Yoga Journal's 2012 "Yoga in America" study estimated that 20.4 million Americans practice yoga. Of those, 82 percent are women and 63 percent fall between the ages of 18 and 44.

In the past decade, it's been amazing to watch the yoga community in Charleston grow and evolve, offering an array of studios, styles and instructors.

I've watched it both as a journalist and a sporadic practitioner. My one-foot-in, one-foot-out gives me, I think, a bit of an interesting perspective.

I see both the good and the sometimes offensive parts of the local yoga scene.

So I was struck by a blog post shared by a Facebook acquaintance of mine who leans toward acro yoga. Its response caught my attention about a month ago and made me ponder how much it applied to our local community.

The post "Why I left yoga" by blogger "Earth Energy Reader," generated a range of reactions by local yogis, from longtime instructors to beginners.

In a nutshell, the blogger talked about how he joined the "yoga bandwagon" eight years ago.

"I fell in love with how yoga made my body feel after a particularly tough workout," he says. "I, too, fell into the pseudo-spiritual aspects of the practice."

"And, finally I, too, got burned out by the practice, disillusioned and, at times, even disgusted at the people who I thought should be setting an example to the rest of us but turns out that they are even more messed up than you realize and the yoga was just an effective cloak to hide their true nature and personalities."

He became disenchanted with the business of yoga, such as workshops and retreats, and with the fact that most people practicing it were generally affluent whites. The blogger describes himself as "brown" and of Indian heritage.

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Is local yoga too affluent, white and cliquish?