Yoga Body : The Beginnings of Modern Pose Method

Yoga is so widespread in the modern-day globe– practiced by pop stars, educated in colleges, and also offered in yoga centers, gym, as well as also shopping malls– that we take its visibility, as well as its significance, for provided. But exactly how did the existing yoga exercise boom occur? And also is it truly rooted in ancient Indian practices, as a number of its followers case? In this groundbreaking publication, Mark Singleton calls into question several typically held beliefs concerning the nature and also beginnings of postural yoga exercise (asana) and also suggests a radically new method of comprehending the significance of yoga as it is exercised by numerous individuals throughout the globe today. Singleton shows that, in contrast to common belief, there is no proof in the Indian practice for the type of health as well as fitness-oriented asana practice that dominates the international yoga scene of the twenty-first century. Singleton's shocking– and certainly questionable– thesis is that yoga as it is commonly exercised today owes a higher financial debt to contemporary Indian nationalism and also, much more surprisingly, to the spiritual ambitions of European bodybuilding as well as early 20th-century women's gymnastic activities of Europe and America, than it does to any type of ancient Indian yoga exercise practice. This exploration enables Singleton to clarify, as nobody has done before, how one of the most common kinds of postural yoga, like Ashtanga, Bikram and "Hatha" yoga exercise, came to be the hugely popular sensations they are today.