Comments on: Bikram NYC Responds to Yoga Competition Heat: “Enlightenment has nothing to do with it”

By: international yoga competition new york 2009 | craigs list salem or

international yoga competition new york 2009 | craigs list salem or — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:52:22 +0000

[...] Bikram NYC Responds to Yoga Competition Heat: вЂњEnlightenment has … Nov 12, 2009 … Bhairavi Andrea November 19, 2009 at 6:50 pm … NYTimes Captures NY Regional Yoga Competition … [...]

By: 12 Worst Yoga Trends That Distort The Tradition | Masters in Health Care

12 Worst Yoga Trends That Distort The Tradition | Masters in Health Care — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:28:14 +0000

[...] Yoga Competitions: Yoga is designed to be personal, working with your body and your mind to achieve a sort of harmony. In Western society, however, that drive to achieve balance and harmony often becomes a drive to achieve it better than everyone else in your yoga class. Competitive yoga is a growing phenomenon, taking the practice of yoga and turning into a contest, something that seems entirely contrary to the whole point of yoga in the first place. [...]

By: Bhairavi Andrea

Bhairavi Andrea — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:50:51 +0000

Are you serious? You can’t be serious…but I guess you are so…WOW!

By: Skill, Sweat and Skin!: NYTimes Captures NY Regional Yoga Competition (slideshow)

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:12:19 +0000

[...] been causing a ruckus with the Competitive Yoga discussion lately, and even heard back from team Bikram about it! Today we’re just going to shut our yogadorky mouths and ogle. The New York Times [...]

By: sangos

sangos — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:14:52 +0000

The competition is all about ‘Asana’ and NOT Yoga. So its Ok. In India we have these sort of competitions all the time. Maybe people in the West fret about this because I think there Asana is the start and end of Yoga. Guess ‘feeling the physical high’ after Asana practice seems to be the Western goal. So its ok at that level to compete….people might be aware of Tibetan Monks who actually have ritualized testing of the level of Yogic powers by the amount of snow melted in the freezing Himalayas, by generating body heat through meditation!

By: roseanne

roseanne — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:24:21 +0000

Way to go, YD, getting a response from the Bikram bloggers. Hilarious! I didn’t get the yoga/skiing/joy/competition analogy, either. Srsly, wha…?

By: YogaDawg

YogaDawg — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:00:08 +0000

>unnecessary environmental damage (all that electricity in the name of yoga!)

Really, can’t we at least cut energy consumption in yoga?? Guess you can call Bikram the Hummer of the yoga world.

http://yogadawg.blogspot.com/2007/08/yoga-news-sf-to-yoga-turn-down-heat.html

By: Svasti

Svasti — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:18:06 +0000

“…Enlightenment has nothing to do with it….

Fine. Then don’t call it yoga. Call it yogarobics. Or something. Coz yoga IMHO should never be seperated from it’s origins. Not every yoga class needs to include a reading from the Upanishads (for example).

But this is a competition about form and nothing else, according to Yoga Lily.

Yoga is about the synchronisng of body movement, breath and mind. And yes, its ultimately about enlightenment (somewhere down the track and whatever that means to you!). And its an expression of your connection to yourself, and everything else around you.

What it’s definitely not about: perfect forms, competition, first place trophies or the Olympics. Or, ugh, ridicuously heated rooms that dehydrate people and cause unnecessary environmental damage (all that electricity in the name of yoga!)

By: Kris

Kris — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:23:23 +0000

Still, isn’t the competitive nature of this and the possibility of Yogalympics make the very heart-truth about yoga seem trite? I do yoga to achieve so much more than the pose, as most of us do…. (Namaste, btw…) When we throw in the competition of who does the pose the “best” we take away the very basis of what yoga is and means to the masses.

To me, competitive yoga reduces this spiritual practice to nothing more than an aerobics competition. It puts forth the ego of the pose, which I try very hard to reduce in my own practice.

This is not to say that I do not take pride in my postures being as lovely as I can achieve them to be. They are the embodiment of human art form. An extent of my heart and soul in physical form. Nothing pleases me more that seeing a photo of a “perfect” asana, via Yoga Journal, this blog or my weekly class….

It’s a conundrum, for sure.