Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
walter1963
()
Date: January 11, 2012 01:06AM
One of the most serious issues facing the Yoga community is a flood of incompetent teachers equipped with a rotten pedagogy that insures the people they are teaching are going to get screwed up. And chain fitness centers are to blame for a lot of this since they allow about anyone to become a yoga instructor after a short class - usually less than week. Even better, some of the most incompetent teachers are the most well known like Shiva Ray.
And it's not only the low quality of teacher training, it's the sort of people attracted to it or that can afford the multimonth training retreats. For example one yoga chain has a five month course. Now how many working class people can afford to take 5 months off work? None. Ok, who does that leave as a source for potential instructors? Bored housewives, trust fundies, hippies and other assorted jackwagons. In short the very sort of people you don't want messing with your body.
Another thing at play is that yoga doesn't scale. You get a class of 50 people, there is zero chance you can give them any sort of adequate instruction. Another factor is that many yoga classes reek of adrenaline, the people go in there and try to out stretch, flex and split everyone else. Too many people have turned it into a ego trip.
Bottom line. Yoga has to be personalized, most people don't have the ideal yoga physique and the postures have to be altered to account for body type differences. Also some postures are incompatible with some physiques. And this sort of instruction is almost not done anymore.
Most people IMO are better off just buying a beginners yoga DVD and work from that given the paucity of legit instructors outside of certain metropolitan areas.
Oh, and the most important thing. Listen to your body. If you're doing something and it hurts, stop it. That will stop almost all injuries from occuring.
And it's not only the low quality of teacher training, it's the sort of people attracted to it or that can afford the multimonth training retreats. For example one yoga chain has a five month course. Now how many working class people can afford to take 5 months off work? None. Ok, who does that leave as a source for potential instructors? Bored housewives, trust fundies, hippies and other assorted jackwagons. In short the very sort of people you don't want messing with your body.
Another thing at play is that yoga doesn't scale. You get a class of 50 people, there is zero chance you can give them any sort of adequate instruction. Another factor is that many yoga classes reek of adrenaline, the people go in there and try to out stretch, flex and split everyone else. Too many people have turned it into a ego trip.
Bottom line. Yoga has to be personalized, most people don't have the ideal yoga physique and the postures have to be altered to account for body type differences. Also some postures are incompatible with some physiques. And this sort of instruction is almost not done anymore.
Most people IMO are better off just buying a beginners yoga DVD and work from that given the paucity of legit instructors outside of certain metropolitan areas.
Oh, and the most important thing. Listen to your body. If you're doing something and it hurts, stop it. That will stop almost all injuries from occuring.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
good enough
()
Date: January 11, 2012 03:24AM
Hi Corboy, thanks for posting How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body. The information has been around for some time, but too many people don't want to hear about it. I started doing yoga several years ago (long before it became the in thing to do) and left it about a year ago. My neck and knee are better now, but my back misses cat pose.
The thing is yoga, like any form of physical exercise, can lead to injuries. I've injured my back a couple of times doing weight training, my knee during a dance class and caused more damage to my neck and that same knee with yoga. When I first injured my back many years ago I remember my physiotherapist giving me information on which stretches and poses should be avoided. The plough, shoulder stand and headstand were some of the ones which were listed as being unsafe.
I'm not the only one. I used to work with someone who ruined her knees doing yoga. I remember feeling very uncomfortable hearing this. I used to be one of those foolish, naive people who wanted to believe that unlike weight training or jogging, yoga could do no harm. That was before injuring myself doing chair pose.
Even though yoga has been popular for awhile now and the injury rates amongst teachers and students are increasing, people don't want to admit that it's not always safe and that it's not for everyone. Several reasons for this:
1) Yoga has become a hugely successful way to make money, between the classes, yoga wear, books, DVDs and accessories there is lots of $$$ to be made.
My partner's daughter (a late 20s trendoid narcissist) is training to become a yoga teacher. She loves wearing yoga togs, has no practise of her own, doesn't particularly like people, but this will be a way she can make money and go further with her own yoga. It will also suit her lifestyle because she's a new mom and best of all it's one more thing she can blog, tweet and facebook about.
The fact that she was accepted as a student speaks volumes. It's all about the money, honey. She has a history of starting things and dropping out. For the sake of all yoga students, I hope she doesn't follow through and become a yoga instructor because I wouldn't wish her on anyone.
2) Yoga is treated as being sacred by too many westerners. Same with meditation. It's gotten so that anything and anyone from the east is above criticism. Very scary, if you think about it. No person and no spiritual/physical practise should be exempt from objective questioning. People's mental and physical health (in addition to their bank accounts) could suffer needlessly.
3) So many celebrities are embracing yoga and meditation, while too many publications are using these people to help promote these eastern practises. We see photos of Jennifer Aniston looking slim and toned at 40 plus and that helps promote the idea that yoga will help civilians achieve similar results.
Never mind that someone like her can afford a personal trainer, a chef, holidays to relieve stress, cleaning staff, the best quality food, etc. I seriously doubt that yoga is the only reason she looks so youthful. Unfortunately, people idolize celebrities and want to emulate them. Personally I don't get it. They're people just like you and me with bigger bank balances and as a result have more options to pamper themselves and also be more self-destructive. A lot of them are seriously messed up.
Just once I would like to see an article in the local daily or women's publication about people recovering from meditation or yoga (or any other new age practise). Unfortunately, journalism is more about meeting deadlines and making money for shareholders with smaller budgets. This means less staff, less freelancers and more reliance on wire copy and media kits. Not enough questions are being asked and therefore not enough valuable information is being made available so the public can make informed decisions.
Editors need story ideas to fill space and meet deadlines. Unlike new agers, I doubt that sceptics are using celebrities and media kits to present a different perspective.
The thing is yoga, like any form of physical exercise, can lead to injuries. I've injured my back a couple of times doing weight training, my knee during a dance class and caused more damage to my neck and that same knee with yoga. When I first injured my back many years ago I remember my physiotherapist giving me information on which stretches and poses should be avoided. The plough, shoulder stand and headstand were some of the ones which were listed as being unsafe.
I'm not the only one. I used to work with someone who ruined her knees doing yoga. I remember feeling very uncomfortable hearing this. I used to be one of those foolish, naive people who wanted to believe that unlike weight training or jogging, yoga could do no harm. That was before injuring myself doing chair pose.
