Advertise on podcast: J. Brown Yoga Thoughts

Nothing exemplifies the false narratives perpetuated by the yoga industrial complex more than a recent Yoga Journal headline that read: "How to Make $5 Classes Sustainable." These stories, often well-intentioned, are the product of outdated modes of thinking that turn earnest people into unwitting hypocrites. Challenging the status quo by returning to an earlier stage in the evolution of yoga transmission, but with new eyes, might be the best way to break free of our current extractive paradigm.

Generally speaking, when someone sets out to learn a new skill there is a natural human impulse to want to get it right. Being able to do a yoga pose in a certain way often becomes an extrapolated question of safety. Doing it right means safety. Doing it wrong means injury. Unfortunately, anyone who has engaged in a deep inquiry of yoga knows that looking for rights and wrongs to follow when it comes to practice is not only an unhelpful context, but is the primary obstacle to understanding the role of engaging poses as a means towards health and well-being.

There is a convenient irony to the way the yoga-related industry effectively exploits the weaknesses in people that yoga purports to help. As teachers come clean with themselves on what they are actually doing, and make choices truer to their evolving understanding of yoga, they often find their class sizes begin to wane. Fostering the beneficial purpose of yoga teachings in our society will require us to better navigate the uncomfortable trade-offs between successful business promotion and the false expectations it perpetuates.

We've all heard about the amazing things that yoga can do for us, but try explaining exactly what it is and how it works and you quickly find yourself on shaky ground. There is an innate something at the heart of the matter that simply cannot be measured, only felt. As unsatisfying as this may be, the highly subjective perception of our own experience is the only real basis for any understanding, and the very thing that makes yoga so vital.

Radical transformation is the provenance of yoga. The promise of bringing about change in oneself through will and determination, being able to derive truth and purpose by observing our own experience rather than succumbing to societal conditioning or the influence of outside authorities, is inherently revolutionary. The compartmentalization and standardization of practice techniques, and the parsing of yogic experience through a scientific lens, has created the perception that yoga can be neutered of its subversive underpinnings. Yet, truly authentic expressions always seem to retain a spark of the unknown that refuses to be ordered.

A lot of people in the yoga world are feeling confused. Changing social tides and startling revelations are calling into question the foundations on which many a career have been built. Deep vacuums have been created with the passing of primary teachers, previously held secrets are being exposed, and the emergence of a neo-orthodoxy is attempting to lay claim to what was once considered an open-source transmission. Those who continue to feel a calling are rightly searching their souls for clarity as the always precarious mix of business and wisdom tradition becomes ever more blurred.

The algorithms and operating systems that are governing our experiences, intended to expand our reach and connect us to the broader world, have borne unforeseen and adverse repercussions. This is particularly true for yoga teachers and center owners looking to cohere the intimacy and connection they feel through yoga with the realities of making it a profession. Only if we can abandon the flawed models that are suffocating the better parts of our humanity, might such a balance be struck.

A lot of people who go to yoga classes are not really interested in yoga. At least, not in the sense of being seriously committed and willing to take on a radical inquiry into the nature of being, and having the courage to manifest what is discovered in attitudes and actions. Most folks just want a good workout that will tone their bodies and make them feel less stressed, without being all too clear about what that might actually mean or entail. The trappings of mainstream yoga have led to an obfuscation of not only the greater challenge for individuals but the potential rewards for our communities and planet at large.

As the evolution of yoga in the modern world continues its slow-motion metamorphosis from ancient wisdom culture to fitness craze to no-one-knows-what-yet, expertise has become a highly sought after premium. The 200-hour teacher training model has managed to bring in enough revenue over the last 7-10 years to make up for shortfalls and keep pace with gentrifying rents, but now that the meme of certificate mills producing ill-equipped and injurious teachers has become ubiquitous, everyone is feeling the need to step up their game. The question is, how?

I recognize that I was born into privilege. Being male, white and American comes with a set of assumptions and implicit biases that are deeply ingrained in me and the mores of our fathers. As a progressive-minded person who wants to be an example of attitudes and actions that foster a more just and humane society, I am willing to have my unconscious behaviors laid bare so that I might learn new ways of communicating and interacting with people and the world. But in order for this to occur, my hope must be met with more than mere outrage.

After nine years of owning and operating a yoga center in one of the most popular neighborhoods on the planet, I was approached by a broker inquiring if I was interested in selling my business. Nine months later, I closed on a deal and handed over the keys. What I have learned in the process has given me new perspective on why owners sell and how easily it can tarnish the hearts of teachers.

Something has happened to the way I see myself in relationship to time, and the amount of life that is being spent behind a screen. For a while, I had a handle on my use of technology and my digital life seemed empowering and mind-expanding. But, of late, things seem to devolve easily into a grey zone of succumbing to the more manipulative aspects of our systems and the mentalities that govern them.

In the post-lineage void of the current yoga scene, conversations around safety and improving the quality of yoga teacher-training often turn to biomechanics for solutions. However, replacing one arbitrary imposition on our bodies with another does not address the real issues. Fostering safer spaces for practice, or creating any sort of positive change in our bodies, will likely require new understanding based on a broader range of possibilities and ideas.

Pop culture continues to enjoy a glossy-eyed love affair with yoga. But many long-time practitioners and professionals are discovering that, somewhere along their journey over the last decade or so, either yoga or they have changed. As once die-hard yogis attempt to discern what, if anything, of their practice has stood up against the test of time, their relationship to yoga needs to be allowed to evolve or they'll likely feel compelled to part ways.