The Yoga Debate

Credit: The Guardian (UK)
By Hannah Booth

Jane Kersel and Tim Goullet have no truck with Buddha statues or burning incense. You will not hear "namaste" or "Om" in their new London studio. Instead the poses they teach eschew tongue-twisting Sanskrit names and aim for simplicity: a twisting pose is called Road Runner, after the cartoon bird, a pair of lifts are simply "hard" and "harder". Traditional yoga this isn't.


Called Shed (simplify, heal, empower, detox), this exercise method has been developed by Goullet, an osteopath, and Kersel, a yoga teacher. The programme will start in London in September and the inventors' hope is that it will attract those who might not normally venture into a yoga class.

"Yoga's millennia-old series of poses weren't designed for bodies with modern ailments," says Kersel, referring to conditions such as the tight hamstrings and shoulders, and sore backs that can result from days spent in front of a computer. Moreover, she says that the discipline's spiritual origins also don't appeal to everyone. "We want to make it fun, and want the average person to be able to do it. If you ask around any yoga class as to why people are there, 90% say they just want to look good in a bikini."

Jez Cartwright, 39, is Shed's target audience. He goes to the gym three or four times a week to do weights and to run. But the Shed class was his first experience of any yoga-type exercise. "It's always a bit embarrassing for men to do aerobics or yoga," he says. "I've always thought of it as quite hard. But they've taken out all the mumbo-jumbo. I had to concentrate harder than at the gym, which felt like a workout in itself."

It's not the first attempt to demystify yoga. Bikram yoga is also less spiritual than traditional forms. Its 26 postures are designed by its founder, Bikram Choudhury. Classes resemble aerobics sessions: heart rates sky-rocket, teachers wear headsets, and the focus is on the physical. Yet postures retain their Sanskrit names and their roots are clearly in the Hatha yoga tradition. Even so, Choudury has been slammed by traditionalists for making money from an ancient discipline through patenting postures and sexualising yoga.

Other attempts to make yoga more accessible have been met with similar disapproval. New York's Tara Stiles attracts huge audiences with her down-to-earth YouTube videos and iPhone apps of short routines such as "high-heel yoga". Her book Slim Calm Sexy Yoga is packaged like an exercise video and promises rapid weight loss. Critics, however, have labelled it bastardised and sexist.

Yet Stiles's mantra, like Shed's, is that "yoga is for everyone". She says she wants firemen and people in rural areas to take it up and argues that the discipline's status in the west is exclusive and elitist. "I get letters from army and navy guys who do yoga online – people who wouldn't be caught dead in a yoga studio," she explains.

So why does yoga get people so riled? Purists say that it is not just an exercise routine and that for serious students it is a way of life. "People have a daily practice, it's sacred," points out Jennilyn Carson on her website Yogadork.com. "Someone like Tara Stiles who strips it of its spirituality is seen as blasphemous."

Swami Pragyamurti Saraswati, director of the Satyananda Yoga Centre in London, says those who remove its spirituality miss the point. "It saddens me when yoga is restricted to its asanas (poses). It reduces human beings to just bodies and it's not yoga. Yoga is a broad and ancient philosophy, and a focus on its physical side is out of balance with what it stands for." She adds that the mental and spiritual aspects don't put people off, either. "The opposite, actually. We have a huge spectrum of people here, not just skinny girls under 40. People looking for the hot, sweaty stuff usually go elsewhere."

Goullet insists that Shed is not supposed to supplant traditional yoga "Our method works on many levels, physical and spiritual," he says. "It will get your body in good shape for any form of exercise."

But Hamish Hendry, a leading UK teacher of traditional ashtanga yoga, challenges the idea that yoga is not suitable for 21st-century bodies. "Most of my ashtanga students are modern people who sit at desks all day. Yoga certainly works for them," he says.

"I believe the spiritual aspect of yoga is as important as the physical, but for a lot of people, that spiritual level comes later." But, he says, having a choice is no bad thing. "There's so much out there, it's all good. People can find something to suit them."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/18/health-is-this-still-yoga

A Good Flow

Mister M's "Gentle Flow" class tonight wasn't that gentle but it sure had a lot of flow. Just what I needed. Have been off the mat for a few days and my body was ready for some deep stretches and twists. So we went from Warrior 2 to Reversed Warrior to Triangle to Half Moon; as well as Tiger and Twisted Tiger ... all required twisting the lower trunk of the body in order to open up the chest. It felt Great. I have also discovered this "pose" that I can practise at home: place one straight leg on the back of a chair and rest it there, the standing leg (also fully engaged and straight) is grounded and supporting the body, which I lower down sideways until it is at the same level as the lifted leg, then twist the chest to face the sky. Then hold. Because various parts of the body are being twisted at the same time, I can tense up and then relax. It feels amazing!!!

Oh, I've been invited to give a short talk on my yoga experiences next month, which should be fun. I'm trying to get one of my instructors to join me too because I think it'd be interesting to hear what more seasoned practitioners have to say about their practice.

Have also been invited to a school reunion back in the UK in October ... I ought to go but it may clash with another invitation to New Zealand ... haven't decided what to do yet but will just follow the flow ...