Even though yoga has been popular for awhile now and the injury rates amongst teachers and students are increasing, people don't want to admit that it's not always safe and that it's not for everyone. Several reasons for this:
1) Yoga has become a hugely successful way to make money, between the classes, yoga wear, books, DVDs and accessories there is lots of $$$ to be made.
My partner's daughter (a late 20s trendoid narcissist) is training to become a yoga teacher. She loves wearing yoga togs, has no practise of her own, doesn't particularly like people, but this will be a way she can make money and go further with her own yoga. It will also suit her lifestyle because she's a new mom and best of all it's one more thing she can blog, tweet and facebook about.
The fact that she was accepted as a student speaks volumes. It's all about the money, honey. She has a history of starting things and dropping out. For the sake of all yoga students, I hope she doesn't follow through and become a yoga instructor because I wouldn't wish her on anyone.
2) Yoga is treated as being sacred by too many westerners. Same with meditation. It's gotten so that anything and anyone from the east is above criticism. Very scary, if you think about it. No person and no spiritual/physical practise should be exempt from objective questioning. People's mental and physical health (in addition to their bank accounts) could suffer needlessly.
3) So many celebrities are embracing yoga and meditation, while too many publications are using these people to help promote these eastern practises. We see photos of Jennifer Aniston looking slim and toned at 40 plus and that helps promote the idea that yoga will help civilians achieve similar results.
Never mind that someone like her can afford a personal trainer, a chef, holidays to relieve stress, cleaning staff, the best quality food, etc. I seriously doubt that yoga is the only reason she looks so youthful. Unfortunately, people idolize celebrities and want to emulate them. Personally I don't get it. They're people just like you and me with bigger bank balances and as a result have more options to pamper themselves and also be more self-destructive. A lot of them are seriously messed up.
Just once I would like to see an article in the local daily or women's publication about people recovering from meditation or yoga (or any other new age practise). Unfortunately, journalism is more about meeting deadlines and making money for shareholders with smaller budgets. This means less staff, less freelancers and more reliance on wire copy and media kits. Not enough questions are being asked and therefore not enough valuable information is being made available so the public can make informed decisions.
Editors need story ideas to fill space and meet deadlines. Unlike new agers, I doubt that sceptics are using celebrities and media kits to present a different perspective.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 11, 2012 08:16AM
Folks, if something is potent enough to be benefical, that means it is potent enough to carry some risk of potential harm, as well.
Its called the 'Risk/Benefit Ratio' -- and every responsible health care provider or physical therapist will understand this.
Exercise is good for us, but for that very reason it carries risks. Thats why anyone above a certain age or with certain pre-existing conditons is urged to get a checkup with his or her doctor before beginning an exercise program.
So...if yoga or meditation are (so they say) potent enough to be good, that means both activities carry potential risk.
You cant have the potential for good without the potential for injury.
Even water can be harmful if one drinks too much too quickly, Okaaay?
The problem is yoga has become a profit driven industry and that means ego driven. The very thing the genuine yogis were trying to become freed from.
Searching my memory I think one person who taught yoga for people in prisons and jails said,
"Yoga was supposed to assist us to stay healthy and vital so we could have long lives caring for humanity and the world.
"Now we have all these adverts that yoga is supposed to help people shape themselves to get beautiful asses so to inspire lust and foster self satisfaction.
"The sages would consider this vandalism of a sacred ideal."
Head stands are counter indicated for anyone with fragile blood vessals in the eyes. That means anyone who might have diabetes and have diabetic retinal vessal disease and not know it--headstands would not be good to do. Ditto for stuff such as Downward Dog.
A lot of people may have health conditions that they dont even know they have.
Or they might not think to mention it to a yoga instructor.
Or even if people do mention it--if that yoga instructor has bought into the notion that Yoga is Good For Everything and Can Never Hurt Anyone....oy vey.
Its not only 'yoga' -- its the clothing and accessories. Yoga sells not just itself but also accessories, retreats, magazines, jewelry, tattoos.
I can remember when yoga didnt require endless accessories. In those ancient days, all people needed were leotards or shorts.
Try and remember some older yoga books and magazines with black and white photos.
That was it. No tattoos, no fashionista wardrobes.
Until about the early 1990s the big trend was Pilates classes. I remember at the cutting edge health club I once went to, it was the Pilates classes that were mega big, with wait lists. But..no one needed fancy outfits for those.
Ditto for Power biking/Spin classes--all we needed were cleated bike shoes, bike shorts, and, for those who were dead serious, heart rate monitors.
And we bought all those at bike shops and then used em till they wore out.
But then in the later 1990s, yoga crept in and all at once, became THE thing.
First came the sticky mats. Okay, that made sense. You have your own mat, less hazard of getting germs from someone else.
But it didnt stop with the mat. All at once came each year's line of adorable yoga clothes.
Then...the health clubs caught on. They realized they could sell yoga clothes and accessories at the gym and generate more money, and the more yoga students came in, the more money.
I still remember the sad, ever so sad day that our Spin class was kicked out of a spacious room and the bikes were crammed into a small, nasty room and with a sound system that kept shorting out.
The Spin classes just didnt give occasion to sell accessories the way the yoga classes did. Plus, you could not have more bicyclists in a room than there were bikes.
But one could cram ever so many more humans into a yoga studio.
Its called the 'Risk/Benefit Ratio' -- and every responsible health care provider or physical therapist will understand this.
Exercise is good for us, but for that very reason it carries risks. Thats why anyone above a certain age or with certain pre-existing conditons is urged to get a checkup with his or her doctor before beginning an exercise program.
So...if yoga or meditation are (so they say) potent enough to be good, that means both activities carry potential risk.
You cant have the potential for good without the potential for injury.
Even water can be harmful if one drinks too much too quickly, Okaaay?
The problem is yoga has become a profit driven industry and that means ego driven. The very thing the genuine yogis were trying to become freed from.
Searching my memory I think one person who taught yoga for people in prisons and jails said,
"Yoga was supposed to assist us to stay healthy and vital so we could have long lives caring for humanity and the world.
"Now we have all these adverts that yoga is supposed to help people shape themselves to get beautiful asses so to inspire lust and foster self satisfaction.
