Notable Blogs of the Day: Travel

Posted by ebeans

It is rare to find yourself in the thick of a yoga blog.  The more you search, the more you find interesting blogs that once were.  Be sure to check out these blogs while you can still read them “fresh off the press”.

• YJ Cambodia Yoga Challenge
  

  From "Notes from the dump"

  About: “The Seva Challenge is about taking a small group of leaders and setting a significant fundraising goal for each person who comes on the trip. Through the funds raised, we will be able to leave Cambodia knowing we have made a difference…” read more
  Who: Seva Challenge participants

• Om Factory on the Road
  

  From "We're working on the picture album..."

  About:  “Watch out! Twelve Om Factory yogis are about to storm Southeast India under the auspicious guidance of Lord Murugan. In two days we kiss ice storms goodbye and summer saris hello…”  read more
  Who: Retreat participants (Katie Clancy with FaraMarz, Amanda Wentworth, Kristin Sullivan, Alex*, Deborah Shapiro, Jennifer Seymour, Carey Urban, David Regan, Kara Bingham, Denise Fahmie, and Karen Fuchs)

  *Name changed by request.

a dispatch from Neal Pollack at the sixth-annual international yoga championship (read: balls like atom bombs)

posted by lalabean

“Top Yogi” by Neal Pollack [who practices ashtanga]
Rabbit poses, coconut water, and a Bikram-practicing dance team at the international yoga championship.

To those of us who’ve spent years practicing yoga in an atmosphere of soft-lit candles, chanting, and nonjudgmental good vibes, the idea of a yoga competition sounds about as absurd as the idea of competitive prayer. On my way to the 6th Annual International Yoga Asana Championship, held at the Westin Hotel LAX on the weekend of Feb. 7, I steeled myself to bear witness to some sort of whacked-out yoga circus, and that’s more or less what I got. But a lot of yoga culture feels weird and circuslike to me anyway, so I would have felt disappointed if it had ended up being otherwise. I can now also tell you that there’s a chance competitive yoga will soon be an official event at the Summer Olympics.

At the center of the weekend, wearing flashy suits and various fedoras, stood Bikram Choudhury, the animating force behind the competitive yoga circuit. Here’s a man who’s copyrighted his style of yoga (26 postures, repeated twice, in a room heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit), sends cease-and-desist letters to those who dare flout the copyright, and, in interviews, summarily dismisses all other forms of American yoga while also bragging about his love for McDonald’s and his large fleet of self-restored Rolls-Royces. He once famously told Business 2.0 magazine that his yoga was the “only yoga.” When asked why, he said it was because he has “balls like atom bombs, two of them, 100 megatons each. Nobody fucks with me.” Not surprisingly, other yoga circles view him and his particular craft with everything from mildly dismissive amusement to a disdain coming close to disgust…

…continue reading at SLATE