Yoga and mindfulness are not going to help Catholics get any closer to God, an Irish bishop said as he cautioned followers against including the practices in parishes.

Alphonsus Cullinan, the bishop of Waterford and Lismore, told schools in his diocese in an Oct. 10 letter than yoga and mindfulness are bad in part because they didnt originate with Christianity.

Bishop [Cullinan] pointed out that yoga was not of Christian origin and said it was not suitable for a parish school setting especially not during religious education time.

On mindfulness, he told schools it had been practised in the Christian tradition in a sense since the beginning.

But Christian mindfulness is not mindlessness but is meditation based on Christ, emptying the mind of everything unnecessary so that we become aware of the presence and love of Christ, he said.

Just because Jesus wasnt a yoga instructor and the practice is more closely associated with Hinduism doesnt mean its inappropriate for Catholics. It can and should be evaluated on its merits.

The same goes for mindfulness, which Cullinan tried to co-opt for his faith. Christian mindfulness is not mindfulness. Its just a form of prayer.

The Bishop referenced a homily from Pope Francis in 2015 in which he said practices like Yoga are not capable of opening our hearts up to God.

You can take a million courses in spirituality, a million courses in yoga, Zen and all these things but all of this will never be able to give you freedom, Pope Francis said.

The Bishop concluded by asking teachers and principals to encourage children to pray the Rosary and help them spend time with Jesus in adoration or in quiet meditation in the classroom.

Yoga wont open your heart up to God thats not a thing but neither will the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. Yoga, at least, has the benefit of keeping you relaxed and healthy, depending on how its practiced. Mindfulness, too, can be valuable if youre not emptying your mind in order to worship Jesus more forcefully. (We have enough people doing that. Its not helping.)

Of all the problems in Catholic schools, kids doing yoga isnt one of them. The only thing the bishops letter did is give people another reason to ignore Catholic leadership.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Leo for the link)

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Irish Bishop Warns Catholics Against Dangers of Mindfulness and Yoga - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

Price: $20

Registration:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dmv-fitness-fam-fun-runwalk-and-yoga-featuring-de-tickets-73563423179

Join us for a 3-mile fun run OR 1-mile walk, followed by yin yoga (led by Deanie the Yogini), smoothies, sweatworking, and swag.

About this Event

Event Schedule

1:45 pm - Check-In for a 3-mile run led by DMV Fitness Fam

2:00 pm - Check-In for 1-mile walk / Run begins

3:00 pm - Yin Yoga Session with essential oils led by Deanie the Yogini (Adina Crawford)

4:00 pm - Smoothies, Swag, Raffle Giveaway, and Sweatworking

Event FAQ:

Do I need to bring anything?Please bring a yoga mat for the yin yoga session. Optional: Additional shirt (if you want to change after the run), yoga strap, yoga blocks, yoga blanket.

I hate running. I don't want to walk. Do I have to do these? Is there a discount if I don't?You don't have to run OR walk! You can check in around 2:45 pm and meet us for yoga. The tickets are a flat rate for everyone and are nonrefundable.

I have mobility issues. Will I be able to participate in the yin yoga session?We will have mobility accommodations provided during yoga. There will also be a limited number of additional props available.

I don't want to use essential oils during my yin yoga practice. Do I have to?Absolutely not! Just let the instructor know prior to the yoga session.

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DMV Fitness Fam Fun Run/Walk and Yin Yoga - Patch.com

Yoga and an ice bath in the Hamptons, the email from Danielle McCallum read. I enjoy two of those three things and kept reading.

Ms. McCallum has developed her own practice, called Five, which is a combination of yoga, breath work, meditation and cold exposure. (The center of Five is you, her website reads.) She trained at Sky Ting, my favorite yoga studio, and has been meditating for 15 years. She said she is one of the first women in the United States to be certified in the Wim Hof Method.

Wim Hof is a man, an extreme athlete from the Netherlands who is known as the Iceman for breaking records and generally doing a lot of flashy daredevil-type stunts, most of them involving exposure to cold. He has run a marathon above the Arctic wearing nothing but shorts, can hold his breath for six minutes and has taken a 112-minute ice bath.

None of this remotely speaks to me, my interests or my aspirations. I am the kind of person who is known among my friends for taking long daily naps, and my chief hobbies include drinking cocktails at sunset, reading somewhere comfortable and gossiping. I am an unaccomplished watercolorist. Which is all a way of saying that I like comfort.

