The new styles of "yoga" that are gaining popularity around the world
are fun, fast and will make you serene while working on a six-pack, it
has been claimed.
While acro-yoga "blends the wisdom of yoga, the dynamic power of
acrobatics and the loving kindness of healing arts", naked yoga, which
many may not deem "fun", is certainly racy.
In hip hop yoga you do sun salutations to the soothing sounds of
Eminem and in "Doga" people essentially use their dogs as props to
deepen their poses.
Charlotte Piho of Work Out On Water paddled into the middle of a
lagoon on her paddleboard to do her daily yoga ritual on a day when she
found there were no waves to surf and it was too hot to go inside for a
yoga class.
Her lessons in Sydney begin with a gentle paddle, but once you're
out on the water it's yoga as usual.Similarly, Gloria Tong found a way
to fuse yoga with her other passion - hula hooping.After attending
workshops in the United States, where it's a "big scene", she began
hooping in Sydney.
Tong felt that traditional yoga moves, or asanas, and the flow of
hooping were a natural fit."I think different types of yoga are making
yoga more accessible to everyone," Stuff.co.nz quoted Tong as saying.
"On the one hand yoga means 'whole' or 'complete' so you could say
that every new style is a valid yoga, and if something is safe and fun
then I am all for it," the owner of Bondi's Yoga Synergy said.
"On another level yoga means 'to unify' or 'to join'. The best way
to do this on a practical level is improve blood flow because it brings
energy, in the form of oxygen, to your cells... But, over-stretching or
over-tensing muscles inhibits blood flow and the transfer of oxygen to
the cells," he said.
A traditional yogi may sometimes look like they are in very strong
or contorted posture, but are not likely to feel like any sense of
"stretch" or "tension".
Yet what is mostly taught as yoga these days is actually
over-stretching, over-tensing and over-breathing exercises that are
physiologically known to reduce the flow of blood and the delivery of
oxygen to the cells.
"People are confused as to what yoga is. The ancient system has been
significantly altered.. and it's been re-imagined in the last 10 to 15
years. The average teacher has only been teaching for four or five years
- so [10 to 15 years is] already ancient history, yet most teachers
think they are teaching traditional yoga," Olivier added.