Hope to see you there, and thanks to those of you who’ve kept checking in on the Newb!

The yoga postures or “asanas” have been documented by New Delhi’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library following a three-year effort by a team of yoga gurus, scholars and other experts.

After scrutinizing ancient Sanskrit texts they have made video recordings of nearly 900 poses, which are widely used by those teaching and practicing yoga. It aims to record at least 1,500 poses.

Their worry stems from hundreds of yoga-related patents and trademarks issued in recent years by Western countries where yoga is becoming increasingly popular.

V.K. Gupta, who heads the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, says the ancient knowledge of yoga is “collective knowledge” and is available for use by everybody.

If you’ve always wanted join in on a Guinness World Records-worthy activity, all you’ll have to do is break out your downward-facing dog. Yoga at the Great Lawn will bring 10,000 people to NYC’s Central Park for what organizers call the “World’s Largest Yoga Event, Ever.”

Elena Brower, my go-to DVD instructor, will be leading the event, which is happening June 22 (register  by June 15).

Sigh. It’s a bit short notice for me, I’m afraid. But I’ll definitely be there in spirit–and actually, I’ll probably be in yoga class as it’s happening!

Yesterday I spotted a Yoga Journal article about Bikram Choudhury, the founder of the Bikram or “hot” yoga. Dubbed in the article title as Yoga’s Bad Boy, Choudhury comes across as ego-centric, materialistic and very neglectful of the first yama–ahimsa.

Of course, I’m probably biased, and when I read Choudhury’s vehement claim that “There is no such thing as Kundalini Yoga. No such thing as Power Yoga. No such thing as Ashtanga Yoga” and that “he alone follows Patanjali and teaches true, pure hatha yoga,” my personal practice felt insulted.

But Bikram is doing something right, with more than 100 studios run by Bikram students across the country. At each of these studios, which are heated to more than 100 degrees, numerous yogis strain to complete 26 asanas in Bikram’s particular sequence.

Aside from the controversy of whether Bikram yoga is even safe, much less capable of the miraculous healing claims made by the Bikramites in the YJ article, what really got me about Choudhury was his tone. The image of a teacher sitting up in a “throne” at the front of the studio bellowing out criticism and praise to his faithful followers–who are responsible for determining their own modifications of the poses if they have particular physical issues–bothered me a lot. I’ve toyed with the idea of visiting a hot yoga studio in town out of curiosity, but I really don’t want to in any way support the concept of yoga as competitive, profit-oriented and not totally student-oriented.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the small yoga retreat centers popping up in rural Nepal. The city of Pokhara is comparable Madison, WI, in terms of size, but a bit further up into the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas you’ll find secluded villages and rice fields–the setting for a smattering of small centers offering a variety of yoga retreats.

The teachers quoted in the NYT article seem most focused on running the centers as places to meditate and practice. The vibe seems much less about showmanship, despite the show-stopping location. I wanna go.

Either way, it’s fascinating to me that yoga is broad enough to encompass the Bikrams and the Pokhara teachers and everyone in between. I guess at the end of the day Choudhury’s business isn’t a threat to yoga; rather, it brings those with a different mentality to practice when they otherwise may not have been attracted to yoga. While I wish his approach was more collaborative or open-minded, simply disregarding him would be just as bad as his claim that “there’s no such thing as Ashtanga yoga.” There is Ashtanga yoga, and there is Bikram yoga, and there are many other kinds of yoga.

So, in the spirit of ahimsa, I’m over my bitterness at Bikram. May not mean I’ll be in one of his studios sometime soon, but I’ll try not to rant anymore!

After the session, I picked up a copy of Anondea Judith’s Eastern Body, Western Mind, which is, like, the text on chakra concepts and practice for Westerners. It’s dense, but it’s fantastic.

I was talking with one my colleagues about chakras after the session, and she asked me, “So, is any of it believable?” I thought this was an interesting question. My response at the time was simplistic–I was curious about this very different way of looking at wellness–but genuine. Using the concept of intangible energy channels as a way to maintain physical and spiritual health isn’t really all that radical, especially for a lot of religious people. For example, Christianity’s Holy Spirit seems to me a lot like a conglomerate of the upper chakras.

