I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about yoga at the moment. It started when I was in the local Night Owl in my gym gear and the guy behind the counter asked me if I’d been to the yoga school across the road.
I hadn’t. I just couldn’t be arsed showering so was going for that intentionally ambiguous comfortable look.
“Oh,” said Night Owl dude, “You should go. Everyone comes in here afterwards sweating like pigs and the instructor used to be the national champion.”
Sweating like pigs? NATIONAL YOGA CHAMPION? Yes, competitive yoga is a thing. Check out the New York Yoga Asana Competition – it’s both hilarious and chilling.
Whoah, let’s take a step back here.
Call me old fashioned, but here’s what I think of when I think of yoga (definition borrowed from Iyengar Yoga Australia):
“Yoga means union. The union of the individual soul with the Universal Spirit is yoga. But this is too abstract a notion to be easily understood, so for our level of understanding I say that yoga is the union of body with the mind and of mind with the soul”. – BKS Iyengar, Tree of Yoga.Who is BKS Iyengar? Oh, you know, just the father of Iyengar Yoga (a term he doesn’t use himself because he says it’s not about him), a man who has been practising yoga for 75 years. He calls the yoga he practises and teaches ‘pure, authentic, traditional yoga’.
That picture at the top of this post is him. Flexy, hey?
But yoga has become big business all around the world. There are gazillions of different schools of yoga, all promising something different, which is fine. But many of them have nothing to do with yoga. Competition is about as far from the spirit of yoga as you can get.
And you know what else flies in the face of “the union of the individual soul and the Universal Spirit”? Paying $7000 for a pair of pants, that’s what.
Don’t get me wrong, I love pretty yoga stuff. I look around my yoga class each week and covet my arse off at all the cool stuff that I see. My point is that they aren’t about yoga, and Lorna Jane, Lululemon and all their mates are making bucketloads of money convincing us otherwise.
Pfffffft to them, I say. Here’s what I wore to yoga last week (not the baby, she just wouldn’t let me have the shot taken without her):
And you know what? Not once did I feel the Universal Spirit gave me a once over and go, “Hmmmm, not in those pants.”
Are you a yoga fan? What do you wear?
Lol. I most definitely am a yoga fan, although I haven’t been for a couple of years! I can not believe there is competitive yoga. As you say, competition and yoga just don’t naturally fit together. Who’s brainchild was that?That just blows my mind. I’m off to text my yoga teacher friend and see whether she knows about it.
Let me know what your friend says, Renee! I imagine it would be frowned upon in the general yoga community.
Thank you for the post Carolyn. I used to do yoga and keep threatening to start again but I can’t find a class at a time that suits me at the moment. Sadly I am hideously competitive and while I would never actually enter a yoga competition, I certainly compete in the class. Can I hold the pose the longest, can I stretch the furtherest, can I do the extension work, that sort of thing. My very first class the instructor’s words were “yoga is not a competitive sport”. Huh! Just you watch me make it so!
Re exercise clothes, they are ludicrously overpriced bits of fabric. I find that my Target/Big W/Kmart stuff wears just the same as my daughter’s Lorna Jane/fancy sports brand stuff. The only thing I won’t skimp on is a sports bra, I do find the big brands better than Target/Big W/Kmart.
Ha ha, your comment made me laugh! I am usually a competitive person too but I’m not all that flexible – perhaps that’s why I don’t want to compete at yoga! I agree re sports bras and usually invest in a decent one. Bizarrely, I was desperate for a new one but was a bit skint so tried an $18 one from Best and Less and, no kidding, it is the best sports bra I have ever owned. So now I have two. Go figure!
Carolyn, I have to admit that dude at the top is freakin’ me out a little bit!
I do enjoy Yoga. I find it relaxing. I normally wear my PJs as I use a DVD at home! hahaha
Perfect – love it!
lol. You wore yoga pants? Fanceeeeeee! Leggings work.
What’s the fecking difference?
hilarous!
I love how you keep it real on here. I love all the fancy yoga pants, but own none. They are ridiculously expensive. And that yoga competition, well that is just plain weird and totally not what yoga is all about at all. I’m more of a pilates person than yoga person, but that was before I had children! I currently do neither, though I wish I was back into it x
I love pilates too, Carla, but they just moved my class from 6.45pm (when I could leave the house and avoid kids dinner and bath times) to 7.45pm (which eats well into my couching time and means I still have to do baths). So pilates is off for now.
OMG hallelujah!!! So true!! PJs work good as yoga pants too! xxx
Ooh, my PJ pants are short shorts – not sure people want to see me downward dogging in those!
I was wondering what Lululemon was, now I feel enlightened (see what I did there?) Mr Flexy looks to be in an incredibly uncomfortable position, I’m sure he thinks its fab.
