Posts Tagged ‘appropriation of yoga’
asana: first yogourt, now software start-ups
This headline in my newsfeed grabbed my attention: “Start-Up Asana Announces $9 Million in New Funding.” I had to do a double take (and click through, of course). What could that combination of words possibly mean?
What it means is that the yoga vocabulary has moved beyond healthy eating habits and casual clothes into the tech world. Asana is a new “workplace productivity software start-up founded by former Facebookers Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein.” The young company has been around for just over a year and apparently their work is directed at “the very dull and unexciting but very large and problematic workplace collaboration and communications software market.”
An article on All Things Digital tried to explain the yoga connection:
In Sanskrit, “asana” means “sitting down” and refers to strong but relaxed postures in yoga–so presumably, Moskovitz and Rosenstein are trying to help frustrated workers achieve a digital form of nirvana.
Good effort! But there could have been a little more research on the definition of asana. Anyway, even though I’m not really a fan of working, I’m all for making work more efficient, transparent and open. And from what I can gather from Asana’s website, they are doing their best to incorporate yoga-esque values into their small company, including: action in the face of fear, honesty & transparency, chill-ness, company as collective of peers (vs. command-and-control hierarchy), investing in people, and trust in wisdom over rules and incentives.
I’m willing to work for any company that values “chill-ness.” While Asana wants to keep their staff small and intimate, they’re also hiring. Check out their perks:
- Small company with respectful, rational, chill peers. We are as dedicated to building a great culture as we are to building a great product.
- Medical, dental, vision and life insurance coverage.
- In-house yoga. Every week we do yoga as a group, including +1s, with a private instructor. (Optional, but pretty awesome.)
- Organic homecooked meals twice a day.
- Three 30″ monitors. Actually, we let you spend up to $10K on your setup, however you think best.
Those perks are pretty similar to the perks of working at a yoga magazine. Except for the organic homecooked meals twice a day (though we did have Thursday Soup Days). And the 30″ monitors and $10K setup budget. Yikes! Anyway, I hope that the yogi incognitos behind Asana can put this $9 million to good techy use and live up to their values and ideals.
See also: yogourt-asana; the great asana taste test
Well, people. I think we can declare yoga officially dead. Mix a little brand power with some western hypersexualization and what do you end up with? Playboy yoga, bitches! I think yoga in the western world has imploded. There’s nowhere left to go. This is the pinnacle, and the lowest of the low. We can just say, “It was nice while it lasted, yoga. T & A.”
You know “The Day the Music Died,” February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash in the American Midwest? That’s kind of how this feels to me.
Overall, it was a crazy day in the yogasphere. There must have been some kind of badass retrograde action happening: Bikram Choudry turned down Madonna‘s request for private classes; and while less sensational than all this, some yoga download website offered a Star Wars yoga class (thus proving my cosmic reason theory for all this).
[Hot Playboy Yoga tip via elephant journal and YogaDork. Thanks, masters of the interwebs!]
Yoplait Asana looks right at home in my fridge.
After a heroic search through the grocery stores in my neighbourhood, I finally located some Yoplait Asana (none of the “fruiteries” – that’s what people in Montréal call the fruit/veggie markets – and health food stores I normally frequent carried the stuff). So by popular demand, I bring you The Great Yoplait Taste Test!
Before I get into the actual yogourt itself, I just want to point out the excessive packaging. Eight individual containers wrapped in cardboard. Not cool, Yoplait. The yogourt wasn’t even available in a larger container (although according to their website, it does come in a 650 g version).
I selected the Strawberry/Fieldberry option over the Peach/Vanilla. I had one of each the Strawberry and Fieldberry ~ one is purplish and one is pinkish, but they taste pretty much the same. The flavour… how do I describe the flavour? A bit like plastic, really. Smooth, creamy plastic. To be honest, I find that most commercial yogourts taste a little plastic-y. I think it’s the pectin, gelatin and cornstarch. Continue Reading
Okay, so we all know that it’s not cool when major corporations tack their name onto the word “yoga.” How about when companies which have nothing to do with the practice apply yogic vocabulary to their products? A new yogourt, Yoplait AsanaTM, does just that:
Developed especially for women, Yoplait AsanaTM is a delicious, smooth and creamy yogourt whose name means “posture” in the yoga world.
Yoplait AsanaTM is the only yogourt in Canada with a unique fortified recipe for strong bones. Not only is Yoplait AsanaTM a good source of vitamin D, but it also contains twice as much calcium as our regular yogourt.
The people at Yoplait have done their homework, and are well aware that 72.3% of Canadian yoga practitioners are women (according to a 2005 Print Measure Bureau survey; a 2008 Yoga Journal survey indicates similar US stats). They’re also aware that 70% of Canadian women don’t get enough calcium, and that 1 in 4 women over the age of 50 are at risk of developing osteoporosis.
So it looks like the recent Yoplait yoga ad (which made waves through the bloga community in the summer) was a way of priming people for their new product. Hmmm…
[Thanks to EcoYogini for the hot tip! She actually saw this stuff in the grocery store but refused to buy it!]