The Wim Hof Method is built on three pillars, which are breathing, cold therapy and commitment, the programs website reads. Combined, these three pillars form a powerful method that is capable of changing your life.

Adherents insist it can relieve symptoms of autoimmune diseases, arthritis and asthma, among other afflictions, and Mr. Hof has said that just by focusing the mind, we can control just about any malady, including cancer. Science does not support that claim.

Just to be perfectly clear: I do not share those beliefs. But I find myself searching for new, and healthy, ways to soothe myself from the hourly barrage of bad news that is living in 2019.

I already meditate and go to yoga, so why not build on the familiar and get a little weird? The worst that could happen is that I would have a bad morning in the Hamptons, where Ms. McCallum, 37, taught for the summer.

There were eight of us gathered for a Saturday morning class in Water Mill, evenly divided between men and women. One man had gone to a Wim Hof retreat. We began with a little breathing to get us centered.

Then Ms. McCallum took us through a yoga class that relied on the flow of asanas, including water salutations, a variation on sun salutations that involves crossing the legs. That really got the blood moving.

The yoga portion lasted about 45 minutes, and then we settled onto our backs for the signature Wim Hof breathing exercises. Ms. McCallum told us to inhale in three parts, from our stomach, then chest, then lungs, then exhale slowly but not completely.

For the first round we repeated that 30 times breathing in and out of the nose, at the end holding on to the exhalation as long as we could. Then we did another round in the nose and out the mouth and, finally, in and out of the mouth.

I think that took about half an hour, but by then I had completely lost track of time. In fact I had completely lost track of myself and was having a sort of psychedelic experience minus the drugs. (Its no wonder that Mr. Hof likes to play The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd during his seminars.) I have no idea if there was music playing or even what I was thinking about.

At the end I came whooshing back to reality in one big gasp. I felt as if I were waking up while watching a play. Did anyone notice? Did I snore? Was I even asleep? Did I do anything weird?

We meditated a bit to gather ourselves, and then we headed to the bathrooms to change into swimsuits. Ms. McCallum was waiting for us on the grass outside, where there was an old-fashioned metal tub filled with cold water and many pounds of ice. Our three-minute ice baths awaited.

Her instructions were to get into the ice bath as quickly as possible and try not to hyperventilate. The first volunteer had a pained look on his face as he climbed into the bath and sat down. He complained about not feeling his feet but breathed slowly as an amused friend took video.

When it was my turn, I was nervous. Skipping the ice bath entirely or getting out early were both options, but I wanted to try it. And, besides, it was really hot out. I stepped in and sat down quickly and was met with a cold so jarring, so painful, that my whole body stung. My ankles throbbed.

Its bad, I said, and Ms. McCallum assured me that the first minute was the worst.

I started to acclimate to the cold after a minute, and Ms. McCallum leaned in and told me to breathe with her. When I got out, my white skin was red, and I did slow stretches of my knees and arms and some more deep breathing to warm myself.

I felt joyous and tired, as if my body, mind and spirit had all been given a workout. I walked across the street and bought lobster breakfast tacos as a kind of celebration. I had made it to three minutes of ice bathing and even opted to stay an extra 30 seconds. I did it purely for the sake of challenging myself, and I was eager to do it again.

The Idea Yoga, mediation, breath work and an ice plunge in a class inspired by the Dutch extreme sportsman Wim Hof. The Five website notes that pregnant women or people with heart conditions shouldnt try it.

Reality Between the yoga flow, meditation, trippy breath work and the ice bath, your body, mind and spirit get a full workout. It manages to be both a relaxing and challenging two hours.

The Vibe In the summer, classes are held in a studio in a converted house in Water Mill, N.Y., on Saturday mornings, so youre dunking in ice while families are ordering pancakes across the street. The studio is next door to a kind of wellness strip mall with a SoulCycle, meaning youre among fellow fitness freaks.

A New Class Danielle McCallum, the instructor, has been scouting a New York City location that can accommodate ice baths, and she has now found one. Her classes are held every other Sunday at the Brooklyn Athletic Club in Williamsburg. The cost is $40.

Originally posted here:
Yoga, Then an Ice Bath - The New York Times

KANSAS CITY, MO (CBS Local) An alternative twist to the usually deep breathing meditation and soothing poses of traditional yoga is becoming all the rage in Kansas City. Instructor Amanda Kauffman said she started practicing yoga seven years ago. Two years ago, she came across a new technique she said is more her style.

A lot of people stay away from yoga because they think, Oh well, you know, Im not good enough for that, or what are people going to think about my poses,' she told WDAF. And in here, you can just be yourself.

