Archive for December, 2009
2009 in review: top 15 yoga blog posts!
What a year it’s been! At the beginning of 2009, “blogging” was this annoying task that I had to do in my busy life as an overworked magazine editor. But once the magazine I worked for closed and I was out of a job, I started to spend my abundance of free time reading blogs. And so I decided to start my own. Fast forward to December and not only have I been maintaining my little blog for 9 months, but I have tapped into a dynamic and passionate community of people who think, read and blog about yoga.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading blogs over the past year and there are definitely some voices that stand out. And those voices have produced many fascinating blog posts about yoga. Here are 15 of my favourites, in no particular order.
Linda’s Yoga Journey: this is my real yoga – I’m a huge fan of Linda and her blog, and this post is one of the most inspiring raise-your-fist-in-the-air-and-say-hell-yeah posts by her or anyone else.
Eco Yogini: Feminist Yoga… – Eco has an amazing ability to think deeply and critically. She’s not afraid to tackle the thorny issue of gender politics and offer up her interesting perspective.
YogaDawg: Yoga Star Hot Scale – Only YogaDawg is capable of such satirical brilliance. This scale made me laugh out loud, and had “B-list” yoginis thanking YogaDawg for being included on the scale.
YogaDork: Selling Out: Yoga Talent Agency Seeks A-list Yoga Teachers Seeking Fame – The title of this one says it all. It was hard to pick just one YogaDork post to feature here, because they are just so awesome. But this one stood out for its good questions and the fascinating discussion it inspired – including a response from YAMA-represented yoga teacher, Sadie Nardini.
Sadie Nardini: Om Scampi: A Top Yogi Comes Out of the Meat-Eating Closet – Sadie herself blogs on HuffPo, and while I have issues with some of her ideas about yoga, I find her articulate, practical and irreverent. This post embodies all that (and isn’t as self-promotional as some of her others).
Yoga Spy: Who the Heck is Tara Stiles? - I used to sometimes get Sadie Nardini mixed up with Tara Stiles (they’re both hot model aspiring-to-be-celebrity yoga teachers in NYC who post a lot of stuff on YouTube). Luckily, this memorable post helped me learn how to tell them apart.
Grounding Thru The Sit Bones: Where’s the Oprah of Yoga? – And on the subject of hot model celeb yoga teachers, Brenda poses an interesting and essential question about yoga. Who is going to step forward and be yoga’s Oprah? Could the world handle it?
Namaste & Knitting: The Image of Yoga… – I was very excited when I discovered Jennifer’s blog after she left some insightful comments during the whole Adidas Yoga fiasco. Another yogi/knitter/blogger out there! Here, she continues the conversation about the presentation and marketing of yoga.
elephant journal: Playboy Yoga – I’m not even going to ask how Waylon Lewis came across Playboy’s instructional yoga DVD featuring 2007 Playmate of the Year, Sarah Jean Underwood. This one was enough for me to declare yoga dead.
Yoga with Nikki Chau: Yoga Jargon Generator – It really works! Very entertaining. I discovered Seattle-based yoga teacher Nikki’s blog through a link to this post, and it had me hooked.
YogaNation: Punk Rock Yoga? from Seattle, My Friend – Speaking of Seattle, NYC blogger Joelle documents the interesting phenomenon of “punk rock yoga” with wit and style. Joelle is also the only person on this list whom I’ve met in RL (when she visited Mtl a few weeks ago), and she’s fantastic!
Yoga for Cynics: The Only Kind of Spirituality I Have Any Interest In… – Dr. Jay drunk blogging = awesome.
Yoga Demystified: In Praise of Jane – Short and sweet post by the irreplacable Bob Weisenberg.
Yogic Muse: Yoga and Empowerment – It was hard to choose which of Brooks reflective and thoughtful posts stood out the most for me this year, but this one really stayed with me.
My Embodiment: Present Moment Living: Horses, Yoga, Therapy & How They All Come Together – Teresa looks at the world through the lenses of yoga and psychotherapy, and she’s generous enough to share her thoughts with us.
**This post is a response to Daily Blog Tips’ latest group writing project.
This has nothing to do with yoga, but I love this graph for most searched celebrity scandals in 2009.
According to Google Zeitgeist, it just might be. On the list of “most googled” exercises in 2009, yoga ranked #9 (just above pole dancing). As the National Post noted:
Is yoga now on a downward trend? Or has the uber-trendy exercise suffered some sort of backlash due to expensive studio classes or, as Antonia Richmond says in a 2006 article in the San Francisco Chronicle,* a growing sense of insecurity from the non-yoga inclined masses:
“These are the yoga people. And they’re better than you…They don’t have the haggard appearance or sensitivity to bright sunlight that I do as I stumble down the street in search of coffee. They appear to … glow.”
Yoga-hater and creator of New York clothing company “It’s a Sickness”, Barnaby Harris went so far as to create an entire f— yoga clothing line.
Harris elegantly summed up the history of the ubiquitous trend, saying:
“Yoga has survived for thousands of years and will survive for thousands more. It’s just that it has gone unopposed for too damn long.”
Inferiority complexes aside, sales suggest that the yoga industry is doing quite well, recession or no recession. [National Post]
I couldn’t find any information on where yoga placed last year. A brief jaunt through the 2008 Year-End Google Zeistgeist revealed no similar category. However, sources reveal that in 2007 yoga was #2, just after pilates, in the fitness category.
Is there any validity to the Google Zeitgeist report? When do you think yoga will peak? And is there anyone else out there waiting for the boom to bust, so we can just carry on with our practice without the commercial craziness?
(*Be sure to click through to the SF Chronicle article ~ it’s a very good read!)
I was recently contacted by a journalist in NYC who was working on an article about Yoga To the People and donation-based yoga. I teach several weekly “pay-what-you-wish” hatha yoga classes in Montréal, on a volunteer basis, and I have a strong belief in the practice. I responded with an enthusiastic email, and here are the pieces that made it into the final article:
Donation-based yoga sits within a mesh of cultural movements such as slow-food and simple living that emphasize community over pseudo-individualistic brand-identification, simplicity over complication, and frugality over excess. Canadian yoga writer and instructor Roseanne Harvey started teaching a donation-based yoga class at a local community mission in 2007. “I saw that yoga was presented with very little diversity: the predominant images were of white, fit women between the ages of 25 and 35. So I wanted to offer an alternative to the dominant cultural story.”
Harvey, who writes a yoga blog, says a second, pay-what-you-wish class attracts more students and artists. “I was just responding to something that I saw around me. I follow and am familiar with the slow food and simple living movements, though I’m more influenced by the anti-consumerism and DIY movements.” [via Otherground NY]
As I told the journalist, I love the idea of donation-based yoga tying in with cultural movements such as slow food and simple living. It’s clear that donation-based yoga is not in line with the way that yoga is marketed and presented in our culture, and it may not have appeal to mainstream yoga practitioners (especially since yoga seems to have become almost a status symbol associated with an affluent, white demographic). I also feel that yoga has a lot to offer people who are trying to live more simple and conscious lives ~ it has a subtle awareness-enhancing effect on people. Practicing yoga also provides a common experience for people and encourages communities to grow. Continue Reading
