the last of the English strawberries
Readers, unless you have been living under a rock for the last week (and in a way, if you have, I’m jealous), you will have noticed a little bit of a kerfuffle in the American media about yoga. Yes yoga! Who would have thought it! The New York Times published this controversial article about Anusura founder John Friend who in turn published this reply. If you read It’s All Yoga Baby or YogaDork you’ll already know all about this.
I had to smile. Only across the Atlantic eh? Yoga would just never make the major newspapers in the UK. Yoga here is still something that ladies in leotards do in drafty church halls on Wednesday mornings, something that gym goers do for a change, something that is long accepted as part of a lot of people’s lives, but really not taken that seriously by those who don’t do it. Occassionally you get the odd newspaper article about it. I remember one about Bikram a few years ago in the Observer (left of centre Sunday paper) the overall conclusion of which was “Really? People pay you that much money to be tortured in a really hot room? Okay then!”. I remember a huge emphasis being put on the fact that he was sitting on a leopard print throne throughout. And then you get the odd article about how Bruce Forsythe (extremely old ugly television presenter) has stayed limber in his 80s doing shoulderstands every day (for real, click here if you don’t believe me), but you know, it’s hardly cutting edge stuff.
Us Brits have a hard time taking anything seriously. It’s the British way. It’s how we lost an Empire. We don’t have “rock star yoga teachers” (we barely have actual rock stars), we have old hippies from South London (sorry Bob!), and I should think most British yoga teachers like myself are rolling on the floor laughing at the thought of making any money out of teaching, let alone enough to live in a “mock Tudor mansion”. Instead we do it (as I’m sure 99% of American teachers do) for love and committment. Believe me, with most of the yoga teacher training programmes taking at least two years to complete, you have to be committed.
Friend-Gate, as it shall henceforth be known, has done me a huge favour. It’s reminded me why I love my country. Yes, it rains a lot and we all have Vitamin D deficiency and bad teeth. Yes, we have a bizarre government that nobody voted in and only one Green MP. Yes, we have the worst plumbing in the western world and our kitchens are always too small. But we have strawberries and Wimbledon, free health care and social welfare, Shakespeare and the correct use of the letter “u” (sorry I couldn’t resist), and we are never far from the sea.
Without a doubt I’ll be furious with Britain all over again tomorrow but for today I raise a strawberry to you my country, long may we take everything with a huge pinch of salt!
(in pictures will return next week – it’s been rainy and I’ve had a headache)
Yay for you AND your sarcastic, irreverent country. It’s why I like my adopted one too! Australians take the piss out of everything. Ever-y-thing.
We have a few, like, B-grade yoga stars here, but they are clustered around hippieville, er, Byron Bay, and y’know? So what if people get famous and are being offered free sex. Good luck to them, and to the rock stars and the hippies.
Also to the ladies in leotards. I could totally rock me a leotard in the early nineties. Maybe it’s time to to back there…
Not in time, just in fashion.
Hope your headache passes soon
Like Nadine says, we don’t really go in for the rock star yogis here in Australia. And agreed – good luck to people who get uber-famous from yoga and make enough money to bankroll most yoga teacher’s rent! Haha. Definitely not why I do yoga. As long as people don’t become self-serving a-holes as a result of their ‘fame’ (of any kind) then I’m cool with them being them and me being me!
That gives me another reason to love your country then (I must have been British somehow in a previous life). No wonder I’m willing to come over once a month for a whole weekend to train (yes, training in Belgium? there must be like 5 YTTC, no vinyasa, let alone rock star teachers
).
Hi! I’ve just recently stated reading your blog, and found this post really interesting in the difference between the yoga cultures in the U.S. vs. England — particularly because my husband & I will be relocating to England next spring/summer to your neck of the woods! Looking forward to reading your blog in the meantime though
LOL your post made me laugh out loud Rachel and Nadine, Aussies do take the piss out of everything, especially ourselves. Theres no getting too big for our boots around these parts. I don’t mind the odd rock star yogi (jivamukti anyone?), as long as a great message is getting across and more people are being introduced to yoga in ways they can connect with. But sometimes….you just gotta laugh at the whole thing, often.
LOL your post made me laugh out loud Rachel and Nadine, Aussies do take the piss out of everything, especially ourselves. Theres no getting too big for our boots around these parts. I don’t mind the odd rock star yogi (jivamukti anyone?), as long as a great message is getting across and more people are being introduced to yoga in ways they can connect with. But sometimes….you just gotta laugh at the whole thing, often.
this post is SUCH a breath of fresh air! loved it! I think I need to move to Australia….sorry, but the UK would be too cold and rainy for me!
and I am already dangerously low in Vit. D!
My Brit friend in Africa says the same thing about the American yoga scene, she marvels at it. and I don’t belong here!
Yeah, I could totally live without the whole yoga ’scene’ here in the USA. What a mess. Gives all of us yogis a bad name. I’d move, but I’d miss my wonderful (and down-to-earth-non-rock-star) teachers. I hope someday that yoga can just go back to being plain old yoga.