Kauffman now teaches rage yoga.

The technique is different. Instead of calming your mind, youre bringing everything out, she said. Instead of just trying to push it out quietly, youre going to push it out, and its going to be loud!

With loud, explicit music as the soundtrack for Mondays first class, participants were encouraged to yell, scream, cuss and make obscene gestures.

Just letting all the negative energy out tonight. Thats the goal, Kauffman said.

The rage yoga trend began in Canada but is slowly spreading to cities across the U.S.

Ive never done rage yoga before, said attendee Hillary Luppino. I had recently seen something online about it, and then I saw that it was available here, so I just jumped on the opportunity.

Read more:
Rage Yoga Releases Negative Energy With Alcohol, Profanity And Obscene Gestures - CBS Philly

Sleep trumps everything in my life. Like I have to sleep. I will never be that person who wakes up at 5 a.m. to make sure they get their workout in before they head to the airport. I would love in theory to be that person, but it just will never, ever be me. And you know, if I can't get my workout in, I just try to find something else in my wellness routine that I can do for myself, whether it's eating lots of greens that day or taking certain vitamins or supplements or somethingsomething else I can do for myself if I can't get in physical activity.

And you know, I'm really kind to myself. For someone who has been in the fitness world for as long as I have been, I'm really treating it as a celebration and not a punishment and not something that I have to do to attain an aesthetic. Even if it means I sit and meditate for the day or I'm doing a couple of sun salutations, it's really easy to fall into this definition of "you have to do this amount of work for this amount of time for it to even count." Thats not the case. I think if people can flip their perspective on that and see five minutes as more than zero minutes and know that it still counts as moving your body. Of course, it depends on whether you want physical results or not, but if you're just doing it for well-being, then five minutes is still great.

I'm not the first person to think of it this way, but at the end of a big meal, when it's so easy to be like, "Oh my god, I'm so full, I'm so full," I'm trying to think of it as I'm legitimately full with amazing food and full of amazing experiences and I'm living a full life. I try to take anything that would normally have some sort of negative connotation and flip it so that I don't fall into that negative habitual ticker tape of punishment or this is wrong and this is right. That's all been very helpful for me as well.

More:
How Author & Yoga Teacher Kathryn Budig Spends Her Days Off - mindbodygreen.com

Yoga may be a 5,000 year old practice, but it has seemingly never been more popular.

According to a report from the Global Wellness Institute titled The Global Economy of Physical Activity, the participation in mindful movement is growing around the world, and yoga is the leader of the pack. In our frenetically paced, stressful, sleepless, and chronic-pain-plagued world, the demand for slower, mindful movementwhich includes yoga, Pilates, tai chi, qigong, stretch, barre, Gyrotonic, etc.is skyrocketing, writes the report. There are 165 million people around the world who participate in the practice, making it a whopping $16.9 billion market.

And the world, it seems, is onto something. Youd be hard-pressed to find any trainer who wouldnt recommend integrating at least some yoga into your routine, whether youre a runner, a Pilates lover, or into Crossfit. Its got a laundry list of proven physical and mental benefits (increases strength, betters flexibility, reduces anxietyseriously, the list goes on), plus can help you start your days feeling more focused or finish them off with an added level of zen.

But even so, there are a whole lot of people out there still feel like yoga just isnt their thing, or that they prefer other styles of working out to flowing on the mat. And to that, I say, maybe you just havent tried the right kind yet. So here are the best types of yoga for every type of fitness enthusiast, which might just turn you into a yogi yet.

If youre one of those people who thinks yoga wont give you a good enough workout, you probably havent tried a power-style class. Power yoga is a more vigorous, fitness-based take on traditional vinyasa, and will work your core and upper body while opening up your shoulders, hips, and spine. Its going to give you an amazing workout that gives you strength and sweat, says Kajuan Douglas, yoga guru and founder of Merge New York.

Cant get enough of those dance cardio classes that have you moving to a particular beat? Try vinyasa yoga. While these classes can either be silent or set to music, they have you move with your breath, which can feel a lot like dancing. Vinyasa is focused on rhythmic movements, explains Douglas. You move mindfully like a yogi but graceful like a dancer. You can find regular, heated, and power-style vinyasa classes, among many other options, so its all about finding which one works best for you.

