notes on ny times yoga article

The NY Times had one of its periodic articles on yoga yesterday. It
was called something like "Enlightenment with Rubber Ducky", and it
made the radical point that -- gasp -- many yoga teachers in the US
take a non-traditional, almost modern approach to teaching yoga.
Teachers talk about their own life experiences, they have studnets
chang bon jovi lyrics, and they'll even use props, like the titular
rubber ducky.

Seriously, this article could have been written in 1985, and maybe
1975. Yoga teachers in the west don't think of themselves as gurus
leading their students on the path to enlightenment. There might be a
few such genuine types -- Dharma Mittra ini New York being one example
-- but most of the ones who offer the path to enlightenment are for
the most part bullshit artists.

No, the vast, vast majority of people doing yoga in the US are not on
some path to enlightenment. We're doing something that's good for us,
that will better us in physical, mental, and maybe even spiritual
ways, but seriously, enlightenment? Who are they kidding?

And the fact that some yoga teachers "aren't so serious" and even
allow a little humor into their classes, that isn't much of a
revalation, is it? Every teacher has his or her own style, and I
think our culture in the US encourages people to realize their own
personalities in their work. And as any NYC yoga teacher knows, too
much seriousness and you won't have many students after a while.
People in nyc are overscheduled, overstressed, and are often looking
to their yoga class as a way to get away from all that. Too much
discipline and you're left with just a few hardcore types.