"The sages would consider this vandalism of a sacred ideal."
Head stands are counter indicated for anyone with fragile blood vessals in the eyes. That means anyone who might have diabetes and have diabetic retinal vessal disease and not know it--headstands would not be good to do. Ditto for stuff such as Downward Dog.
A lot of people may have health conditions that they dont even know they have.
Or they might not think to mention it to a yoga instructor.
Or even if people do mention it--if that yoga instructor has bought into the notion that Yoga is Good For Everything and Can Never Hurt Anyone....oy vey.
Its not only 'yoga' -- its the clothing and accessories. Yoga sells not just itself but also accessories, retreats, magazines, jewelry, tattoos.
I can remember when yoga didnt require endless accessories. In those ancient days, all people needed were leotards or shorts.
Try and remember some older yoga books and magazines with black and white photos.
That was it. No tattoos, no fashionista wardrobes.
Until about the early 1990s the big trend was Pilates classes. I remember at the cutting edge health club I once went to, it was the Pilates classes that were mega big, with wait lists. But..no one needed fancy outfits for those.
Ditto for Power biking/Spin classes--all we needed were cleated bike shoes, bike shorts, and, for those who were dead serious, heart rate monitors.
And we bought all those at bike shops and then used em till they wore out.
But then in the later 1990s, yoga crept in and all at once, became THE thing.
First came the sticky mats. Okay, that made sense. You have your own mat, less hazard of getting germs from someone else.
But it didnt stop with the mat. All at once came each year's line of adorable yoga clothes.
Then...the health clubs caught on. They realized they could sell yoga clothes and accessories at the gym and generate more money, and the more yoga students came in, the more money.
I still remember the sad, ever so sad day that our Spin class was kicked out of a spacious room and the bikes were crammed into a small, nasty room and with a sound system that kept shorting out.
The Spin classes just didnt give occasion to sell accessories the way the yoga classes did. Plus, you could not have more bicyclists in a room than there were bikes.
But one could cram ever so many more humans into a yoga studio.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 11, 2012 08:25AM
Even if you dont feel an injury right away, one may still be over stressing ones body.
If one inflicts micro injuries upon muscles, joints or ligaments, the micro lesions can build up, not generate noticeable pain.
By the time a person feels pain, that injury may be serious.
A fellow once told me that it takes very much longer to train joints and ligaments than to develop muscle and cardiovascular fitness. And its true.
Even if injuries can be repaired surgically and even if those repairs seem successful at the time (and thats assuming you have the health coverage)..eventually those repairs may give way.
I met a fellow who had had many serious injuries surgically repaired. He had survived a myriad of combat related catastrophic injuries, and had spent many successful ambulatory years following his surgeries, doing all kinds of camping, mountain climbing, so forth--seemingly no worse for wear.
Then...years later, the repairs broke down. He again became mobility impaired.
"I thought I could get back to where I started from with the help of good surgeons" he said, ruefuly. "But all injuries will catch up to you eventually and require follow up surgeries no matter how good the initial repair was."
If one inflicts micro injuries upon muscles, joints or ligaments, the micro lesions can build up, not generate noticeable pain.
By the time a person feels pain, that injury may be serious.
A fellow once told me that it takes very much longer to train joints and ligaments than to develop muscle and cardiovascular fitness. And its true.
Even if injuries can be repaired surgically and even if those repairs seem successful at the time (and thats assuming you have the health coverage)..eventually those repairs may give way.
I met a fellow who had had many serious injuries surgically repaired. He had survived a myriad of combat related catastrophic injuries, and had spent many successful ambulatory years following his surgeries, doing all kinds of camping, mountain climbing, so forth--seemingly no worse for wear.
Then...years later, the repairs broke down. He again became mobility impaired.
"I thought I could get back to where I started from with the help of good surgeons" he said, ruefuly. "But all injuries will catch up to you eventually and require follow up surgeries no matter how good the initial repair was."
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 11, 2012 08:29AM
Am starting to think the best way is to imitate what dogs and cats do.
Dogs and cats do not hold wierd poses for minutes at a time. They move around. They dont have ideologies or
instructors.
They never put their joints into positions that bring pain.
Am not playing this for laughs.
Get a quilt or mat and go to a park with a play area for dogs. Watch what dogs do and then try to imitate them.
Roll around on your back, with your legs and arms in the air and imitate what you see the dogs and cats doing.
Its nice and strenuous workout.
Dogs and cats dont do full or half lotus, either.
Dogs and cats do not hold wierd poses for minutes at a time. They move around. They dont have ideologies or
instructors.
They never put their joints into positions that bring pain.
Am not playing this for laughs.
Get a quilt or mat and go to a park with a play area for dogs. Watch what dogs do and then try to imitate them.
Roll around on your back, with your legs and arms in the air and imitate what you see the dogs and cats doing.
Its nice and strenuous workout.
Dogs and cats dont do full or half lotus, either.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 11, 2012 11:39PM
Ayn Rand, Objectivism and the Western Yoga-Marketing/Industrial Complex
Remember that very old and tastless pop song, 'I Got a Party in My Passnts and I want Yo All To Come..Ta da, da da da da daaaah?
How about "There's an an Elitist Greed is Good Group in my Leotaaards....
Ta Taaa Ta da da daah
The weak and poor and gentle can all go to hell, so's long as I get riccccchhhh
Ta taaa ta ta ta taaa taaaaaaaH
Bit and squease Tease my ego oooh pleassseeee oh pleeeeaseeee! ."
The Science of Yoga-The Risks and Rewards is now available as a book.
[www.google.com]
Note this article "The NY Times unfairly trashes yoga.'
Yet here is a item that also refers to Broads book and gives ways to do yoga safetly.
If a balanced discussion of the risk potential for yoga is seen as an attack, that indicates
that the world of yoga and its propagandists need an attitude adjustment and some long overdue outside scrutiny.
If yoga is a worthy endeavor it should survive scrutiny.
Whether its integrity can survive consumerism and profit driven faddism is the open question.
And this goes into the larger world of sports and ego--and thats the problem.
Yoga has become profit driven and ego driven.
And truthfulness is always the first casualty long before people get injuried.
Now, here is the article on how to do yoga safetly.