For some people, a good workout goes hand-in-hand with a good sweat (though, for what its worth, the two arent mutually exclusive). If thats your M.O., make your way to a hot or heated classwhich takes place in studios with temperatures between 85 and 105 degrees. Heated yoga class definitely makes you sweat as it cooks the body from the outside in, and your yoga movements cook you from the inside out, says Douglas, adding that these types of classes can feel especially purifying. The heat can also help deepen your practiceand will definitely have you dripping within the first few flows. You can find a number of different types of yoga that happen in heated studios, though some of the more popular ones are power, vinyasa, and Bikram (a 90-minute class that includes 26 poses).

Youll be hard-pressed to find a yoga class thatdoesnt make your mind and body feel extra connected, but this link is the main focus of hatha-style practices. Hatha yoga joins the right and left side of the brain together for a deep mental, physical, and emotional connection, says Douglas. Its like a meditation and workout all in one, and involves linking your movements with asanas and pranayama breathing. This can be applied to any practice, as long as your breath and poses are working as one, but is also taught as a class type of its own.

Yoga is known for its zen-like qualities, which means youll get some level of relaxation no matter which version of the practice you try (thats the whole point of savasana, after all). But if youre looking for something that is totally chilled-out and doesnt have a strength-training element, youll want to settle into restorative yoga. Restorative is a gentle practice that enhances the parasympathetic nervous system, or rest and digest response, says Douglas. This modality involves holding supportive poses for five minutes or more. Its great for anyone looking to recover from their more intense workouts, or who wants to reap the relaxing benefits of a yoga practice without having to work through any power poses.

If none of these feel like your thing, you may wanna try naked yoga on for size. Or, if all else fails, theres always horse yoga.

See the original post:
Yoga is the most popular workout in the worldheres how to find the right type for your workout personality - Well+Good

Back in 2013, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco invited me to contribute to a show about yoga co-organized by the Smithsonians Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The exhibition, Yoga: The Art of Transformation, was the first major show ever mounted about the 2,500-year history of yoga. It featured over a hundred paintings, photographs, and sculptures. Curators, seeking a contemporary perspective, invited me to contribute to an educational exhibit for the show after having met me at a previous event. At the same time, I had another project up, at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, documenting the Indian American motel community across this country. It was an exciting time for me. But I didnt expect the absurdities that would soon followa parade of condescension, passive aggressiveness, and white fragility in which the Asian Art Museum revealed itself to be in a losing struggle with the whiteness at the core of its identity.

My run-in with the museum is the subject of new work Im showing this month at the Human Resources gallery in Los Angeles. Its taken me this long to tell the story because it was such a jarring experience. This was the Asian Art Museum, the largest museum dedicated exclusively to the Asian arts in the United Statesone of the largest platforms out there for an artist like me.

When I was asked to contribute, I took the invitation at face value: The Asian Art Museum wanted to give space to an Indian American artist. Much of my work focuses on first-generation Indian American experiences with appropriation and assimilation. The museum provided a first-floor walla big platform and a big honor.

Our agreement for the installation included my assemblage of yoga ephemera that Id collected in the form of magazines, books, posters, and album covers. Together they told the story of how the $16 billion yoga industry in this country had rebranded a South Asian discipline to sell yoga as a line of productshow yoga became Yoga. Its no coincidence that you rarely see a South Asian person on the cover of Yoga Journal magazine. Yoga has been put in an ironic position: Colonized and commodified, a tradition rooted in detachment and equanimity has been hijacked by a grasping possessiveness. I titled my work #WhitePeopleDoingYoga.

I knew the title #WhitePeopleDoingYoga would be provocative, but I chose it for a reason: For this installation, yoga was a case study in how culture gets colonized, a pattern that holds across industries, from fashion to food to music. The installation was meant to show how overwhelming and suffocating appropriation becomes under a capitalist structure. Every piece in the installation was either selling something or was itself once for sale.

But once my proposal made the rounds among curators, educators, and PR folks, cracks started to show in the museums support for the installation. The shows lead curators and education staffers Id metall but one of whom were whitedidnt feel completely comfortable with the title. They wanted something innocuous like #PeopleDoingYoga, without the word white, because the term white people could be offensive to museumgoers, donors, and staff. During our initial meetings at the museum, they told me to turn down the volume of my critique. They also insisted I remove a section of the installationa Hindu-inspired shrine featuring photographs of a white couple as South Asian gurus. This might be offensive to Indian people, staffers saidwhite authorities telling me what Indian people might find offensive. They gave me an ultimatum: Either I take down the shrine, or they dont include my installation. Museum leaders were diluting my installation, going well beyond the standard curatorial role.