Another Bleeding Cold





Oh, sod it, I won't be going to another Hot Yoga class for awhile. This is, like, the third cold I've had in just as many months and I reckon it's cos the hot room is, in fact, a hot bed for nasty germs (thanks to inconsiderate, germs-carrying students). I thought the whole point of practising yoga is to be healthy, not sick. Anyway, here are some simple poses that I enjoy getting into (before infection) ... am not sure about the alignment but they look kinda correct ...

Triangle Pose




Eagle Pose  Credit: Guru Eric

 











Harry Potter ...

who has never been the real star. The REAL STARS are, of course, all the grown up wizards especially in the movie series. In the final instalment, Alan Rickam (who plays Snape) alone is worth the ticket price. His last scene is devastatingly tragic and heart-breaking *sob* Also to look out for are Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent and Helena Bonham-Carter (playing Hermione playing Bellatrix Lestrange). Brilliant. Absolutely Brilliant.

Rickman with Smith

The Tree of Life

Don't you just love it when you walk into a movie with zero expectation? When I walked into The Tree of Life, I had no idea what the movie was about ~ at all. I only knew that it won this year's Palme d'Or at Cannes and that was about it. So you can imagine how (pleasantly) surprised I was when I realise this is not really a movie as we normally see it. "Starring" Brad Pitt and Sean Penn (who just gets better and better as he ages), this is actually a Full On arthouse flick on a general (mainstream) release ... it's basically a poetic rendition of what Life is about. A member of the family dies. What does death mean within the religous, emotional, social and even political context? What is life all about? The movie offers both a scientific and religious response to that, which is interesting. We were even treated with scenes of the beginning of the Universe and the dinosaur age. However, there is a sort of narrative to this drama and that I found a little all over the place. While I realise it has a non-linear narrative, it was somehow presented as a drama-with-a plot, which is as confusing as it is annoying. People did walk out from the screening; perhaps they were expecting to see Pitt/Penn act ... well, Penn certainly just drifted through the whole thing, albeit somewhat stylishly. I thoroughly enjoyed the visuals (cinematography?) of The Tree of Life -- it was like watching an unusually long artsy video (made for art biennials) but projected onto the big screen.

Off to see Transformers 3 tomorrow (got dragged along by my dad, of all people) and then Harry Potter VII (Part 2) on Tuesday. Can't wait!!!

  

A Pinched Nerve

OUCH! I think I've finally located the source of that pain in my neck (see last post): a pinched nerve close to my left shoulder blade. I'm quite certain of that because whenever I turn my neck in a certain way, I get this numbness running dowm my arm. Not good. Worse, it means I may have to give up PSP-ing (just like some people have to give up eating peanuts)... and I shall NEVER find out what Aya Brea wears underneath her torn combat suit !! !! !!

Have to say yoga DOES help alleviate the pain a little ... but, tonight, I was distracted by other pains of other kinds when my instructor first tried to get me into a split then, in the evening's second class, pushed my hips down towards the floor when I was in that hip-opening frog pose ... I thought my pelvis was going to split into halves. I walked out of the class feeling [like Mr] Fantastic ...

A Pain in the Neck

Some people aren't good at sports, others are terrible in the kitchen ... I'm just crap at PSP games. Despite my addiction to the Dissidia titles and, most recently, The 3rd Birthday (see earlier posts) I now realise my brain is simply NOT wired to handling controls (it surprises me even today I have a driver's licence). My fingers are not fast enough and reflex is too slow. In the crucial moment of (virtual) life and death, I plunge into confusion and die. I mean, do not be deceived by the handheld's simple layout. 

Though on the face of it, there are only, like, 11 buttons to press/move -- 4 directional keys on the left + scroll; the iconic triangle, circle, cross and square buttons on the right; plus the L and R triggers at the top -- but to execute a combo move, you'd need to hit a combination of those bits and bobs (hence "combo") to set off an action (shoot) ... so do the maths, there can be some 121 combinations; and if you have several game titles on the go at the same time, it can be very, very, very confusing.

So playing the PSP can be an extremely (IN)TENSE experience for me. The other afternoon, I was just seconds away from killing a boss in The 3rd Birthday but I was also down on life points so my brain was screaming I MUST, MUST, MUST KILL THE BASTARD NOW OR I'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS FRIGGING NIGHTMARE AGAIN ... WHY DOESN'T IT DIE?!?!? Well, I did kill it (thank god) but not without a price: my left index finger went numb after pressing it too hard on the left trigger! Worse, during a Yin class that eveing, I couldn't turn my neck to the left without my left shoulder pulling up because of the pain in my neck that stretches all the way down to my upper back(!!!)

I have a PSP injury! I think because I was SO intense/nervous/highly-strung/other synonyms when playing the game I torn my neck muscle, or something.

So now I am just resting. I still have TWO more chapters to go in The 3rd Birthday but I won't be playing them very soon (I'll just have to watch the walkthorough on YouTube in the meantime to quench the urge). And guess what, I am still on the EASY mode. I cannot imagine what the NORMAL (let alone the GENOCIDE) mode is going to be like. And I'm not going to find out ... unless I want a heart attack.