I’m not one to go the “[x] changed my life” route. I mean, I’ve had a ton of inspirations and I tend to think of life as a big matrix of all those internal and external factors (plus the nefarious impact of the Trilateral Commission, of course). That said, I have felt a million times better since I started doing yoga last fall.
Now, my caveat is that it took a long time for me to start doing the stuff. I bought a DVD of some Yoga Journal series a few years ago, but never bothered to pop it in the player till last summer, when my brother inspired me to give it a try.
Listening to the calm, soothing voice of the instructor, I have never felt so ready in my life to punch someone out. Back on the shelf it went.
Fortunately, my bro turned me on to the book that got him started, Yoga for Regular Guys. YRG’s written by a pro wrestler, with an intro by Rob Zombie. As such, it doesn’t have the “calm, soothing” demeanor that pushes me into a rage. And the workouts don’t involve holding a position for 5 minutes or anything. It’s the first exercise regimen I’ve stuck with for more than a few weeks, and the results have been great: back pain’s all gone, my mood during my morning commute is much more at ease (when I work out in the morning, that is), and the official VM wife sez my ass is sagging less.
So, in that respect, I guess this has changed my life. (Not in any mystical way. I mean, while it’s nice that I feel more peaceful from these workouts, I have no desire to go the Maxon Crumb route and start “cleansing” with dhauti.)
All of which is preface to Ron Rosenbaum’s recent article on the “hostile New Age takeover of yoga“. Ron seems to share my twitch-like reaction to the “calm, soothing” instructors, “that soothing syrupy ‘yoga-speak’ that we all know and loathe”. He proceeds to dissect the “yoga lifestyle” and its attendant fashion and accessories.
But he takes it to a whole new level when he checks out a recent ish of Yoga Journal and dissects an article called “Forgive Yourself” in which the writer obsesses over a 20-years-gone high-school friendship in a way that borders on the psychopathic.
I can’t begin to do justice to Ron’s takedown of the article, the hippytrippy mindset of the editors who decided to run it, and the self-centeredness of their version of ‘forgiveness.’ You really need to read it for yourself. I’m gonna do some shoulderstands and be Mr. Plow for a while.
(Official VM Bonus! “How to deal with dead-and-gone relationships” advice: A few years ago, a buddy of mine who was engaged told me how he sorta wished he could go back and show some of the women from his past how he’d ‘grown up’. I said, “We all wanna fix the past, but when you’re really grown up, you won’t have to worry about proving it to old girlfriends. Let it go.”)
Thanks to the invasion of therapy-speak in our society, we are encouraged not to “run away” from our problems or fears. When did we get from “running away” to “unhealthy fixation and stalking”? As a book I was reading yesterday about vocational discernment said, if you see an bear in the woods, is it smarter to climb a tree or to confront it and try to reason with it?
I thought the accepted practice when you see a bear in the woods is to either stand REALLY REALLY still or make yourself look as large as possible and make big noise to scare it away.
I believe both of those work as metaphors for relationships and/or the workplace.
Welcome to the dark side! When you find a yoga style that suits you the changes that take place are amazing.
Warning: The constant detoxing does eventually make you less tolerant to alcohol, junk food and caffeine. I ended up having to pretty much give them up because I was just getting too sick. It was like my body had a taste of how it was supposed to feel and decided it wasn’t going to let me get away with sticking all that crap into it anymore.
I don’t know what I’d do without our weekly yoga class at work.
Actually, I do – she’s been off for two weeks and I’ve been a grumpy, tired, tense bitch!
Fortunately seeing the massage therapist who also comes into work every week helped a bit.
Hey, we have an editor job going at the moment…Wanna come work for us? ;)
Your body can’t take toxins like alcohol anymore?? Gil, what am I going to do at Interphex and Bio. I’ll have to give this YRG program up. I knew there was a downside to this healthy living stuff.
That’s the new-age Australian girl talking, not me!
I think yoga works differently down there. It’s something to do with the Coriolis effect, which also makes Australian CD-burners spin counter-clockwise.