[abcnews.go.com]
On respected teacher quoted in this article on how to do yoga safetly is Leslie Kaminoff
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
More on Ayn Rand and yoga here--via Lulelemon
[www.google.com]
Ayn Rand after a Century
"Atlas Shrugged was Rand's last novel, but she continued to expound her increasingly strident "philosophy" in speeches and in paperback tracts, chiefly The Virtue of Selfishness (New American Library) By the time of her death in 1982, of lung cancer after a lifetime of heavy smoking, Rand had become such a consummate flibbertigibbet that she was practically friendless. But the cult soldiers on, as her books continue to sell at least 300,000 copies a year, mostly to young people. ''
"
Here are some positions currently held by the Ayn Rand Institute.
Yogis take note.
Remember that very old and tastless pop song, 'I Got a Party in My Passnts and I want Yo All To Come..Ta da, da da da da daaaah?
How about "There's an an Elitist Greed is Good Group in my Leotaaards....
Ta Taaa Ta da da daah
The weak and poor and gentle can all go to hell, so's long as I get riccccchhhh
Ta taaa ta ta ta taaa taaaaaaaH
Bit and squease Tease my ego oooh pleassseeee oh pleeeeaseeee! ."
The Science of Yoga-The Risks and Rewards is now available as a book.
[www.google.com]
Note this article "The NY Times unfairly trashes yoga.'
Quote
NY Times unfairly trashes yoga. - Knight Science Journalism Tracker5 days ago ... The piece is adapted from Broad's new book, “The Science of Yoga: The Risks
and Rewards,” to be published next month by Simon & Schuster ...
ksjtracker.mit.edu/2012/01/05/ny-times-unfairly-trashes-yoga/ - 37k - Cached - Similar pages
Yet here is a item that also refers to Broads book and gives ways to do yoga safetly.
If a balanced discussion of the risk potential for yoga is seen as an attack, that indicates
that the world of yoga and its propagandists need an attitude adjustment and some long overdue outside scrutiny.
If yoga is a worthy endeavor it should survive scrutiny.
Whether its integrity can survive consumerism and profit driven faddism is the open question.
And this goes into the larger world of sports and ego--and thats the problem.
Yoga has become profit driven and ego driven.
And truthfulness is always the first casualty long before people get injuried.
Now, here is the article on how to do yoga safetly.
[abcnews.go.com]
On respected teacher quoted in this article on how to do yoga safetly is Leslie Kaminoff
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Quote
From the Yoga Anatomy YouTube channel:
Learn more about studying online at yogaanatomy.net.
11/15/11 10:59pm
Sthira & Sukha of the Spine, by Leslie Kaminoff
6/12/11 1:48pm
Why "drop your shoulder blades" will never work - by Leslie Kaminoff
6/12/11 1:45pm
What is a breath-centered practice? by Leslie Kaminoff
Leslie Kaminoff is a yoga educator inspired by the tradition of T.K.V. Desikachar, with thirty two years’ experience in the fields of yoga and breath anatomy. Leslie’s book Yoga Anatomy, (co-authored with Amy Matthews), has been a top-selling yoga book on Amazon ever since its release in 2007.
Leslie is the founder of The Breathing Project, a NYC educational non-profit where he teaches his highly respected courses in Yoga Anatomy.
Leslie’s teaching is now available to a worldwide audience online at yogaanatomy.net.
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Who is John Galt? RTFN.
LK Writing
photo credit: Emily Gan
As I write this, I am wearing an article of Lululemon clothing I purchased 8 years ago. Did I spend twice what I pay for other brands? Yes. But, Lulu’s product has lasted 4 times as long. Maybe reading Atlas Shrugged helped Chip Wilson make boxer briefs this good. If so, I thank both him and Ayn Rand from the bottom of my well-ventilated nutsack.
It has been quite the spectacle the past few weeks, observing the widespread reaction to Wilson’s decision to put four provocative words on Lululemon’s ubiquitous shopping bags. So far, I have not seen a single article, comment or quote referencing Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged or Objectivism that reflects even a rudimentary understanding of the fundamental ideas that they represent.
Aside from being a satisfied Lulu customer, I’ve been following this story with keen interest because of two facts: I’m both a yoga educator, and a publicly declared Objectivist of long standing. If I were to evaluate these two facts on the basis of the general response to the “Galt” kerfuffle, I’d have to judge them to be incompatible. Fortunately, I do not make judgements based on public opinion.
I have read Atlas Shrugged five times, Fountainhead four times, and all of Ayn Rand’s non-fiction. As far as her more formal work on philosophy is concerned, I have had the privilege of personally studying with two of the top Objectivist scholars in the world. I have been contemplating and applying Rand’s ideas in every area of my life and career for four decades, and I’m well aware of the hard work it’s taken to forge a consistent world view in which the principles of Yoga are compatible with those of Objectivism. It wasn’t easy, but I did it, and I owe whatever success I’ve had in my life to the effort I put in.
If you have made a similar effort to forge a consistent philosophy for yourself and have something RATIONAL to say about this issue, I’d love to hear from you.
However, if you wish to comment about “Who is John Galt,” I’ll give you the same advice issued by frustrated tech support when they are repeatedly assaulted with stupid questions that have already been answered by the people who have taken the trouble to write the operating instructions: “RTFM – Read The Fucking Manual.”
What I’m suggesting is that there is a very well-written manual for addressing all the injustices that both the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party are protesting. It is called “Atlas Shrugged.” So, before you bitch and moan about how society isn’t working for you, I suggest you “RTFN – Read The F-ing Novel.”
Then, we’ll talk.
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Posted on 12/02/2011 by lkaminoff Posted in News, Opinion |
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More on Ayn Rand and yoga here--via Lulelemon
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Quote
Lululemon Athletica Combines Ayn Rand and Yoga - NYTimes.comNov 27, 2011 ... Lululemon Athletica has long decorated shopping bags with uplifting slogans.
