less common set up for modern day yogi. After a hectic day at the office, to restore the balance what we would need is stillness, silence and serious slowing down. But instead, like attracts like, and we feel called to even more stimulation in our yoga practices. Energizing class at the end of the day just doesn’t make sense to me: how is that supposed to bring us back to harmony?

When looking at your practice, and whether it’s good for you or not, there are a couple of good questions to start with: how does my on the mat practice affect my off the mat life? How is my sleep? Digestion? Relationships? Ability to handle stress? Focusing less on how the practice itself feels and more on the feeling afterwards is a great guideline. Can you sit still in meditation after your asana practice?

Yoga is a life practice

There are no right and wrong ways to live your life and the same applies to yoga.

Also I do believe that all steps on our path to enlightenment serve a purpose. Personally, I practiced Bikram and hot vinyasa yoga (how many chaturangas can one perform in 90 minutes?) and had no clue about meditation for the first 5 years of my yoga path. And you know what, it was perfect for that time. It helped me to purify my body and the subtle channels within, and come into closer contact with my mind. It was my gateway to deeper and more traditional teachings of yoga, so I truly am grateful for all of those practices. After many years of sweating and focusing on correct alignment, I came to the point where a blissful shavasana just wasn’t enough. I started craving for the feeling of connection experienced on the mat to extend to my off-the-mat life too, and this was when I was ready for the next step on my path. 

We all have our unique paths to walk, and that’s absolutely beautiful. Rather than dividing things into good and bad or right and wrong, I’m simply hoping to remind us, modern day yogis, of the power of this ancient practice.

It’s nice to be flexible and there are benefits in moving your body regularly, but yoga holds so much more potential than that. It’s a life practice, and its gifts extend far beyond the physical realm.