[In an email to a Mother Jones fact-checker, museum reps acknowledge that there had been misgivings over the title and the installation in general, which they emphasize was intended to be educational rather than artistic. But they dispute that there was any ultimatum. According to a museum spokesperson, Bhakta was told that the phrase white people could be offensive or puzzling to some. As examples, the spokesperson pointed to Anglo practitioners of yoga unfamiliar with the concepts of cultural appropriation/appreciation, and K-12 students who havent had the proper exposure to understand the statement implied in White People Doing Yoga.' Additionally, in the same email to Mother Jones, Qamar Adamjee, one of the exhibits curators, writes that the museum objected to the shrine on the grounds that as an object type [it] did not align with the rest of the display, but that the installation was not contingent on its removal: We had invited him to do the display and revoking that invitation was not a consideration at any point.]

Over the years, Ive heard many shocking accounts from friendsartists of color from New York to Bombay, Los Angeles to Londonabout their experiences with institutional racism in its various forms. The numbers alone tell some of the story: A recent Williams College study found that 75 percent of artists in major US museums are white men, and the Association of Art Museum Directors reports that 72 percent of staff at its member institutions are white. These are the people who shape and reshape the canon, who have the power to decide and dismiss.

A bust of Avery Brundage at the entrance of the Asian Art Museum

Chiraag Bhakta

Consider the Asian Art Museums own history: It was founded on the collection of Avery Brundage, a Chicago businessman and the fifth president of the International Olympic Committee. Brundages portrait still hangs proudly in the museum library; a bust of him greets you at the entrance of the museum. In 1959, Brundage began donating his Asian artwork to the city of San Franciscoa collection that would amount to nearly 8,000 pieces. What the museum leaves out of its public narrative is that its founder was the preeminent American apologist for Nazi Germany, in the words of author Jeremy Schaap. In the 60s, the Olympic Committee for Human Rights, a group protesting racism in sports, demanded Brundages removal as the Olympics president. The committee had exposed his ownership of a country club in California that excluded Jewish and black people from its membership. In response to a potential boycott by black athletes of the 1968 Olympics, Brundage notoriously said, They wont be missed. (He had been instrumental in preventing a US boycott of the so-called Nazi games in 1936.) Brundage was a racist down to his toes, said Lee Evans, an American sprinter on the 1968 Olympic team. A brutal, racist pig, said a teammate, Marty Liquori. A Jew hater and a Jew baiter, was the verdict of Gustavus Town Kirby, delivered in a 1936 letter to Brundage himself. Now think about how a man like this actually acquired his art collection. Dont fool yourself.

The Asian Art Museum is far from the only institution negotiating its own white supremacist foundations. Just a few years ago, the British Museums Twitter account revealed as much when it shared how it decides to label artwork, tweeting: We aim to be understandable by 16 year olds. Sometimes Asian names can be confusing, so we have to be careful about using too many. (Dang, sorry to all those 16-year-old Asian kids with funny names.)

My installation went up after rounds of hard-fought revisions. I stood firm on the title #WhitePeopleDoingYoga, but I caved on the museums ultimatum: I took down the shrine depicting a white couple as South Asian gurus.

The installation as it appeared at the Asian Art Museum

Chiraag Bhakta

Lets break this shit down: Here were white elites exerting power over Brown critique that was explicitly about white elites exerting power over Brown culture. The irony is comical now, but it was painful and unnerving then. After taking parts down, I thought the worst was over, but it was only the beginning. People across the operation, from the marketing department to the education team to the curatorial staff, continued to sterilize my perspective, tiptoeing around me to make themselves feel more comfortable and spare the museum further controversy. Brown critique had to be sanitized for white consumption.

Throughout my meetings with curators and educators, there was one person whose name they kept mentioning as an authority calling the shotsthe chief curator, also white, an unseen figure in the forest who seemed to be deliberately keeping a distance. At first, I wouldnt have expected the chief curator to get involved, but it was a bit alarming that he never did, given all that went down. Some of the staffers under him were maneuvering through tense conversations with me, like messengers nervously doing their bosss bidding to keep their jobs. I completely sympathize, but it left me wondering: Was I seeing the museums disorganization or something more malicious, a deliberate mixing of messages? It felt as if Id hit a sore spot with several white staffers. Some of them had dedicated their entire lives to Asian arts, and now they had been implicated in my critique of appropriation. Why were they being criticized, they seemed to wonder. Werent they the ones giving nonwhite artists like me a platform?