But this month its bags quote from a source that some may find ...
www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/.../combines-ayn-rand-and-yoga.html - Similar pages
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Various items 1: Ayn Rand's yoga pants, the sequel- shakeup at ...Various items 1: Ayn Rand's yoga pants, the sequel- shakeup at Lulu. Posted on
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Lululemon and Ayn Rand: Thoughts from a San Francisco yoga ...Dec 8, 2011 ... From Yahoo! News: COMMENTARY | I've been an active yogi and very present
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Ayn Rand after a Century
"Atlas Shrugged was Rand's last novel, but she continued to expound her increasingly strident "philosophy" in speeches and in paperback tracts, chiefly The Virtue of Selfishness (New American Library) By the time of her death in 1982, of lung cancer after a lifetime of heavy smoking, Rand had become such a consummate flibbertigibbet that she was practically friendless. But the cult soldiers on, as her books continue to sell at least 300,000 copies a year, mostly to young people. ''
"
Quote
http://www.culteducation.com/reference/ayn_rand/aro3.htmlAyn Rand after a century: Who was she - and why?
Baltimore Sun/February 16, 2003
By Ray Jenkins
The author of 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged' simply won't go away - but she should.
At the close of the last century, Modern Library, the prestige publisher, announced its list of the 100 best novels of the 100 years, as chosen by a panel of top writers and scholars. Not a single work by Ayn Rand made the list.
Then, turning the contest into a national parlor game, Modern Library invited ordinary readers to submit their choices. A quarter of a million responded, and presto! Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, scored No. 1, and three more Rand novels appeared in the top 10.
This news might have brought a contemptuous smile to Ayn Rand's stony face, but for one thing: Her chief competitor was L. Ron Hubbard, who landed three titles on the public's top 10. Hubbard, a marginal writer of science fiction, founded Scientology.
This outcome pretty well settles the enduring question of whether Ayn Rand was an important writer, or whether she was simply the goddess of a great American cult whose erstwhile members include such powerful men as Alan Greenspan. Whatever her status as a writer, as a charismatic spell-caster, Rand ranks up there with Rasputin and Aimee Semple McPherson.
Atlas Shrugged opens with the cryptic question, "Who is John Galt?" In 1,168 dense pages, Rand answers the question, but to know John Galt one must first ask, "Who is Ayn Rand?"
Our improbable goddess was born in 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the daughter of a pharmacist who had achieved about as much material success as anyone, especially a Jew, could hope to reach in the twilight of czarist rule. Alissa Rosenbaum - Rand's birth name - witnesses all the terrors of the Russian Revolution. The precocious child finds escape and hope by immersing herself in the American films which somehow found their way to Russia in the grim years of her adolescence, and out of this experience comes a fierce determination to be a film writer.
Leveled to abject poverty, Alissa's family manages to get her to America to find refuge with relatives who had settled in Chicago. To the relatives' chagrin, Alissa shows no interest in the family left behind in Russia. She promptly changes her name to Ayn Rand - the surname was lifted from her Remington Rand typewriter. Within months she heads for Hollywood, where she stalks Cecil B. DeMille. The legendary director is so taken by her audacity that he employs her as a minor writer. She marries a bit actor named Frank O'Connor, who becomes her long-suffering life's companion.
By day she struggles at low-paying jobs, by night she labors over her first major novel, which, after many rejections, appears in 1943 under the title of The Fountainhead. The book gets tepid reviews but enthralls college students and gradually climbs to the best-seller list. The book becomes a film, with Rand as the screenwriter and Gary Cooper cast as Howard Roark, the young super-architect.
Roark is so incensed that grimy politicians would dare to change his design of a public-housing project that he blows up the building. At his trial, he wins acquittal with a defiant courtroom speech defending the integrity of creativity. (For those seeking a quick study in Ayn Rand's philosophy, The Fountainhead film can be found at most video stores, and it's worth viewing; time has transmogrified the film from high drama to low comedy.)
Profits from the film allowed Rand to devote all of her talents and energies to her life's mission, which, after 12 years in gestation, appears in 1957 as Atlas Shrugged. By this time Rand was showing sure signs that she suffered from the Russian writer's disease of megalomania, like Tolstoy before her and Solzhenitsyn after. When her publisher suggested the manuscript might be cut, Rand responded with aplomb: "Would you cut the Bible?" The chastened publisher dutifully produced all 1,168 pages as Rand wrote them.
The book's hero is John Galt, the Ideal Man, beautiful of body, incorruptible of mind and spirit. He leads "The Strike," in which he organizes the "men of mind" to abandon the world in disgust over the moral degradation brought on by unbridled democracy. By dint of will, Galt stops the motor of the world, and chaos ensues, to the point that a terrified populace clamors for John Galt's logic and reason, which he delivers in a three-hour radio address to the world.
Even the most dedicated Randians acknowledge that it's heavy slogging to get through these 60 pages, but the gist is captured in that perennial favorite of college sophomores, W.E. Henley's poem "Invictus," which concludes with the stirring affirmation: "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
Based on what we now know, it's a wonder that Atlas Shrugged ever saw the light of day, because it was during this period that Rand, at the age of 50, entered into a love affair with her acolyte, a 25-year-old man named Nathaniel Branden. The story of this bizarre tryst is related in brutal detail by Barbara Branden, Nathaniel's wife, who wrote the closest thing we have to an honest biography of Rand, titled The Passion of Ayn Rand (Bantam Doubleday Dell).
Barbara Branden, more an amanuensis than a biographer, relates how Ayn and Nathaniel called their respective spouses together to announce the affair, to assure them that the marriages were not threatened, and to lay down the terms: Ayn and Nathaniel must have an evening a week alone. The stunned spouses accepted the terms, and over several years, Frank O'Connor and Nathaniel Branden would pass one another as they came and went from Ayn's arms.
After five years, the affair ended only with Rand's caveat that she might want to resume it at some point. But when, at 60, she felt the yearnings of passion once more, Branden, at 35, just couldn't get up the old enthusiasm. The enraged Ayn excommunicated him in a scene that ended with her violent attack on the young lover. But her public explanation for the break was that Nathaniel had betrayed Objectivism, as her philosophy had by then become known.
The affair was revealed to the public only when the humiliated Barbara Branden wrote her book, but enough was known within the temple that it nearly destroyed the Rand cult. Nathaniel added his own account in My Years With Ayn Rand (Jossey-Bass).
Atlas Shrugged was Rand's last novel, but she continued to expound her increasingly strident "philosophy" in speeches and in paperback tracts, chiefly The Virtue of Selfishness (New American Library) By the time of her death in 1982, of lung cancer after a lifetime of heavy smoking, Rand had become such a consummate flibbertigibbet that she was practically friendless. But the cult soldiers on, as her books continue to sell at least 300,000 copies a year, mostly to young people.
