Yoga F-ing Sucks — Introduction
… is yoga transforming for modernity a bad thing?
I hate myself for not doing yoga earlier. First of all, it’s part of my heritage. Second, I am in severe pain from avoiding it for years. Third, I fucking hate the fact it’s mostly turned into pilates wrapped in “yoga packaging”.
Apologies, that’s not true. I don’t subscribe to the narrative that yoga is culturally appropriated, although some things are comical to me like saying “namaste”. Even Indians don’t say it as often as yoga instructors do. Nevertheless, I’m really glad people are taking the time to focus on movement and stability, it’s arguably the most important thing you can do for your body.
My only problem with “modern yoga” is the scant availability of beginner and injury classes.
The exploration has made me realise how inaccessible yoga fundamentals are. I truly wonder how much yoga has metamorphized from the original Patanjali text (400 CE) and the 1800s popularisation by Swami Vivekananda.
But is yoga transforming for modernity a bad thing? No not at all, but like in evolution, even over 500 million years, nature has conserved systems for all species. For example, serotonin receptors in worms and humans are remarkably similar.
So what are yoga’s “conserved” fundamentals? It’s not obvious to me… except for one, sitting crossed legged.
After recovering from sciatica, I can’t sit crossed-legged, there is too much “rust” and I’m learning to do it again. In Ancient India, the philosophy of the Hindu texts was shared under a tree while sitting… cross-legged. If I want to learn yoga, I have to start sitting cross-legged.
I made it a goal to sit cross-legged unassisted for an hour by the end of December 2023. So I decided to write my thoughts on yoga while sitting cross-legged. Ideally I would write my entire post sitting cross-legged but that’s not possible right now. I’m going to aim for approximately 250–350 words per post, but I’m also adding how many minutes I tried to sit cross-legged for.
Anyways, as I try sit with my legs crossed and write, my immediate thought still holds… yoga fucking sucks.
Ouch. Fuck my life.
Word count: 349
Total time spent writing/editing: approx 1.5 hours
Total time sitting cross legged on yoga blocks while writing/editing this post: 15 mins
Twitter: @bhavprajapati
