“Yoga in its former context was…not…about the fantastic, not fantasy”
Even the spare, bare-bones, austere Yoga Sutra itself finds the time to get all excited about:
–Levitation
–Invisibility
–Acquiring the strength of an elephant
–Seeing previous lives
–Walking on water
–Entering another’s body, and
–Traveling through space."

Did you ever think that those "powers" that Patanjali wrote about are used as metaphors and are not to be taken literally?

I also find that blind spot puzzling. Last year I visited the Temple of the 64 Yoginis (also called the Temple of the 64 Dakinis) in Hirapur, a village outside Bhubaneswar in the state of Orissa. These small temples were for tantric practices, for the acquisition of siddhis or "supernatural powers." Yogini worship was seen predominately between 800 and 1300 AD.

As I said above, it would behoove anyone anyone who calls themself a yoga scholar to learn more about women's contributions to ancient yoga instead of automatically dismissing India as a historically patriarchal culture. From the book "Yogini Cult and Temple": "It appears that the worship of the Yoginis... was one of the significant, though less familiar, cults practiced by the Saktas who believed in the supremacy of Sakti or Power concentrated in the person of the Great Goddess." http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/yogini...

great comment....

and my students have been saying the same thing for years: "images featuring incredibly lithe bendy women actually discourage those who aren’t young, thin and flexible (the majority of the population) from trying yoga in the first place."

"I believe yoga’s power lies in the spiritual aspects of practice. ,,,,decided to skirt its metaphysical aspects...For a film that explores how women are changing one of the oldest spiritual practices in the world, there was little, if any, direct mention of spirituality at all.. "

that's because it would have made it a totally different movie. Paul Grilley has said, and which I believe, that for yoga to be palatable to Western culture when it began to make a come-back in the 1970s, in order for it to become “mainstream”, spiritual references had to be stripped out for it to become popular.

I know exactly what you mean. and frankly, I think the more this is discussed, i.e., the "feminine" this or the "masculine" that (as someone said above, feminine qualities are "good", male "bad"), it serves to divide instead of unite, instead of incorporating the yin & yang of it all. But again, that overanalysis speaks to the uberduality of the Western mind.

“a new generation of dynamic female teachers” has created a new form of yoga that “replaces the male-centered, rigid style with a distinctly feminine practice that honors intuition, family, flow, connection, community, activism...."

in spite of reading all the rah-rah articles about women's influence on modern yoga, I find it interesting that not all women feel the same way. I came across these articles in Enlighten Next mag, written by women: http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j29/women.a... and http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j30/debold.... : " “How odd it seems,” writes Naomi Wolf, “that women, the majority of the human species, have not, over the course of so many centuries, intervened successfully once and for all on their own behalf.” Really odd, in fact." and one interview of the Ven. Tenzin Palmo, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who feels that "One of the most significant problems is that women don’t support other women. This is a very ironical situation, and it has kept women weak throughout time. We support each other in little ways, but when it comes down to it, we will always hand it over to the guys." http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j37/palmo.a... -- from 2007.

Lastly, this one I find most interesting: http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j39/divine-... :

"But what does it mean to say that the feminine is the answer? This too easily sets up a polarizing dichotomy of its own—equating the masculine with what is bad and the feminine with good. And while the “masculine” and “feminine” are not synonymous with “man” and “woman,” we know that they are very much related. We can’t forget that women and men created history together—including the structures of patriarchy that we now see as so destructive."

As an old feminist who marched back in the day for the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights, among other things, I also find it interesting that the word "feminist" has become a dirty word among younger women. Not all, but enough so as to question the belief that "we've come a long way, baby...." Really?

When I taught yoga at a jr. college to 18-23 age group of women, I was amazed to hear the same words about typical gender roles and expectations that I heard back in the early '70s.

wow. "thankfully untainted by Feminist defensiveness."

yes, thank the Goddess us girls didn't get all hormonal. we just hate being told "now don't get so defensive" when something really pisses us off.

It is true that Krishnamacharyga taught Indra Devi. He was a strict Brahmin, but he taught vedic chanting to women believing that it was women who would carry on the vedic chant tradition, not men.

A difficult book to find, the Yogayajnavalyka Samhita written by the sage Yajnavalkya, is one of the oldest texts on yoga. It is a dialogue between the sage Yajnavalkya and his wife Gargi, who was considered one of the most learned women of those times. Gargi poses questions to her husband on how to reach the highest truth. The manuscript, translated by Krishnamacharya and then later translated into English by his son, Desikachar, is dedicated to “all great women.” I have the book because it was given to the students on my first trip to the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram -- it is fascinating read.

Yajnavalkya is considered one of the most important teachers in the Vedic tradition. His works are so vast that it can only be compared to those of the Veda Vyasa. He contributed to the Vedas through the Sukla Yajur Veda and the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad. His wife Gargi is mentioned in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad as “a scholar in all the sastra-s”, as one of the women seekers of truth, and one who was very proficient in logic.

So as for commonly held belief that yoga was only for men in the ancient time, I don't think so. I think it behooves anyone who calls themself a yoga scholar or historian to move beyond what is traditionally taught and to investigate the rich yogini tradition of ancient India. There has always been both shiva-shakti, the lingam and the yoni.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Shelley. My first thought about the top photo was that it is was used for nothing other than shock value, and while I agree with what Carol writes, it's like using photos of naked women to bemoan the fact that women are objectified: "look at this naked woman, boy, do I hate that!" uh, what? Yeah, we get it, time to to get original.

And frankly, the use of images of young, white, skinny, bendy, cellulite-free women is a hell of a lot more offensive to me in the promotion of yoga than the top photo is. but like anything else that is market driven, yoga is sold to the demographic whom advertisers think will buy their product because yoga has become a product to be bought and sold. As Vision Quest commented, "Something that could be shopped for, and available to the highest bidder", just like women are in less "enlightened" cultures than ours. ;)

did you pick the top photo, Carol? or is Yoga Modern going the way of elephant journal?

yes, I do believe it devalues yoga teaching.

my husband returned from a music fest where he took a "how to book yourself" workshop. the musicians teaching it said exactly the same thing: never give it away because you are only devaluing what you do. making music is also a business and so is yoga. there is a time and place for giving it away.

my massage therapist told me he would never participate in Groupon or any of those coupon deals because for the most part, people don't come back, they only want the deal. AND the participant only gets half of the amount of the coupon: if he gives away a $100 massage for $50, Groupon (and I am sure the other ones work the same way) gives him $25. so two months of yoga for $40? how much does the studio owner get, $1/class? and how much does the teacher make? I taught at a studio where the owner gave an intro yoga away for $5 class and she would not pay the teacher for teaching if the student used a coupon. Some months I gave away $100 because I had so many freebies in my class.

Ask me why I don't teach in studios anymore.