So, as we approach the centennial anniversary of her birth, what is Ayn Rand's legacy? Aside from a lot of noise, practically nothing. In terms of public policy, Upton Sinclair and John Steinbeck exerted infinitely greater influence in establishing the most hated public policies in Rand's pantheon of evils, regulation and welfare. As for her disciples, Alan Greenspan knows full well that Randian economics is to real economics as astrology is to astronomy.
Measured as literature, her work was either ignored or deplored by the critics of the day, and the most savage attack of all on Atlas Shrugged came from William F. Buckley Jr.'s National Review in a review written by, of all people, Whittaker Chambers. She never found favor with orthodox conservatives, because she didn't believe in God, and even Libertarians, who might share her atheist beliefs, in the end had to admit that she hovered too close to the hazy line that separates libertarianism from outright anarchy.
But for the sake of speculation, what would the world be like if Rand's "philosophy" had prevailed? Well, it's worth noting that in 1948, her Fountainhead shared places on the best-seller list with George Orwell's 1984. But Orwell, like Aldous Huxley a few years earlier, was writing bitter satire; Ayn Rand was deadly serious, consciously striving to expunge any trace of humor that might creep into her work.
It's not likely Orwell ever read Rand, because he died in 1950. But if he had, Big Brother may well have been Big Sister.
Ray Jenkins, as a reporter for the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger, won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his coverage, with another reporter, of the 1954 Phenix City, Ala., upheaval. He has worked for the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser-Journal, The New York Times and the Clearwater (Fla.) Sun, and was editorial page editor of The Evening Sun. His book, Blind Vengeance, was published in 1997 by the University of Georgia Press.
Here are some positions currently held by the Ayn Rand Institute.
Yogis take note.
Quote
The Morality of War and Civilian Casualties - Ayn Rand InstituteThe Morality of War and Civilian Casualties. Q & A with Ayn Rand on the Death of
Innocents in War. The following are excerpts from Ayn Rand Answers: The ...
www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?...media...casualties - 29k - Cached - Similar pages
Stop Apologizing for Civilian Casualties - Ayn Rand InstituteThe Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights (ARC) is a public policy and media
center in Washington, DC. A division of the Ayn Rand Institute, the Center ...
www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7786... - 32k - Cached - Similar pages
The Sanction of the Victims - Ayn Rand InstituteThe Sanction of the Victims. By Ayn Rand (1981). In Ayn Rand's final public talk,
she exhorts a group of businessmen to stop apologizing, and stop supporting ...
www.aynrand.org/reg_ar_sanction - 31k - Cached - Similar pages
Ayn Rand Institute: U.S. Should Not Help Tsunami VictimsNobody helped me rebuild after after a hurricane wrecked my property so I tend
to agree with this philosophy.
www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message64388/pg1 - Similar pages
PRODOS FSG presents Ayn Rand's 1981 talks: Sanction of the VictimsFeb 6, 2011 ... Ayn Rand 1981 - Sanction of the Victims. Ayn Rand on the Sanction of the Victim:
Every kind of ethnic group is enormously sensitive to any ...
prodos.thinkertothinker.com/?p=893 - 44k - Cached - Similar pages
Quotes~Ayn Rand. Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths...I mean, it's not
relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? ...
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Twitter / Fake Ayn Rand: How many deaths, mutations ...How many deaths, mutations or diseases can be tied or attributed to the 3 mile
Island accident? Answer - "0"
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An Ayn Rand Institute flashback: "U.S. Should Not Help Tsunami ...Jan 29, 2005 ... Of course you all remember the libertarian classic "U.S. Should Not Help
Tsunami Victims" from the Ayn Rand Institute from a few weeks ago: ...
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Casualties of a $67 Million Frivolous Lawsuit - THE FORUM for Ayn ...Sep 21, 2007 ... Although the trial ended favorably for them, the owners of a dry cleaning
establishment sued for $67 million by a.
forums.4aynrandfans.com/index.php?showtopic=7039 - 128k - Cached - Similar pages
Sanction of the Victim — Ayn Rand LexiconThe Ayn Rand Lexicon: This mini-encyclopedia of Objectivism is compiled from
Ayn Rand's statements on some 400 topics in ... “The Sanction of the Victims,” ...
aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sanction_of_the_victim.html - 19k - Cached - Similar pages
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 12, 2012 12:02AM
"But no one speaks out for businessmen, when they are attacked and insulted by everyone as a matter of routine. What causes this overwhelming injustice? "
(Corboy--big business has lobbies and ties to Congress.
All this said, people who try to start small businesses, especially brick and mortar small businesses, often have a hard time. But they have merchants associations, chambers of commerce, etc. This stance "BUt no one speaks out for businessmen" -- that is a straw man.
Ayn Rand wrote books and had a cultic private circle of admirers whom she ruled with a rod of iron. Am not aware that she ever negotiated permits to open and then maintain a brick and mortar business of her own--let me know if she did.. Corboy)
The Sanction of the Victim.
Worth reading in all its grim glory. It may be used by various clever types who hate the word victim and need a very sophisticated way to do do away with decency all together.
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Is this an attitude compatible with practice of yoga? Hmm.
(Corboy--big business has lobbies and ties to Congress.
All this said, people who try to start small businesses, especially brick and mortar small businesses, often have a hard time. But they have merchants associations, chambers of commerce, etc. This stance "BUt no one speaks out for businessmen" -- that is a straw man.
Ayn Rand wrote books and had a cultic private circle of admirers whom she ruled with a rod of iron. Am not aware that she ever negotiated permits to open and then maintain a brick and mortar business of her own--let me know if she did.. Corboy)
The Sanction of the Victim.
Worth reading in all its grim glory. It may be used by various clever types who hate the word victim and need a very sophisticated way to do do away with decency all together.
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Quote
Sanction of the Victim
The “sanction of the victim” is the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the “sin” of creating values.
The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series
Leonard Peikoff,
The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series, Lecture 8
Then I saw what was wrong with the world, I saw what destroyed men and nations, and where the battle for life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality—and that my sanction was its only power.
I saw that evil was impotent—that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real—and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it.
