Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Most modern yogis agree it is a huge relief to focus on the simple “be”-ing of life, and that keeps us coming back to our mats every day. It really is easy to understand, considering how busy most everyone is in the Western world. However, the westernization of yoga through hatha yoga doesn’t change what yoga is except in that it evolves the practice. The word “hatha” in Sanskrit means “force”, and hatha yoga was established in hopes of “forcing” the benefits of the practice, as well as the practice itself, upon the individual. This branch of yoga is where we see a driven focus on the asanas. A contemporary twist to yoga offered by the western world are more fitness and sculpt based styles of yoga. As this trend continues to sweep North America, it has evolved quickly over the past five years alone. Many classes teach it as “yoga with weights” while others incorporate less yoga and more body-weight exercises, modeled as “fitness-style yoga”.

For the modern yoga world, 2015 was a time of reckoning. The veneer of yoga lifestyle branding dulled further and the un-photoshopped belly continued to garner greater market appeal. Both grassroots and corporate entities that staked claims in the once vast frontier are now scrambling to stay ahead of the digital winds that are shaping the new paradigm.