Years ago, in my workshop in Europe, a participant asked, “Do you think Paramahansa Yogananda was really a Yogi? I mean, he was so fat, how can a fat person be a Yogi?”
In the early last century, Yoga came to be seen mainly as a Physical Modality instead of a Metaphysical Process. Thus, the Physical Body became a main training ground for Yogic practice, as Yoga itself came to be viewed through the lens of the body
Popular body ideals like Eugene Sandow’s bodybuilding look of the 40s, the thin 60s Hippie body, the 90s Super Model body, washboard abs ideal of the 2000s, have influenced the ‘body shape’ discourse of modern postural Yoga culture over the last century
Mix this with the thin, hyper-flexible ‘look’ of Indian Tapasvi Sadhus that visiting Yoga enthusiasts emulated through the 70s, 80s, & 90s. A look that was lapped up by Yoga Magazines, setting standards for an ‘ideal Yoga body’ as fitness became the goal of Yoga
If you ain’t thin & flexible, you ain’t Yogi enough – this narrative unfortunately still holds in popular Yoga
I have seen many go through self-torture just to fit in the ‘ideal Yoga body’. I have been labeled ‘inauthentic’ for my muscular build during international tours, thanks to the misnomer that ‘Indian Yogis have lean bodies’. Do traditional Indian Yogis have ‘lean & flexible’ bodies?
If you look at just 4 of the many Indian Yoga Masters of the past mentioned below, we find that their body does not fit in the ‘thin & flexible’ ideal of modern Yoga. Even the women Yogis of the past would not have fit in the high standards of today’s hyper-physicalized Yoga
1) Trilanga Swami was 300 Lbs
2) Shankar Maharaj was handicapped by Polio
3) Surdas, the great Krishna devotee was blind
4) Ashtavakra Rishi, was bent in 8 places
These Yoga Masters of the past would be labeled as a ‘Special Population’ by today’s Yoga standards.
The point that I am trying to make is, we need to liberate Yoga from preconceived notions of how a Yoga-Body should look like. Yoga is for all bodies.
For those wanting to emulate a thin, hyper-flexible, traditional Hatha Yogi body – please view the body shape of the Hatha Yogis in the context of their belief system, you will be surprised.
It’s only in the last 10 years that the Yoga community has consciously started coming out of the ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ standard of the ‘Ideal Yoga Body’. Everybody is an ideal Yoga Body
Though a lot of good work is been done by many Yoga teachers, it will take a systemic effort to make modern Yoga free of ‘Ideal Yoga Body’ standards