Id soon caught wind that senior staffers, without telling me, had decided to withhold my works title from marketing material. This was enraging. The title #WhitePeopleDoingYoga was my observationmy statement as an Indian American. It was the core of my piece; the ephemera was just the vehicle, and the museum knew that. This battle over a title became a proxy for something bigger: a struggle over whose sensitivities needed to be protected and whose could be ignored.

As part of the marketing rollout for the yoga show, the museum planned to publish a 12-by-12-inch, 24-page advertising supplement in the San Francisco Examiner, the SF Weekly, and the SF Bay Guardian. In all, 250,000 copies were being printed. The museum had decided behind my back that it was not going to promote my work in an honest waynot just by excluding the title but also by dumbing down the description of my work. At one point, a draft of the marketing material referred to my work as an amusing and lighthearted collection.

And of course my title was nowhere to be found in the supplement. I decided to insert it myself: I contacted the supplements ad team, without consulting the museum, and took out my own full-page ad:

I paid out of pocket, negotiating a reduced rate that was equal to what the museum had paid me for my installation: $1,500. Straight into my hands for my work and straight out of my hands for my ad, all to retain my voice. Symmetry at its finest.

By this point, the museum store had already agreed to sell merch that I would create: T-shirts, tote bags, and postcards. (Ah, the irony of selling products for an installation critiquing capitalism.) When it came time to display my merch in the store, the marketing chief found out that my stuff bore the title #WhitePeopleDoingYoga and froze: In a meeting with two PR leaders, the marketer told me in a chipper, condescending voice that they werent sure where they stood on my merch. They needed a few days to think it through while keeping all the products in the basement.

I called a meeting, inviting all 11 staffers whod been involved in the process, nine of whom were white. What an awkward meeting. I met them in this grand, lavish, colonial-style boardroom, and from across a formal table, I listened to the marketing chief declare that the words white people are offensive and appear out of context on the merch. (Isnt all merch out of context?) Remember, this was an approved title. If a museum is going to approve an artworks title, either stand by it or dont. The push-and-pull was infuriating and exhausting. Getting a clear position from the museum was like trying to play catch with a balloon.

One of the museums staff members, who was white, came to my defense in that boardroom. He exposed the museums hypocrisy by holding up its own branded tote bag that bore only the word Asian on it, and as I remember it he said, Im a white man walking around San Francisco with this bag that just says Asian on it, without museum, and its completely out of context. Why is our bag okay but Chiraags is not? The marketing chiefs response: Well, thats our brand, so its okay.

And what to do with all those stacks of merch that they werent going to sell anymore? I joked that they should ship them to Indiaput some shirts on kids backs and create some interesting conversation. My other suggestion: Give the merch back to me. The museum eventually pulled all my bags and shirts from the store and sold them to me for a total of $1, to acknowledge the transaction.

The opening parties featured Indian classical music performed by white people, acro-yoga performed by white people, a chanting group mostly compromising white people, and a white couple from Marin teaching yoga for an hour. There was a sprinkle of Brown acts, but the headlinerwait for itwas a white rapper named MC Yogi, who spit about yoga and Indian culture over a beat dropped by DJ Drez, a white DJ with dreads. (Reminder: the largest institution of Asian art in the United States.)

Onstage behind the musicians was a massive projection of MC Yogis name, an Om symbol, and a crownthe very symbol of British oppression over India for hundreds of years. Here was a white artist mashing symbols and culturesIndian and hip-hopto root his identity in the fetishization of Brown and cool purely for his own benefit, disregarding communities of color.

Musicians perform at a 2014 gala celebrating the Asian Art Museums Yoga: The Art of Transformation.

Claudine Gossett for Drew Altizer Photography

To a certain kind of liberal-minded white person, perspectives like MC Yogis are commonly viewed as positive. He is sharing and celebrating cultures, not raiding them for his own benefit. In these contexts, positivity acts as a sort of Trojan horse; its how you smuggle white supremacy into the gates. Perspectives like mine, on the other hand, are widely seen as negative, divisive. The title of my upcoming show in Los Angeles plays on this concept: Why You So Negative?

The yoga show in 20132014 was scheduled to make one last stop after San Francisco, in Cleveland. I spoke with the Cleveland Art Museum to see if its curators wanted to include my installation. The lead curator said the idea was hugely interesting and there is a lot of enthusiasm for your project here at CMA. The curator flew to San Francisco and met me in person. Enthusiasm kept building. The conversation progressed far enough that we began talking costs, which didnt seem like a sticking point. The curator even emailed me an internal floorplan of the show to finalize gallery placement.