The physical aspect of chakras is where things both get interesting and tricky for me. Chakras aren’t part of your anatomy; you can’t cut yourself open and find your solar plexus chakra next to your stomach. But Moore argued in the workshop that while chakras aren’t physical in and of themselves, they are real in their effect on our physical beings. When a particular chakra has an excess or deficient amount of energy, your body compensates with particular aches and pains and your psyche compensates by altering your emotions and can even have larger effects on your relationships, sense of well being and career.

So here again is my colleague’s question: Is any of this believable? To me, this seems like a flawed question. Anyone can believe anything, really. Belief does not automatically make something true or untrue. Maybe a more pertinent question is whether chakras are relevant. And I would argue, based on what I’m reading so far in Judith’s book, that they are.

Looking at yourself through a prism that emphasizes well-being is very relevant, and I don’t think the specific material the prism is made of matters so much as the idea that you’re trying to get in touch with yourself in a way that improves yourself. There is no perfect prism; neither science nor Christianity, for example, gives us a full understanding of what it means to be healthy physically, mentally and emotionally. Every prism is cloudy in its own way. Chakras, too, probably aren’t perfect for everyone, but they do offer a holistic approach to maintaining yourself.

Chakras aren’t a science and they aren’t a religion (there’s no chakra dogma or universal practice). Chakras are individualized, very personal and easily incorporated into other health practices.

But that’s enough ranting. I have more reading to do, but the weather right now is fantastic, so I think I need to give my mental self a rest for awhile and go play!

Anyway, the site clued me into the scholarly feud that erupted between Deepak Chopra and Aseem Shukla in late April over Shukla’s provocatively-titled “Theft of Yoga” article in The Washington Post. Essentially, Shukla called out American yogis for neglecting, as he sees it, to acknowledge that yoga is Hindu and that practicing yoga means practicing Hinduism.

Thanks to YogaDork’s recap articles on the feud, I was able to catch up on the back-and-forth. Chopra’s first response to Shukla is pretty clear-cut, essentially arguing that yoga ain’t a religion because it transcends religious boundaries:

First, yoga is a spiritual discipline in India, and always has been. The aim of the practice is liberation. When liberation occurs, the yogi is freed from the religious trappings that enclose Yoga. Those trappings have always been incidental to the deeper aim of enlightenment.

Secondly, yoga did not originate in Hinduism as Prof. Shukla claims. Perhaps he has a fundamentalist agenda in mind, but he must know very well that the rise of Hinduism as a religion came centuries after the foundation of yoga in consciousness and consciousness alone. Religious rites and the worship of gods has always been seen as being in service to a higher cause, knowing the self.

Shukla volleyed back with an attack on Chopra’s credibility, claiming Chopra was just another Hindi denying his Hinduism in order to sell more schtuff to Westerners. Chopra’s latest word defends his credibility in both the East and the West and reiterates again that yoga is about leaving dogma behind. He attempts to end the debate “in the spirit of friendliness,” and since there seems to be no rebuttal from Shukla in two weeks, it looks like the feud is over.

However, the debate probably continues in the minds of many. Yoga = Hindu or yoga = simply yoga?

Interestingly, my own yogic life, such as it is, touched on this topic in a recent class. My primary instructor doesn’t chant; however, at a mysore class I attended last weekend guided by a different instructor, we did do a chant to kick things off. I just stood there listening to the Sanskrit syllables since I had no clue whatsoever, and I mentioned it in passing to my instructor.

He took the opportunity to explain why he doesn’t chant, which is because he thinks it’s important to only chant something you really do believe and take to heart. For those of us not ready to prostrate ourselves before a multi-serpent headed deity (in the case of the chant at the mysore class), it’s no big deal to just do as I did and stay quiet.

I didn’t refrain from the chant because of any religious opinion on the matter, but what my teacher says makes sense. And as my practice evolves and if I ever attend different studios, I’m probably going to have to decide for myself if I’m okay with saying things just to say things, or if I do only want to say what I subscribe to. Realistically, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever practice Hinduism (I’m on the Chopra side, if you can’t tell). And the remnants of Lutheranism in me advises against chanting.

But it’s so pretty . . .

To my surprise, she responded yeah, that’s good for stress, but what do I do for my heart? You know, cardio? And I stared at her blankly for a moment before finally shrugging and asking her what I should be doing. She responded, oh anything–go hiking.

This isn’t the first time recently that I’ve listened to someone question yoga’s validity as a workout. This past weekend, I was chatting with the wife of a friend, and she asked me what I’ve been up to lately. I talked about starting to really get committed to yoga practice, and she said she that’s all about stretching and being really relaxed, right?