Just as the parasites around me were proclaiming their helpless dependence on my mind and were expecting me voluntarily to accept a slavery they had no power to enforce, just as they were counting on my self-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan—so throughout the world and throughout men’s history, in every version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectivized countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values—the impotence of death.
(Corboy aside Loafing relatives become equated with the horrors of collectivised countries???--take close look at this, readers.
Friends, a lot of our immigrant ancestors got their start as 'greenhorns' when, after arriving in places like New York City, they would sleep on a couch or corner of a relative's tenament apartment.
Most of them would find ways to get work, save up, help support the household, the move to progressively better and better lodgings. Ayn Rand arrived as a refugee in the US right when this kind of arrangement was common.
There will in all places at all times, be a few couch surving relatives who just cant get it together and overstay a welcome. One can tell them to leave after setting a deadline.
But to equate them with the horrors of the Stalinist collectivisation program which led to famines in which millions died--thats the sign of a mind that cannot see things in a balanced manner. Corboy)
"I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win—and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was “No.”
Galt’s Speech,
For the New Intellectual, 165
QUoted from For the New Intellectual by Ayn Rand. ( Corboy note. This very book was available for purchase from Scholastic Book Services, back in 1972 when my little friends and I were in 7th or 8th grade)
Every kind of ethnic group is enormously sensitive to any slight.
If one made a derogatory remark about the Kurds of Iran, dozens of voices would leap to their defense.
But no one speaks out for businessmen, when they are attacked and insulted by everyone as a matter of routine. What causes this overwhelming injustice? The businessmen’s own policies: their betrayal of their own values, their appeasement of enemies, their compromises—all of which add up to an air of moral cowardice. Add to it the fact that businessmen are creating and supporting their own destroyers.
The sources and centers of today’s philosophical corruption are the universities . . . It is the businessmen’s money that supports American universities—not merely in the form of taxes and government handouts, but much worse: in the form of voluntary, private contributions, donations, endowments, etc.
In preparation for this lecture, I tried to do some research on the nature and amounts of such contributions. I had to give it up: it is too complex and too vast a field for the efforts of one person.
(Note that she gave up. If she had done the task in good faith, she could have obtained assistance from librarians and accountants Corboy)
To untangle it now would require a major research project and, probably, years of work.
(She put years of work into her novels. A novelist need not feel concerned by data that undermines cherished prejudices. Note the tone of fury when she refers to universities. She'd not have lasted long in any environment--university or business where assertions must be supported by research and well presented data---Corboy)
All I can say is only that millions and millions and millions of dollars (figures pullled out of the air)are being donated to universities by big business enterprises every year, and that the donors have no idea of what their money is being spent on or whom it is supporting. (Plenty of donors did and do specifiy where their donated funds go and specify where and on what they are to be spent. Look at the plaques and names on libraries, laboratories, seminar rooms. Look at the records for scholarships and grants and the purposes for which they are allocated. Donors stated their wishes clearly adn with precision when making those donations. Corboy)
What is certain* is only the fact* that some of the worst anti-business, anti-capitalism propaganda has been financed by businessmen in such projects.
(This is not certain and these are not facts. Rand claimed earlier that she'd not bothered to research it because doing so was too much work for one person.
Corboy)
Money is a great power—because, in a free or even a semi-free society, it is a frozen form of productive energy. And, therefore, the spending of money is a grave responsibility. Contrary to the altruists and the advocates of the so-called “academic freedom,” it is a moral crime to give money to support ideas with which you disagree; it means: ideas which you consider wrong, false, evil.
(One can disagree with ideas yet still consider it worth including them on a curriculum or supporting an educational environment that debates ideas that one disagrees with. Its free exchange of ideas, so long as courtesty is maintained and no one is shouted down or intimidated. This is American and the First Amendment to free exchange of ideas. Its what made the US worthwhile for Ayn Rand to travel to and reside in after the Bolshevik Revolution. Corboy)
It is a moral crime to give money to support your own destroyers. Yet that is what businessmen are doing with such reckless irresponsibility.
The Voice of Reason
“The Sanction of the Victims,”
The Voice of Reason, 153
See also: Appeasement; Businessmen; Collectivism; Compromise; Evil; Good, the; Money; Morality; Moral Cowardice; Sanction; Soviet Russia.
Copyright © 1986 by Harry Binswanger. Introduction copyright © 1986 by Leonard Peikoff. All rights reserved. For information address New American Library.
Acknowledgments
Excerpts from The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff. Copyright © 1982 by Leonard Peikoff. Reprinted with permission of Stein and Day Publishers. Excerpts from The Romantic Manifesto, by Ayn Rand. Copyright © 1971, by The Objectivist. Reprinted with permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, copyright © 1957 by Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, copyright © 1943 by Ayn Rand, and For the New Intellectual, copyright © 1961 by Ayn Rand. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Ayn Rand. Excerpts from Philosophy: Who Needs It, by Ayn Rand. Copyright © 1982 by Leonard Peikoff, Executor, Estate of Ayn Rand. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Ayn Rand. Excerpts from “The Philosophy of Objectivism” lecture series. Copyright © 1976 by Leonard Peikoff. Reprinted by permission. Excerpts from Alvin Toffler’s interview with Ayn Rand, which first appeared in Playboy magazine. Copyright © 1964. Reprinted by permission of Alvin Toffler. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Is this an attitude compatible with practice of yoga? Hmm.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 12, 2012 12:15AM
Nathaniel Branden who knew Rand for a long time and was viciously rejected by her,
has a prospectus for a taped interview.
It is interesting that he mentioned how AR's material seems, especially, to appeal to young persons.
has a prospectus for a taped interview.
It is interesting that he mentioned how AR's material seems, especially, to appeal to young persons.
Quote
The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand (MP3)
The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand (MP3)
[Total Program Length: 1 hr 30 min.]
Abstract: For eighteen years I was a close associate of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand whose books, notably The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, inspired a philosophical movement known as objectivism.
This philosophy places its central emphasis on reason, individualism, enlightened self-interest, political freedom — and a heroic vision of life's possibilities. Following an explosive parting of the ways with Ayn Rand in 1968, I have been asked many times about the nature of our differences.
This article is my first public answer to that question. Although agreeing with many of the values of the objectivist philosophy and vision, I discuss the consequences of the absence of an adequate psychology to support this intellectual structure — focusing in particular on the destructive moralism of Rand and many of her followers, a moralism that subtly encourages repression, self-alienation, and guilt.
