Today’s Washington Post has an interesting article about the commercialization of yoga and yoga styles. I had never heard of the “yoga wars” before and didn’t realize we were fighting them. But, according to this article, the yoga wars began back in 2004 with the formalizing of the Bikram yoga method. Now, other U.S. practitioners are trying to patent or copyright their yoga methods or styles, and an Indian government agency is fighting back.
The article, ‘Yoga wars’ spoil spirit of ancient practice, Indian agency says, reports that a Digital Library in India is cataloguing thousands of yoga poses, ancient texts, and other methods (such as ayurveda) to create an online catalogue that will then be passed to the international patent system. They want the history of yoga and the poses and texts to be available to the public in multiple languages in order to make the practice of yoga as accessible as possible, and to prove that newer methods of yoga are not coming up with poses and practices on their own, but that they have in fact been around for thousands of years.
I know people have their favorite style of yoga, sometimes based on more traditional schools (Kundalini, Iyengar) and often, classes are a mix of styles, including even more modern variations like Shiva Rea’s Prana Flow.
Its interesting to consider the sacredness of yoga given the explosion of yoga-hybrid classes, yoga accessories, books, movies (Eat, Pray, Love jewelry?!), etc. that have emerged in our culture over the last decade. This ancient practice even has its own modern-day fashion. Earlier this year, there was the potential threat to tax DC yoga studios and students (as well as gyms and other fitness-providers), and I imagine activities like that are not going to be rare in the future.
How much commercialization of these ancient methods is acceptable? Is it ok to benefit financially from what is supposed to be an accessible and peace-building spiritual practice? For whom? Studio owners? Teachers? The government? Patent holders? If all of the yoga poses, breathing techniques and other methods have already been invented, what validity do emerging styles of yoga have in your mind, if any?
My favorite line from the article is, “Yoga is a part of humanity’s shared knowledge…” I believe this, but wonder and worry about what level of sacredness can be preserved in such a fast-paced commercialized society.
Did you see the piece? What’s your take?
Posted by: Jamie
Photograph by: Brandon Bloch
I’m sort of in the library’s camp (plus, who would ever want to square off with a library? they’re awesome!). However, on the commercialization of (mostly hatha) yoga, I made a certain peace with it this way:
If you want to learn guitar, get a guitar. You can then play around on the guitar, figure it out, maybe play a few songs. You can also buy a book or get one from the library or get lessons of the internet, all of which will help you play your guitar. Then again, you could also go to guitar classes, and hang out with other people learning to play guitar and learn from a teacher, or even further, you can take private lessons. All of these things require that you actually practice guitar if you ever want to get good at it.
Replace guitar with yoga, and it makes sense… except your ‘guitar’ is your mind and body. I had to make this realization before I could ever set foot in a studio again after I got really jaded … I just think of it as going to group lessons, and I have to practice on my own to improve.
And one more bit – on copyrighting styles, it’s no different that the hamburger is not copyrighted, but a BigMac is. Same sandwich, different methods and places.