$7000? Are these pants diamond encrusted with platinum threading, how does one arrive at that price tag?
Hahahaha, I may have been exaggerating ever so slightly, Jaz. 😉
I left a FB comment but wanted to add that I’ve just looked at that competitive yoga video and that is so wrong. I take my yoga with a dose of humour to laugh at myself and the asanas I will never master and a glass of champagne to toast to still trying and appreciating that it is never competitive
Quite right! I love someone that can put yoga and champagne together in the same sentence.
Hi There, popping in from the Weekend Rewind! I can not believe the cost of these items? For real? I am so not going to pay billions to sweat. I have those Target pants, ummmm not for Yoga, they are my comfy house pants. There you go my secret is out. I am a yoga imposter.
Guards, ARREST THIS WOMAN AT ONCE!
Yoga pants are all kinds of awesome, I don’t blame you.
Love my yoga app. Means I don’t even have to get out of my PJ’s! Eat that all you Lorna Jane Yoga pant lovers! 😉
Oh, outstanding work! I have a few apps but don’t seem to get motivated to do them. What app do you like best?
I have never done yoga. No, wait. My Wii trainer has taught me some yoga poses. That counts, right? I think I’m too inflexible and unco and all those things. But that’s probably why I should do it!
You should totally do it, and put your mat next to mine. That’s probably the only time I’ll look good. 😉
ADORE this cute photo of you and your babe. I have all the gears, eg LJ, Kmart and crap but I just don’t have the urge to go to yoga… yet. It’s a little too slow for my fast-paced, super speedy wired brain
Naw, thanks Em! My brain is like your brain, I think, but that’s why I really need yoga. At least it’s an hour during the week where I tell it to shut up for a bit. Sometimes it even listens.
Well missus, I have just re-joined the local gym so I am planning to go to yoga – the whatever variety will be fine – and I’ll be wearing my usual stretchy gym gear the ‘whichever is clean’ brand. Like your take on this yogic business.
Thanks Seana, good luck getting back into the gym thing. I’m with you – whatever is clean, and sometimes whatever is the least dirty/smelly. 😉
No Yoga thanks! Downward dog and I just cannot be friends.
Hahahahahaha! What about the lying around at the end with your eyes closed, Steph? That’s my favourite bit.
I love Yoga … French Vanilla is my favourite flavour. Oh … what’s that? You said YOGA!
No never done it. Would need a forklift to get off the ground if I tried it
Oh you! 😉
I went shopping for some gym/yoga gear recently and was so shocked at the price. Luckily I happened to pop in to a shop that had some $10 tops that were the perfect length and shape. Went to pay for it and the computer said the top would cost me $1! Suck that Lorna Jane 😉
Wooohooooo! Oh, how I love those surprise extra-cheap purchases! Probably won’t see that at LJ any time soon.
I buy Yoga pants because they are comfy to sit on the couch in..true story. I used to do Yoga and was a bit of a gym fanatic but I still don’t see the sense in dropping a couple of hundred dollars on clothes that you are just going to sweat in. As long as my pants don’t fall down mid class and my shirt doesn’t ride up at the back..I’m happy!
Ha ha, that is really the best use of yoga pants, isn’t it. If we weren’t supposed to sit around watching TV in them, they wouldn’t be so damn comfy.
It’s true, I used to do yoga classes and the competitiveness was one of the things that really put me off. I’m going to go back though, I love yoga. They can keep their fancy gym gear (why is everyone wearing that Lorna Jane gear with the slogans?, I just don’t get it). I’m off to Target to buy those pants.
Yeah, I’m with you, Denise. I hate the slogans. There is a woman at my yoga class every week who must be a dancer or something because she is crazy flexible. And I have to admit, it shits me. 😉 Ah well, I will just keep concentrating on not farting and having an hour of kid-free time.
*Standing ovation*!! Couldn’t agree with you more. I don’t do “Sporte Luxe”. Giving the plastic a workout is not part of the deal for me and besides, you look fabulous! Babe and all.
Naw, thanks Sharon!
Once yoga got branded I knew that a hope was lost. x
Ha ha, YES! But what do we have left that hasn’t been branded??
OMG my joints are hurting from that video. I went to Yoga once but farted during the stretches and then fell asleep in the wind down mediation so I haven’t been back since. I wear yoga pants though – I like the fold down flap at the waist 😉 xx
That right there is why I love you, Sonia. 🙂
Haha love yoga. I have the el cheapo KMart top but I have to admit I love my LJ tights. Those things last for years, and they hold everything in nice and tight!!
I have to admit, I really want some LJ pants – everyone says great things about them. I might put them on my Christmas list.