Where does yoga end and something else begin?

Recently there was a big article in UK newspaper The Guardian about this new revolutionary trend … in teaching breath practices. I wonder how many people like me peered at it confused thinking that’s yoga isn’t it? It’s not new to see bits of yoga and spirituality borrowed, modified and often stripped of spirituality to make them appeal to the masses or to fit them neatly into a particular context. Yoga is creeping and seeping into all sorts of new places; from schools and hospitals, to politicians in UK parliament. But it was strange to see a part of the practice extracted and presented as new, even as “yoga without the yoga”.

At the same time those of us who have been around the yoga block a few times are questioning whether everything that uses the label yoga, is truly yoga. Can it really be that what I practice with a classical approach is on a par with classes with goats, rabbits, beer, partners, nudity, flying in swings (acro), on the sea on surf boards, under the sea in aquariums? None of these things are inherently bad or wrong. But it feels like the yoga is being overstretched in every direction.

Well known yoga teacher Richard Rosen recently engaged in a discussion on this idea with blogger Nina Zolotow, starting from the point of looking at the use of “Namaste” to conclude yoga classes:

“…many classes are simply exercise workouts (though there’s nothing wrong with that) with only the most tenuous connections to the tradition. Similarly that’s why many classes begin and end with OM, or the Patanjali invocation, or why many modern asanas, like the splits (aka Hanumanasana), are given Sanskrit names. These things tend to “yoga-cize” the class, while at most we’re practicing what should properly be called Modern Western Exercise-influenced Asana.”

Nina writes that in her mind any class that is only movement based, without the inclusion of breath practices, meditation and/or philosophy is not really yoga. I know how much all those practices help me and I have a sense that yoga changed for me when it was more than just body movement. But I still feel torn on this subject.

Part of me wants to encourage the creative explorations of “yoga and…” experiments. Everyone could benefit from a few deep breaths surely? But the other part of me feels that it is cheating people. New yoga students may have heard of all the benefits of practicing yoga but may not really get those benefits only from the movement parts of practice. What if people attend one class and their only experience of yoga is a kaleidoscope of distractions from rabbit poo sticking to your foot, falling off your surf board into the sea or accidentally swinging yourself into the person next door to you? It’s enough to make an other thinker like me pensive. 

But as much as I like to think I know best, the truth is that I often don’t. The most pious spiritual devotee may benefit from a good giggle in laughing yoga, as unconventional and non-traditional as it may sound. Yoga is much bigger than setting out black and white rules of systems and practices. There will always be people creating new approaches, just as there will always be people who obsess about doing something traditionally as a benchmark of authenticity.

The important thing is that there are many doorways you can step through. Maybe I have to loosen my tension around expectations, and trust that the universe will eventually take me, and everyone else, to where we need to be.

Katy Bergson (Mukti Mani) is a resident teacher at Mandala Yoga Ashram, a traditional yoga centre in Wales, UK. She is particularly interested in chanting and bhakti practice and regularly blogs on her website.

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