Sun Salutation

Yet another online find:

You can watch John Philp's documentary Yoga, Inc. for free online at SnagFilms (along with a bunch of other interesting-looking documentaries).

It's about the commercialization of yoga in the West, covering various controversies including yoga competitions, yoga studio franchises, proposed codes of ethics for yoga teachers, and Bikram Choudhury's copyrighting of his yoga style.

I'd be fascinated to know what other people think of it, and what people's feelings are about the "yoga industry" (I know that I'm ambivalent -- I want to feel that yoga is non-commercial in some ways, but then I also like being able to buy a nice yoga mat and a bunch of books and some DVDs and …)

*peers round shyly*

Um, hi.

Recently, I realized that I have over 30 hours of yoga classes on my laptop, all downloaded for free from iTunes.

So I thought I'd post about this, in case other people hadn't yet discovered this treasure trove (or in case anyone else has recs to share).

It turns out that there's a wide range of free yoga podcasts available in iTunes -- including some excellent video classes, which I hadn't expected. Searching on "yoga" (or a specific title) and then clicking the podcasts section brings them all up.

Yoga Journal has produced a marvellous series with Jason Crandell; there are 12 video podcasts, and more audio-only ones, each focused on a different theme (balancing poses, forward bends, twists, a morning practice, an evening practice, etc.), and with the best teaching on alignment I've ever found. He gives very precise and subtle instructions, and includes some interesting variations to focus attention on different aspects of poses in different contexts. There's lots of emphasis on safety and modifying poses in ways appropriate to your body, but that doesn't mean it's low-key; in particular, he teaches some mean bound poses.

The classes are all in the 20-30 minute range, and each one is fairly complete and balanced in itself, but Crandell usually includes suggestions about which podcasts you might follow up with if you've got more time.

These are the classes I go back to again and again. I've done one of these on most days out of the last year and a half, and I keep getting deeper into them as I grasp more details of the asanas.

YogaToday has a range of interesting podcast classes in various styles (power yoga, Anusara, and some Kundalini, which I'm really unfamiliar with), including some good stuff on opening the shoulders, and a lovely twenty-minute sequence warming up for and leading into Hanumanasana, which is one of my long-term ambitions.

(Apparently if you register on the website, you can stream a new hour-long class for free every week; paying enables you to download any of their library of past classes.)

Chaz of YOGAmazing is often a bit too improvisational and chatty for my tastes, with minimal guidance on alignment, but he has some fun flow sequences and a steady stream of new podcasts (older ones get taken down from iTunes after a while and have to be bought from his website) .

I've only just begun digging into the audio-only classes available -- there are a lot of them, and it looks like there are some interesting things out there.

And then there's YouTube …