Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States, for reasons almost as numerous — from the physical benefits mapped in brain scans to the less tangible rewards that New Age journals call spiritual centering. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it.

But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism.

The campaign, labeled “Take Back Yoga,” does not ask yoga devotees to become Hindu, or instructors to teach more about Hinduism. The small but increasingly influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation, suggests only that people become more aware of yoga’s debt to the faith’s ancient traditions.

Makes sense. Of course, we Americans have decontextualized yoga enough so that many in the Yoga community are fighting against this. This is one of those cases where it’s better to just do it than to talk about it. Namaste.

Practice yoga for three months, cut jail time by 15 days. Makes perfect sense.

[via Boing Boing]

Wow, Krishna Das and kirtan make the New York Times.

I’ve been to two of his kirtans. Here’s one: Krishna Das.

[via Gary Sharp]

New Preston, Connecticut. Most Saturday mornings I try to get a few shots of my wife Anne warming up before our yoga class. Nothing formal, no one else in the room, just practice for me and she’s a willing, unselfconscious subject. Most of the time I throw these shots out, occasionally I keep a few is for no other reason as a place marker for an idea.

Look at the back and shoulders on my 61 year old wife. Whoa!

Kansas City, Missouri. Emily Darling doing Firefly pose at Darling Yoga.

Lisa doing reverse namaste.

Emily helping Lisa stretch.

Lisa doing bound side angle pose.

Lisa doing gayan mudra as part of a pose.

New Preston, Connecticut. Our teacher, Anne Hungerford doing bow pose.

Kansas City, Missouri. A year ago I did a photo shoot for my friend (almost a niece*) Emily Darling who owns, runs and teaches at Darling Yoga.

Emily is the real deal: a spectacular yoga teacher and practitioner with an open, warm heart and gentle touch. She really is a special person.

What’s interesting about Emily is that it’s almost impossible to tease apart how beautiful she is from how beautiful she is. That’s how beautiful she is.

I took hundreds of images of the various teachers and classes at Darling Yoga and I’m still working on processing them. I posted about the shoot here.

Today The National Catholic Reporter posted a podcast interview with Emily: Yoga: Living from your heart. Both episodes are worth a listen.

Congratulations Emily.

*Emily is my wife’s first husband David Darling’s niece and I knew her mother Pam professionally before I met my own wife. Small world.

Stretch
New Preston, Connecticut. Anne and I get to yoga class early so we can begin the process of calming down, breathing more steadily, and stretching to better take advantage of the poses and vinyasas our teacher takes us through. Simply lying on one’s back and stretching one’s hamstrings, feet, and toes can do wonders.

The back end of lunge
Because our focus is generally forward we tend to overlook the back foot in a pose like lunge but how it’s positioned actually makes balance possible. I like to think that the energy of this pose can be seen in the position of this foot.

Back stretch
One of the most important stretches I do almost every day is this one. Lay on your back, stick your feet straight up in the air, spread your arms and slowly use your core strength (your abdomen) to lower your legs to one side, then slowly turn your gaze to the other side. Repeat this on each side a few times and you’ll be amazed at how good your back will feel. Anne’s face gives you a clue.

The bottom of mountain pose (tadasana)
Our teacher tells us to build this pose (and others) from the ground up and that means being aware of our toes, the balls of our feet, and our heels and how our weight is distributed along the length of our feet. Curling one’s toes up is a way of checking to make sure one isn’t "clenching" them into the mat which we all do at times. Anne has particularly good toe control and can move them apart and back together at will. I think about it but nothing happens.

Yoga sleep (Yoga Nidrasana)
Anne assures me that yoga is not about limberness and I understand her point. However, it would be nice to be half as loose as one needs to be to get into this pose. I doubt I’d get much sleep if I somehow got into this but Anne seems quite relaxed in it and I had to ask her to stop rocking so I could take the picture.

New Preston, Connecticut. Our teacher, Anne Hungerford doing a lunge with a twist to the right.

New Preston, Connecticut. Anne and I were getting ready to leave after a great yoga class this morning and our "his and hers" yoga mats were crying out to be photographed. His is the orange one, more tightly wound (like him) and hers is the yellow one, looser and more optimistic. they do best leaning on each other lest they both go flat.