After more than a month of fine-tuning our plans, the curator said there was one last hurdle to clear before approval: The Cleveland museum planned to invite the citys commercial yoga studios to teach classes and had to make sure the studios felt comfortable in the same space as an installation titled #WhitePeopleDoingYoga. Thats when the plans fell apart. Out of nowhere, the curatorthe uneasy messengeremailed me to say the museum felt that my installation would be ad hoc (odd, given that wed spent a month planning it). And, wait, what had happened to that last hurdle? Its not surprising that local businesses could mute a museums platform; thats what happens when you trade curatorial integrity for financial obligations. (Mother Jones couldnt reach the curator for comment.)

The whole ordeal left me exhausted. My own community was a source of comfort, though. My friend Vijay Iyer, the jazz composer, MacArthur genius grant winner, and Harvard arts professor, gave me reassurance that I was not alone. In a talk he delivered in 2014 at Yale, he mentioned my installation in San Francisco, saying it was part of a problematic exhibit, and called out Northern California cultures imperial relationship to all things Indian. Vijay was speaking as a South Asian American whod spent plenty of time navigating and resisting the exoticizing, incorporating tendencies of white American cultural omnivores:

Because of the circles I traveled in as an artist, I noticed a similar tendency in the way that whites in the Bay Area dealt with jazz, hip-hop, and all things Black: not as a defiant assertion of Black identity and community, but as the fetishized trappings of coolsomething white people could wear, collect, or otherwise incorporate into white subjectivity.

That was it: My experience with the Asian Art Museum was an exercise in watching white people work out their identity on the back of mine. The platform they seemed to give me, it turned out, wasnt actually for meit was for them, a way to fashion my Brownness into something they could wear. White supremacy works that way, for all minorities; it censors any critique contained in nonwhite expression and commodifies and tokenizes whatevers left, forcing people like me into the posture of the model minority.

But Im the negative one, right?

You can find more about Chiraag Bhaktas work on PardonMyHindi.com.His solo show, Why You So Negative?, opens Friday and runs through October 27 at Human Resources in Los Angeles, at 410 Cottage Home Street, HumanResourcesLA.com.The shows programming includes a performance by artist Nikhil Chopra, who recently performed and has work up at the Met and SFMOMA. A yoga class will also take place the following weekend.

Chiraag is advised by Dr. Roger Neesh.

Read more from the original source:
The Whitewashing of #WhitePeopleDoingYoga - Mother Jones

There are more than 4,500 people across the world who are trained to teach Holy Yoga, and one of them practices right here in Boca Grande. Leslie Barrett teaches a Holy Yoga class on Wednesdays at the United Methodist Church of Boca Grande. The classes are held at 9 a.m. on certain scheduled days in the fellowship hall at the church.

Leslie has been teaching Holy Yoga at the church since last year, but shes been a yogi for many years.

She is a member of the United Methodist Church, and when she brought up the idea to a few church members last year, they showed in interest in taking the classes.

It was a pretty intensive training program, the yoga instructor said.

The classbegins with a scripture, and attendees can reflect upon the words during the hour-long activity.

Some people choose to just meditate and think about the scripture for part of the class, and thats fine, Leslie said.

She teaches more of a yin-style class, and each posture is held for about two to five minutes.

It really allows you to stretch and get to the deeper tissues, she said. We use props that can help accommodate people to find what works best for their bodies.

The class is open to all ages and skill levels.

We do a good amount of floor work using mats, but everyone is encouraged to do the poses at their own pace and comfort, Leslie said. The program teaches the history and principles of yoga with biblical foundations of the Christian faith.

Students can expect to do traditional movements like sun salutations, butterfly poses and twisting/balancing poses for strength training.

The classes are free.

The next scheduled class will be on October 23 at the church. Classes are planned to take place on the following dates: Oct. 30, Nov. 6, Nov. 13, Nov. 20, Dec. 4 and Dec. 11.

Holy Yoga Global was founded by long-time yoga practitioner Brooke Boon in 2006.

Brooke was raised in the Jewish faith, but a personal crisis led her to a church where she found a bible and read it cover-to-cover. She developed an intimate relationship with religion, yet struggled to reconcile her background in yoga with her newfound faith. Her desire to include the gospel and use a simple wellness ministry to share with others became her mission.

Leslie plans to resume the classes on Wednesdays in January.