I offer an explanation of the immense appeal of Ayn Rand's philosophy, particularly to the young, and suggest some cautionary observations concerning its adaptation to one's own life.
Total file size 45MB.
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Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
walter1963
()
Date: January 12, 2012 02:52PM
Yoga itself is generally quite safe if done correctly. The injuries are generally caused by a host of outside factors.
1) Bad instructors. It's caveat emptor here.
2) Over competitive students. Yoga should never be done competitively period.
3) Failure to take bodily pain as a source of feedback.
4) Failure to be aware of that only certain body types can safely accomplish the more complex and demanding poses. This even includes the half and full lotus. The blame for can be laid at the feet of the instructors.
5) Being greedy and going too far too fast.
6) Doing Power Yoga - want to have rotator cuff issues early in life? Do this form, which BTW was only meant to be used for public demonstrations of Yoga in early part of the 20th century.
If a person takes it nice and slow, listens to their body and follows a basic yoga DVD or a book like "The Runner's Yoga Book", the chances of them getting hurt are nil.
1) Bad instructors. It's caveat emptor here.
2) Over competitive students. Yoga should never be done competitively period.
3) Failure to take bodily pain as a source of feedback.
4) Failure to be aware of that only certain body types can safely accomplish the more complex and demanding poses. This even includes the half and full lotus. The blame for can be laid at the feet of the instructors.
5) Being greedy and going too far too fast.
6) Doing Power Yoga - want to have rotator cuff issues early in life? Do this form, which BTW was only meant to be used for public demonstrations of Yoga in early part of the 20th century.
If a person takes it nice and slow, listens to their body and follows a basic yoga DVD or a book like "The Runner's Yoga Book", the chances of them getting hurt are nil.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
good enough
()
Date: January 14, 2012 12:39AM
Humans have a tendency to complicate things. Imagine dogs signing up for expensive gym memberships or attempting to twist their bodies into uncomfortable and unrealistic yoga poses. How about a cat signing up for Weight Watchers and robotically repeating affirmations to lose those last few pounds to fit into that little black dress.
When I started doing yoga many years ago there was very little info available. It wasn't trendy. Nowadays you'd have to be living on a deserted island with no access to any media not to have heard about it. Even without looking I seem to be frequently encountering new info claiming that yoga is great for this or that malady and that this or that celebrity swears by it. Yoga has, unfortunately, become a big part of the New Wage movement. Like hypnosis, affirmations, crystals, etc., yoga is supposed to have this magical ability to manage, control or fix just about everything. But like the saying goes, "If it sounds too good to be true,..."
I'm finding that the more I distance myself from all this New Age nonsense, the better. I have more time for a life -- for what matters. All this New Age crap adds clutter to one's life, keeps practitioners too busy to get on with living and distances people from reality. Seriously, if anyone did half the things suggested by New Age gurus, there would be no time for a full time job, relationships, taking care of one's home and personal needs. I'm craving simplicity and less noise. I'd rather go for a walk and engage in some people watching or take a stroll down by the lake and watch the birds, then om out.
I came across this article which lists some of the things yoga is supposed to be beneficial for. I'm surprised it didn't mention menopause because baby boomer women are being targeted these days as they deal with the lengthy list of symptoms. Here's an excerpt:
Why do yoga?
by John Tunney
Why do yoga?
The short answer is that yoga makes you feel better. Practicing the postures, breathing exercises and meditation makes you healthier in body, mind and spirit. Yoga lets you tune in, chill out, shape up -- all at the same time.
For many people, that's enough of an answer. But there's more if you're interested.
For starters, yoga is good for what ails you. Specifically, research shows that yoga helps manage or control anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain, blood pressure, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic fatigue, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, headaches, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, stress and other conditions and diseases. What's more, yoga:
Improves muscle tone, flexibility, strength and stamina
Reduces stress and tension
Boosts self esteem
Improves concentration and creativity
Lowers fat
Improves circulation
Stimulates the immune system
Creates sense of well being and calm.
And that's just the surface stuff. In fact, most of the benefits mentioned above are secondary to yoga's original purpose.
[www.yogasite.com]
When I started doing yoga many years ago there was very little info available. It wasn't trendy. Nowadays you'd have to be living on a deserted island with no access to any media not to have heard about it. Even without looking I seem to be frequently encountering new info claiming that yoga is great for this or that malady and that this or that celebrity swears by it. Yoga has, unfortunately, become a big part of the New Wage movement. Like hypnosis, affirmations, crystals, etc., yoga is supposed to have this magical ability to manage, control or fix just about everything. But like the saying goes, "If it sounds too good to be true,..."
I'm finding that the more I distance myself from all this New Age nonsense, the better. I have more time for a life -- for what matters. All this New Age crap adds clutter to one's life, keeps practitioners too busy to get on with living and distances people from reality. Seriously, if anyone did half the things suggested by New Age gurus, there would be no time for a full time job, relationships, taking care of one's home and personal needs. I'm craving simplicity and less noise. I'd rather go for a walk and engage in some people watching or take a stroll down by the lake and watch the birds, then om out.
I came across this article which lists some of the things yoga is supposed to be beneficial for. I'm surprised it didn't mention menopause because baby boomer women are being targeted these days as they deal with the lengthy list of symptoms. Here's an excerpt:
Why do yoga?
by John Tunney
Why do yoga?
The short answer is that yoga makes you feel better. Practicing the postures, breathing exercises and meditation makes you healthier in body, mind and spirit. Yoga lets you tune in, chill out, shape up -- all at the same time.
For many people, that's enough of an answer. But there's more if you're interested.
For starters, yoga is good for what ails you. Specifically, research shows that yoga helps manage or control anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain, blood pressure, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic fatigue, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, headaches, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, stress and other conditions and diseases. What's more, yoga:
Improves muscle tone, flexibility, strength and stamina
Reduces stress and tension
Boosts self esteem
Improves concentration and creativity
Lowers fat
Improves circulation
Stimulates the immune system
Creates sense of well being and calm.
And that's just the surface stuff. In fact, most of the benefits mentioned above are secondary to yoga's original purpose.
[www.yogasite.com]
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