Frankly, I don’t yet have the vocabulary or physiological understanding to give the response I want to, the answer I honestly feel is true. That response is yes, yoga is a workout. A real one. One that is relaxing, sure, but more than that. It is one for my heart.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Last Thursday The Washington Post had an article about excuses for avoiding yoga. Excuse number 2 is yoga “isn’t a real workout”:

On this point, many yoga teachers agree with you, because they see yoga as more than just a workout. Sure, there are physical benefits, such as the coveted yoga butt, which often draw people to yoga in the first place.

“But what surprises people are the more subtle things, like focus and patience,” says Debra Perlson-Mishalove, who owns Logan Circle’s Flow Yoga Center.

While you’re waiting for those things to emerge, however, you’re going to sweat. Take it from Washington Nationals pitcher Brian Bruney, who started attending yoga classes during the off-season. “I felt like I was in good shape, but one workout told me that I wasn’t. I was sweating bullets and just exhausted,” says Bruney, who suspects that’s because body weight exercises aren’t so easy when you’re 225 pounds.

Several poses should look familiar to anyone who has spent time in a gym. Take chaturanga, the yoga push-up that targets the triceps. Chair pose is like a squat, except your feet are together and your arms are up. Warrior poses are lunge variations. Hold any of those and you’ll gain muscle. String them together and you’ll really build some heat, also known as cardio.

And don’t forget about the subtle benefits. A stronger body makes for a better football player or dancer. So does a stronger mind.

Other than the soft-pitch (ha) response from the yoga instructor, I found this somewhat helpful, at least for responding to friends. But I need something with a little more scientific weight before getting cheeky with my doctor. And I know there has to be information that demonstrates yoga’s ability to raise heartrate as much as will a walk in a goddam park.

Ok, enough ranting–I need to do some actual digging now. I’ll let you know what I find, and please, please don’t hesitate to add links to articles about the medical validity of yoga in the comments.

Particularly links about this so-called yoga butt.

• It’s impossible to be bad at yoga. My first yoga teacher used to say, “Yoga isn’t about doing–it’s about being.” If you can be, if you exist in this world, you’re a yoga student whether you realize it or not.
• I’ve heard David Swenson say, “I’ve never finished my practice and thought, ‘I wish I hadn’t done that!’” Have you? No matter what’s keeping you from unrolling you mat–laziness, allergies, or something else you want to accomplish in your spare time–you know you’ll feel better after you’ve practiced. So just do it.
• Your yoga mat really brings out the color in your eyes.
• Because you’ve forgotten how amazing you really are. Yoga reminds you of the all the fascinating wonders your body (yes, yours!) is capable of, and if that’s not a self-esteem booster, I don’t know what is.
• You ate pizza and popcorn for dinner last night. The increased awareness yoga brings will spill over into other areas of your life–just like the soda you spilled onto your keyboard while you were checking your email.
• Yoga will make you more popular. Trust me. People will like being around you more when you’re calm, balanced, serene, and uplifted from your post-yoga buzz.
• Two words: Yoga Butt. You can be of “those people” who look fabulous spandex. And even if you’re not, a regular yoga practice will bring out all of your most beautiful features–inside and out.
• It’s the only place where there are no rules, no expectations, and no limits. Just come as you are. Do what you need to nourish your body, mind, and spirit. No questions asked.

Warrior III

Yeah, I’m sure those details about my yoga practice are fascinating. More interestingly, today’s Yoga Journal Pose of the Day is Warrior III. I could only smile when I saw it, since attempting it at last night’s class literally put me on the floor. I was getting all cocky and feeling good since I appeared to be one of the more flexible attendees in the class. But my serious balance inabilities knocked me right back down to earth (ha) while attempting Warrior III and, for god’s sake, Triangle Pose. No matter that I can fully extend to reach my toes in Triangle, and I feel right on the edge of having the core strength to do Warrior III without a block. No matter, because when you FALL OVER during poses, you just plain don’t look like you’re “all that.” Ohh, yoga.

When my trial at Yoga Eight is up at the end of this week, I definitely will be exploring these as a way to supplement one or maybe two classes a week. I love the benefits of being in class–namely, attention from an actual instructor during practice and a chance to pick up information about yoga history and technique as he makes casual chat with students after class. However, I simply can’t afford daily classes, nor can I sustain taking the time out every evening to drive to the studio and back. An online subscription may be the perfect compromise!