Keep the Candy out of the Classroom: On Yoga Fusion

Yoga fusion is becoming more prevalent on the American yoga scene. But what IS it? Simply, yoga fusion entails taking things that aren’t yoga and adding yoga to them in order to make something new in the name of yoga, from exercise to an everyday activity. Exactly why it’s popular is quite beyond me. As an anti-fusionist, I will always insist that yoga is so complete in and of itself as a well-being system that it needs no fusion with anything else, but precisely BECAUSE it's so complete and by nature all-encompassing and malleable, yoga gets easily blended with other things, usually to the demise of yoga, for by taking little bits here and then, we pick away and reduce.

To begin, I’ll just remind you, dear reader, that what is popular (in this case, yoga fusion) is not necessarily good. So in honor of that, I offer today commentary of some of the worst yoga fusion outfits I’ve seen so far. These are actual classes, DVDs, and events, often taking place at yoga studios.

Doga (Dog Yoga): First, dogs cannot do yoga. Humans do yoga. Dogs don’t CARE if humans do yoga. Yoga is a human invention meant to improve human life by encouraging the cultivation of poses that resemble things in nature like, say, dogs. But the posturing efforts need not be reversed. Dogs are WAY past the need for yoga, so why be a selfish dog owner and force your dog to be with you while you become a tree? He’d rather pee on a real tree than be one with YOUR tree.

Yoga Butt: According to urbandictionary.com, “A yoga butt means you also have yoga arms, yoga abs, yoga legs, etc. It is very sexy and it immediately turns eyes and makes people jealous or inspired.” Yoga Butt reduces yoga to a way of compartmentalizing our body parts and making us work so we get a ‘hot’ body others can worship AND despise. What better way is there to help solidify our poor body image tendencies, really? I can think of none.

Choga: (Chocolate and Yoga): I adore dark chocolate and know the high and lovey-dovey feelings my favorite sweet brings. But let’s keep the candy out of the classroom. Yoga offers equally wonderful feelings at a fraction of the calories, caffeine, and cost.

Boga (Tae-Bo Yoga): Kick someone’s butt, or imagine that you are. Then sit down and stretch it out, anger and muscles all. Then kick some more butt. End with contemplating world peace. Om. Slap. Om. Hwah??

Yollet (Yoga Ballet): Psssssssttttt: Confession time. I love ballet. This is MY kind of fusion if I had to pick one, but being against yoga fusion, I’d keep any blending of my yoga and ballet education to myself. Here’s why. The cross-over commonality between yoga and ballet is obviously flexibility and, to a degree, physical aesthetics. But it’s be a big thumbs down because the goal of bone-showing thinness rampant in ballet is ripe for endangering the goal of a body’s natural weight, espoused by and resulting from yoga practice. Besides, Yollet sounds like an open-air, alien-creature mode of transportation. Or a bad Jell-o recipe.

Yoga Spin (a.k.a. Namaste Cycle): Generally, this is the ever-popular ride of the frenzied on stationary bicycles in a low-lit, music-pumping, teacher-miked-and-screaming room followed by relaxing, gentle stretches. ‘Hop on, yoga. I’ll take you around this madhouse block on my bike!’ In this non-sensible fusion, yoga is reduced to triaging the damage the spinners are doing to their bodies and bringing the riders' wacked-out respiratory and nervous systems back to some sort of order. Lucky for the riders, I guess.

Yoga Happy Hour: What kind of fusion is THIS? Take a completely healthy thing like your body after yoga and add alcohol. This reminds me of a former boyfriend’s Christmas Morning Punch recipe: “Take fresh-squeezed orange juice, ginger, apple, and lemon and serve in an iced glass. Add vodka to suit your taste.” Yoga Happy Hour and my ex's disclaimer would read: “Dear yoga (or, holidays and family), I love you. But you’re just another reason for a nip or two. --The Booze Bringer.”

Yoga Booty Ballet: This clunky, three-way fusion reminds me of how some people make soup. Open the fridge, throw whatever you want into a pot, and hope it doesn’t suck. YBB, sadly, appeals to women’s vanities. The search for a tight this and a flat that, and, on the other hand, the desire to be expressive and (likely) ballet-thin, was the impetus for this Hollywood fusion embarrassment. Into the soup of ‘whatever it takes to make me gorgeous, dahling,’ we throw yoga. Bad, YBB.

Foga (Food and Yoga): Truly, a strange, new-ish fusion trend. The New York Times recently published an article about a U.S. studio where, after a sweaty class, students sat around and ate a multi-course meal. On their sweaty mats. Why? Because they are yogis. They are no one’s sissies. One student interviewed said she could REALLY taste her food; her senses were heightened. Fine, but Michael Symon would rather you bring your heightened sense of taste to his restaurants where food is normally eaten, and I’d rather NOT go to a yoga class where the person who rolls out her mat next to mine flicks crumbs, or scratches off dried sauce drippings with a fingernail.

Yoga fusion is American innovation at work. It’s also American consumerism at its worst, for yoga in America is still unabashedly about profit. I wish we’d try to keep yoga YOGA in the U.S., pure and simple and UNfused.

I dread to even think that one of humankind’s greatest tools for personal health and peace could eventually get fused to the point where in some dim future its original source--Yuj--is lost in a swirl of some kick-butt, dog-barking, Harry Buffalo-flavored chocolate fondue soup pas de deux danced with leg weights and spinning wheels. Yuk.