Posted by Che
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against yoga—or Eastern
disciplines in general. In fact, I’ve done tai chi exercises for many
years.
No, it’s the commodification and rhetorical dumbing-down
of yoga culture that gets to me. The way something that once was—and
still can be—pure and purifying has been larded with mystical schlock. Once a counterweight to our sweaty […]
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against yoga—or Eastern
disciplines in general. In fact, I’ve done tai chi exercises for many
years.
No, it’s the commodification and rhetorical dumbing-down
of yoga culture that gets to me. The way something that once was—and
still can be—pure and purifying has been larded with mystical schlock. Once a counterweight to our sweaty striving for ego gratification, yoga has become an unctuous adjunct to it.
There
is the exploitative and ever-proliferating “yoga media.” The advent of
yoga fashion (the yoga mat, the yoga-mat carrier, and yoga-class
ensembles). And worst of all, the yoga rhetoric, that soothing syrupy
“yoga-speak” that we all know and loathe.
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