Originally from Colorado, Leslie moved here with her husband about seven years ago. Shes also a certified school teacher, but she and her husband have four young children, so she hasnt taught for the past few years.

The United Methodist Church is located at 325 3rd St. W. The fellowship hall at the church can accommodate about 30 people, and students are encouraged to bring their own mats.

To contact Leslie, send an email to bglighthouseumc.com.

Marcy Shortuse is the editor of the Boca Beacon, and has been with the paper since 2007. She is also editor of the Boca Beacon's sister publication, Gasparilla Magazine.She has more than 20 years of experience writing and editing local newspapers and is originally from the Chicago area.

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Mixing scripture and strength with the power of yoga - Boca Beacon

By COLIN BARTLEY

A BISHOP in a neighbouring diocese has asked schools to refrain from practicing yoga and mindfulness and instead replace them with prayers and quiet meditation.

In a letter sent to schools across Waterford city and county last week, the Bishop of Waterford & Lismore, Alphonsus Cullinan said: Yoga is not of Christian origin and is not suitable for our parish school setting.

The bishop begins his letter saying prayer is key and is the central part of each school day, before going on to ask the schools to give the children a period of silence to speak to Jesus in their own words.

Bishop Cullinan then claims he has been approached by members of his congregation concerned about the practice in local schools.

He adds: I have been asked by several people to say a word on yoga and mindfulness. My question is Will they bring us closer to Christ or replace him?

Yoga is not of Christian origin and is not suitable for our parish school setting and not during religious education time.

The Bishop then turns his attention towards mindfulness, saying it has been practiced in the Christian tradition since the beginning. But he adds: Christian mindfulness is not mindfulness but is meditation based on Christ, emptying the mind of everything unnecessary so that we become aware of the presence and love of Christ.

He then quotes a 2015 Pope Francis homily, in which the Pontiff said: Practices like yoga are not capable of opening our hearts up to Godall of this will never be able to give you freedom.

Bishop Cullinan pleads with the schools to replace yoga and mindfulness with prayer this October, the international month of the Rosary.

I encourage you to pray the Rosary and help the children to spend time with Jesus in adoration and quiet meditation in the classroom, he says.

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Bishop tells schools to ban 'yoga' and 'mindfulness' - Kilkenny Now

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Yoga is about finding your center. There's a new trend to track down tranquility in the metro, but its a more alternative twist to the usually peaceful exercise.

Amanda Kauffman strolled into the back room at Cinder Block Brewery Monday night with a beer in one hand and a yoga mat in the other. She was there to teach the first ever rage yoga class in Kansas City.

Its a little bit different than your traditional yoga," she said. "You have dim lights, you have soft music. This is the complete opposite. Its yoga with an attitude basically.

She started practicing yoga seven years ago, but two years back, she came across a new technique she said is more her style.

A lot of people stay away from yoga because they think, 'Oh well, you know, Im not good enough for that, or what are people going to think about my poses,'" she said. "And in here, you can just be yourself.

Kauffman now teaches rage yoga.

The technique is different. Instead of calming your mind, youre bringing everything out instead," she said. "Instead of just trying to push it out quietly, youre going to push it out, and its going to be loud!

Monday nights class participants each got a beer that they drank throughout their time on the mat, and traditional hand motions and positions were replaced with gestures and sounds youd more likely see at a rock concert.

Ive never done rage yoga before," attendee Hillary Luppino said. "I had recently seen something online about it, and then I saw that it was available here, so I just jumped on the opportunity.

She appreciated the alcohol twist, but also the idea of also kind of incorporating the stress release of like yelling or screaming or flipping somebody off, you know what I mean?

Kauffman described the scene before the 7 p.m. class began.

Well be listening to loud explicit music, we will be cussing, using profanity, yelling, screaming, just letting all the negative energy out tonight. Thats the goal," she said.

The instructor said mental health is as critical as physical maintenance, and the combination of these two things appealed to her.

In my house, I practice yoga to rock music, to metal music, to loud music," Kauffman said. "Thats just what I enjoy. So when I saw the teacher training program for rage yoga, it spoke to me. Its the perfect combination of anyone whos into yoga and into an alternative lifestyle as well.

The rage yoga practice began in Canada, and there have been two instructor training courses so far. The next class here in the metro is scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 1 at Anytime Fitness in Excelsior Springs. Visit this site for more information.

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Dozens attend first ever Kansas City rage yoga class, which includes cursing and alcohol - WDAF FOX4 Kansas City