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Theo Wildcroft
Post-lineage yoga, also called non-lineage yoga, is a contemporary form of yoga practised outside any major school or guru's lineage. The term was introduced by the ethnographer and scholar-practitioner Theodora Wildcroft. She stated that with the deaths of the pioneering gurus of modern yoga such as B. K. S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois, yoga teachers, especially women, have been reclaiming their practice through their yoga communities, resisting commercialization as well as lineage. Scholars and yoga teachers have commented that post-lineage yoga has evolved in reaction to the image of contemporary yoga as an idealized, fit, young, white female body. They note that the practice is non- denominational, non-hierarchical, and non-authoritarian, matching the contemporary concern for authentic religious experience that works for the individual. Definition The ethnographer and yoga scholar-practitioner Theodora Wildcroft of SOAS University of London introduced the term "post-line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoga
Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as practiced in the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ... traditions. Yoga may have pre-Vedic period, Vedic origins, but is first attested in the early first millennium BCE. It developed as various traditions in the eastern Ganges basin drew from a common body of practices, including Vedas, Vedic elements. Yoga-like practices are mentioned in the ''Rigveda'' and a number of early Upanishads, but systematic yoga concepts emerge during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE in ancient India's sannyasa, ascetic and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew Remski
Matthew S. Remski (born 1971) is a yoga practitioner and author who has written on the connection between yoga and conspiracy theories. His work has been informed by his past experience as a cult member. Remski was instrumental in exposing inappropriate physical contact in Yoga classes through an article that he wrote for ''The Walrus'' in 2018. He has followed this up with books on the same theme such as his 2019 ''Practice and All is Coming'' and his 2024 ''Surviving Modern Yoga''. Early life Matthew Remski was born in Michigan in 1971 and schooled as a Roman Catholic at Michael's Choir School, Toronto. From 1990 he worked as a church organist and choir conductor. From 1991 to 1994 he studied English literature at the University of Toronto, but did not graduate. Buddhism and yoga In 1996 Remski began "an extensive study" of Michael Roach's approach to Gelukpa Tibetan Buddhism. He received a Tantric initiation from Roach's lama, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, in 1998, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoga Journal
''Yoga Journal'' is a website and digital journal, formerly a print magazine, on yoga as exercise founded in California in 1975 with the goal of combining the essence of traditional yoga with scientific understanding. It has produced live events and materials such as DVDs on yoga and related subjects. The magazine grew from the California Yoga Teachers Association's newsletter, which was called ''The Word''. ''Yoga Journal'' has repeatedly won Western Publications Association's Maggie Awards for "Best Health and Fitness Magazine". It has however been criticized for representing yoga as being intended for affluent white women; in 2019 it attempted to remedy this by choosing a wider variety of yoga models. The magazine was acquired by Outside in 2020. Beginnings ''Yoga Journal'' was started in May 1975 by the California Yoga Teachers Association (CYTA), with Rama Jyoti Vernon as President, William Staniger as the founding editor, and Judith Lasater on the board and serving as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asana
An āsana (Sanskrit: आसन) is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose,Verse 46, chapter II, "Patanjali Yoga sutras" by Swami Prabhavananda, published by the Sri Ramakrishna Math p. 111 and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The ''Yoga Sutras of Patanjali'' define "asana" as " position thatis steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Patanjali '' Yoga sutras'', Book II:29, 46 Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English. The 10th or 11th century '' Goraksha Sataka'' and the 15th century '' Hatha Yoga Pradipika'' identify 84 asanas; the 17th century '' Hatha Ratnavali'' provides a different list of 84 asanas, describing some of them. In the 20th century, Indian nationalism favoured physical culture in response t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vanda Scaravelli
Vanda Scaravelli (1908 - 1999) is known for her contribution to the practice of yoga in the West. She learnt yoga as an early student of two of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya's pupils, B. K. S. Iyengar who taught her the asanas, and T. K. V. Desikachar who taught her pranayama (yoga breathing). Her style of yoga was developed with the help of her long-term students, the yoga teachers Diane Long and Esther Myers, who continued the evolution of Vanda's non-lineage yoga. Scaravelli asked her followers not to name any school of yoga after her; this has not prevented some yoga teachers from claiming to teach "Scaravelli-inspired yoga". Life Vanda Scaravelli was born in Florence in 1908. Her father, Alberto Passigli, was involved in creating the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino as well as the Orchestra Stabile which enabled Florence to have its own orchestra. Her mother, Clara Corsi, was a teacher and one of the first women to graduate from a university in Italy. At the age of three Vanda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bikram Choudhury
