I always felt that yoga was something for closet perverts, not out-and-proud pervs like me. (Personally, I'm a Thai boxing enthusiast, martial arts being the Zen physical activities of choice among a heck of a lot of BDSM aficionados. But that's a movie yet to be made.) Right or wrong, I always associated the practice with the granola, free love, hippie shit that I've hated since my punk rock youth. So I was relieved to see that Kate Churchill's "peek behind the curtain of a 5.7 billion dollar 'spiritual' industry," according to the press notes for her yoga doc “Enlighten Up!,” stars a skeptical journalist named Nick Rosen whom Churchill enlists in her attempt to prove that down the road and past the hype lies a very real path to enlightenment.
To read the rest of my Sex Beat column visit Carnal Nation.
1 comment:
I did yoga for over two decades mostly to de-stress my body from competitive weightlifting and then boxing and kickboxing. i tell people all the time that you don't do yoga in class. its a solitary pursuit or closeted if you like. you take a class to learn the positions and go back once in a while to have your anas corrected. nobody wants to hear this. people are addicted to a class culture where you don't have to think or actually get in touch with your body which in turn would mean getting in touch with your feelings, needs, ect. its a social thing rather than an exploration of one's physical aspect and its relation to our mind and spirit. and most of all its a big business. the film is long overdue. i've known people who became "teachers" in a couple of years. thats like becoming a tai chi chuan teacher or ballet teacher after studying for a few years. bullshit. it takes decades of disciplined daily practice to know anything about your own body let alone the needs of others. but it fits the trend. i apprenticed in massage working five to seven hours a day for years to become competent in northern european massage (swedish). now, people are blasted with numerous styles in the course of 18 months in massage schools which cornered the market in the anti-prostitution frenzy. most don't last even a year before they burn out or injure their hands and shoulders. but hey, the schools make theirs, the state collects its big fees. isn't everybody happy?
qi gong or chi kung will be the next wave and most people will be taught by people who have gained their "mastery" in a dozen workshop weekends.
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