Last week I wrote an article strongly positing that in order for more men to do yoga, the yoga industry had to change. This week, I’m building off of that same train of thought, but taking it in a slightly different direction. Does the yoga industry really need to be fixed? The yoga industry is a billion dollar industry. Obviously somebody, somewhere is doing something correctly. There are many people who are attracted to yoga for all of its many benefits, both tangible and intangible. Yoga has “saved” the lives of thousands. It has healed PTSD victims, helped people cure harmful addictions, and been a major factor in helping people change their lives for the better. Yoga has had an extremely positive effect on millions of people, and that is something to be lauded, honored, and commended.
Personally, yoga helped me achieve the physical fitness that I have today. Flexibility, core strength, endurance, and the more toned look that I have now are all physical, tangible benefits that I gained through a consistent yoga practice. Performing yoga poses correctly helped me gain a level of control over my body that I would never have gained throwing around weights. (Don’t get me wrong, there is NO rush like the one that you get after you finish a brutal weight lifting session.) I improved my concentration abilities. My body recovers more quickly.
However, there were (and are) a lot of times that I feel uncomfortable doing yoga. I am not one to have blind faith, and being presented with a yoga chart that says that there is a lot of emotional tension in your hips makes me skeptical. Has this been proved by Western medicine? Where are you getting this “fact” from? Even if the science of yoga is something that has existed for thousands of years, does that mean that it is correct? I am much too skeptical to ever believe a statement like that. A lot of this has to do with my own natural tendency to need an explanation or an answer based on logic in order to believe something. No matter how much yoga has helped me physically, I will not believe something without an adequate explanation.
There are many people for whom the full spectrum of yoga provides benefits. However, EVERYBODY can benefit from the physical benefits of yoga. That is something that can be proven. That is something that I can explain in thirty seconds. On the other hand, explaining that certain physical ailments such as arthritis are caused specifically by loneliness (as I saw on a yoga poster yesterday) is something that I, as someone who needs their facts to be based on logic or proven by science, cannot understand or explain with conviction.
Innovation happens when an individual arrives at a solution. One form of this is using aspects of multiple things already in existence to create a new thing. That is what I am doing with Man Flow Yoga. Man Flow Yoga is a solution to the people who want the physical benefits of yoga without the other stuff. I am creating a new form of physical fitness, inspired by yoga, backed by modern science and concrete statistics, in order to help people be in the best physical shape that they can possibly be. Man Flow Yoga is only the umbrella. There’s more to come. Stay tuned.
you might want to check this out: https://www.bikramyoganyc.com/symposium/
I’ll definitely read as much about it as I can. I got my yoga start with Bikram, and I think it’s a fantastic workout.
Great article.
Thank you!
I think there is some truth, even scientific, to a mental and emotional connection within the body – and not just limited to yoga. It’s pretty common in traditional martial arts as well – much more “Eastern”, certainly.
I know I experience it when I’m going through my stuff – mostly when I’m doing cool down stretches that are long and you need to relax, or during savasana. I get the weirdest memories coming back sometimes when I’m pushing into a particularly tight area of a stretch. Stuff I hadn’t thought about in years.
It makes sense, logically even. The mind is a part of the body, and the body a manifestation of the mind (it causes it all to move). They are inexorably linked – one and the same. Your body can effect your mental state as surely as your mental state can effect your body.
Just today when I was doing some laying down twists in my hips, my mind wandered back to these roommates I had in college. It was somehow related to my hips, but I don’t know how – and as I was remembering and seeing it in a new light, I felt the tightness going away. I never know what’s going to pop up out of the past next!
And sometimes it’s the present, and the future, even though it’s not here yet – worry maybe?
So when someone tells me I have emotional tension somewhere in my body, I don’t doubt it and know exactly what they’re talking about. After all, our minds and bodies have moved through it all before, and it’s all held in memory. Old ways of throwing reps even – attitudes in the gym, on the field. It all goes into the brain and body at the same time.
It makes logical sense. Stuff like arthritis from loneliness though is not likely. There are a lot of people who think they know things when they haven’t bothered to really think things through, or just want to appear smart or wise for whatever reason. Maybe even as a selling point.
I think it’s great to be skeptical. And to call people on their crap. Mostly because they have the possibility to influence others wrongly with it. But I think it’s also important to keep an open mind, wide enough to realize that we’re always, all of us, learning all the time. Expanding. Improving. Hopefully. 😉 Unless we’re dead. Kinda the ultimate in opposing balance, eh?
I think that if people believe in things enough that they can make them manifest in themselves. I think that’s how yoga works. And I like what you say – really good points! I hope you keep commenting on the future blogs. Thank you for your time and input.
– Dean
That’s kind of you to say. It was my pleasure.
Finally – somebody has said exactly what I have been thinking for the past few months! I’ve just recently started learning about and practicing yoga. There are no local teachers where I live, so I’ve been learning from YouTube (which is how I found you). Many videos would start with chanting. Wanting to know what that was all about, I looked into it a little more. The “ancient texts” that so many people claim that yoga is based on do not have nearly the number of poses that are included in the different methods of yoga practiced today. Besides, all that chanting was starting to freak me out. I love the physical results I’m seeing from the practice, and I will continue, with the guidance of your videos. Thank you for posting this!