{"id":1950,"date":"2015-12-20T11:17:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-20T11:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yogaclassplan.com\/?p=1950"},"modified":"2022-08-10T09:17:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T09:17:00","slug":"its-only-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yogaclassplan.com\/its-only-yoga\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s only Yoga!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018I sought serenity and all I got was this lousy tote bag\u2019 is the working title for a new artwork that comments on the extent to which yoga is all about selling people stuff.<\/p>\n

The piece by artist and Yogi Aurel Schmidt<\/a>, features a strange mutation of Santa Claus and Lakshmi (Hindi goddess of wealth and prosperity). Santa, cap jauntily cocked to the side and winking is morphed onto the body of Lakshmi, arms held in mudra and seated in half-lotus, on the back of giant pink flamingo, a serpent entwined around its standing leg.<\/p>\n

The figure, inspired by the artist\u2019s experience of a yoga studio – where classes ended with a closing \u2018OM\u2019 chant, and a sales pitch for their \u2018spiritual tote bags\u2019 – should represent an alarm bell for all yogaprenuers.<\/p>\n

This month, I have been offered everything from strip mall yoga groupons to $10 off on Yoga Christmas calendars \u2013 yikes \u2013 was that a promos for the infamous \u00a0#yogiselfie.\u00a0 The offer for the Christmas yoga mats, while tempting, really made me feel compromised.<\/p>\n

The extent to which yoga has become commercialised and westernised is also the subject of an internet television series called \u2018Namaste Bitches<\/a>\u2019.\u00a0 The show parodies the many contradictions of the yoga business. For example, in one episode, the studio owner applauds a yoga teacher who tears up the promo-leaflet for a studio of a rival studio.\u00a0 Of course, what else can a yogi do but laugh at the absurd and tragic nature of a job that values abhyasa (nonattachment to outcome) in the same breath as entrepreneurism.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be real.\u00a0 Yoga is a $5.7 billion business.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, yoga paraphernalia makes up more 70% of the income gained by most yoga studio or businesses.\u00a0 Let\u2019s face it, this is the means by which many yoga teachers and studios survive.\u00a0 Still, there must be a better way to market essential oils and yoga pants, than the creepy\u00a0 \u2018yoga inspired retail\u2019, \u2018eco chic\u2019 \u2018extend the yoga experience\u2019 style of adverts that make their way into my inbox, via the green tab.<\/p>\n

Yoga\u2019s new consumer identity crisis is the subject a new book by Andrea Jain, The Selling of Yoga: From Counter Culture to Pop Culture<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. In it, Jain considers the diffusion of yoga from a \u2018spiritual tradition\u2019 to a \u2018commodity\u2019 in the pop culture marketplace.\u00a0 As the love child of a mid-western American and a Hindi (of the Jain Yogi tradition), Jain is well placed to take on the debate, but she stops just short of taking a side.<\/p>\n

Strip mall yoga for all its faults, is where Jain and some twenty million other Americans practice and teach yoga.\u00a0 That the type of yoga practiced is postural rather than spiritual or lifestyle rather than religious is a non-starter.\u00a0\u00a0 For those who practice yoga, issues of authenticity versus commodity do not exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018I sought serenity and all I got was this lousy tote bag\u2019 is the working title for a new artwork that comments on the extent to which yoga is all about selling people stuff. The piece by artist and Yogi Aurel Schmidt, features a strange mutation of Santa Claus and Lakshmi (Hindi goddess of wealth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-opinion"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIt's only Yoga! - YogaClassPlan.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Has the ancient practice moved beyond it being only Yoga? 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