Bikram Choudhury (born 1944) is an Indian-American yoga guru, and the founder of Bikram Yoga, a form of hot yoga consisting of a fixed series of 26 postures practised in a hot environment of . The business became a success in the United States and then across the Western world, with a variety of celebrity pupils. His former wife Rajashree Choudhury assisted him in the yoga business. In 2009, he began a series of copyright claims to protect the series of postures of Bikram Yoga; this was ultimately unsuccessful, and other studios continue to teach the series. Choudhury was the subject of civil suits alleging sexual assault and discrimination against racial and sexual minorities. In 2017, a court awarded $7 million to his former lawyer, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, who gained control of his yoga business when Choudhury fled to India without paying her. Since then he has continued to train yoga teachers outside the United States in countries including Spain and Mexico. Life, Work, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sexual Abuse By Yoga Gurus
Sexual abuse by yoga gurus is the exploitation of the position of trust occupied by a master of any branch of yoga for personal sexual pleasure. Allegations of such abuse have been made against modern yoga gurus such as Bikram Choudhury, Kausthub Desikachar, Yogi Bhajan, Amrit Desai, and K. Pattabhi Jois. There have been some criminal convictions and lawsuits for civil damages. Multiple allegations The ''Indian Express'', listing allegations of sexual abuse against multiple yoga gurus ( Bikram Choudhury, creator of Bikram Yoga; Kausthub Desikachar, grandson of the "father of modern yoga" Krishnamacharya; and Swami Satchidananda), noted that several other gurus had been similarly accused, but released "without a befitting punishment". Other sources listed those same gurus, and named others including John Friend, Satya Sai Baba; Amrit Desai, creator of Kripalu Yoga; Muktananda, founder of Siddha Yoga; Swami Shyam, a Vedic meditation guru; Swami Rama, founder of the Him ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoga Mat
Yoga mats are specially fabricated mats used to prevent hands and feet slipping during asana practice in modern yoga as exercise. An early variety made of rubber carpet underlay, pioneered by the yoga teacher Angela Farmer in 1982, was called a sticky mat. Before modern times, meditative yoga and hatha yoga were practised on bare ground, sometimes with a deer or tiger skin rug. Modern mats suitable for energetic forms of yoga are made of plastic, rubber, and sometimes other materials including hessian and cork, trading off cost, comfort, grip, and weight. The yoga mat has been called "One of the most ubiquitous symbols of yoga's commercialization". History In ancient India In ancient times, meditational yoga was practised in India on kusha grass, on hard earth without any cover, or on a rug of deer or tiger skin, as specified in the ''Bhagavadgita'' and the ''Shvetashvatara Upanishad'' as suitable for attaining enlightenment. File:Bharadwaja.jpg, The sage Bharadva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iyengar Yoga
Iyengar Yoga, named after and developed by B. K. S. Iyengar, and described in his bestselling 1966 book '' Light on Yoga'', is a form of yoga as exercise that has an emphasis on detail, precision and alignment in the performance of yoga postures (asanas). The style often makes use of props, such as belts, blocks, and blankets, as aids in performing the asanas. The props enable beginning students, the elderly, or those with physical limitations to perform the asanas correctly, minimising the risk of injury or strain. History B. K. S. Iyengar learnt yoga from Tirumalai Krishnamacharya at the Mysore Palace, as did Pattabhi Jois; Iyengar Yoga and Jois's Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga are thus branches of the same yoga lineage, sharing many of the same asanas and other practices. Iyengar began teaching yoga as exercise gradually, starting with individual pupils such as the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, whom he met in 1952; Menuhin's fame helped to propel Iyengar Yoga as a brand in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angela Farmer
Angela Farmer (born c. 1939) is a teacher of modern yoga as exercise. She uses a post-lineage yoga, non-lineage style that emphasizes the feminine, free-flowing aspect. She is known also as the creator of the first yoga mat. Farmer was trained by the yoga guru B. K. S. Iyengar for ten years, becoming a senior teacher of his strict and precise Iyengar Yoga style. She became uncomfortable with this, and left to teach her own much freer style of yoga, admired by other yoga teachers. Her approach combines the use of imagery, fluid movements, and conscious breathing. She and her life partner Victor Van Kooten teach regularly in the United States, and run immersive courses on Lesbos in Greece four times a year. Early life Farmer was born c. 1939 and grew up near London, her father Richard Farmer being English, her mother American. In her teens, she had surgery to cut several nerves, leaving her with reduced sensitivity to touch and "intense and chronic pain". She studied physical e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoga For Women
Modern yoga as exercise has often been taught by women to classes consisting mainly of women. This continued a tradition of gendered physical activity dating back to the early 20th century, with the Harmonic Gymnastics of Genevieve Stebbins in the US and Mary Bagot Stack in Britain. One of the pioneers of modern yoga, Indra Devi, a pupil of Krishnamacharya, popularised yoga among American women using her celebrity Hollywood clients as a lever. The majority of yoga practitioners in the Western world are women. Yoga has been marketed to women as promoting health and beauty, and as something that could be continued into old age. It has created a substantial market for fashionable yoga clothing. Yoga is now encouraged also for pregnant women. A gendered activity The yoga author and teacher Geeta Iyengar notes that women in the ancient Vedic period had equal rights to practice the meditational yoga of the time, but that these rights fell away in later periods. The Indologist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
