In 2002, Alberta Views was still only published six times a year but with 70 pages of content. These issues remained as diverse as years previous with spotlights on politics, culture and community. I tend to gravitate towards issues that feature healthcare, education or family dynamics and so I will not deny nature and change my ways now.
I picked up the Nov/Dec issue of 2002 partly because of its giant disclaimer on the cover (“Is This the End of Medicare?”) and partly because the word “Yoga” caught my eye. The cover hosted three different clay faces ranging from gold to green and shifting slowing through varying degrees of tarnish. It would be easy to jump straight to the apocalyptic warning about our health care system but I decided to take another route and investigate Yoga. (If you are interested in reading about current problems the magazine sees with our health system, check out the November issue on newsstands now!)
Yoga has always intrigued me yet I am rather embarrassingly ill informed about it. As a child and teenager I was classically trained in ballet and therefore really understood the art of movement but the art of stillness and breathing was new to me. I probably just proved my ignorance because as any well-versed yogi would know, Yoga is not just about posing. The Yoga based on still posing is called Hatha and may be extremely popular in western countries but there are many others as well.
What I really enjoyed about Marcia Langenberg’s article “Yoga in Alberta” was how she elaborated on the history of Yoga without letting it drown the piece. The way it was written gave subtle winks to those who knew a lot before but was not so in-depth as to patronize newcomers. So Alberta Views has done it again, but his time back in 2002! They’ve produced a well-researched, interesting article about life in Alberta. Instead of copping out with an easy “10 ways to lose weight through Yoga” like some other print magazines, Alberta Views presented an article about the growth of Yoga in Alberta and how the perception of it has changed over the years. As someone who has always thought of Yoga as accepted, this was a very interesting perspective.
Growing up, especially in high school (which about four years after this article was published), I found that there was a large contingency of girls who “did Yoga”, but because I was busy with other activities I received a very different introduction to it. My first interaction with the life style came when I was 16 and visiting my Aunt in Toronto. As far as I can remember she has always been an avid advocate of Yoga. She has tried many kinds. I don’t really remember what kind of Yoga we were doing but according to Langenberg’s descriptions I would say it was Astanga. What was so memorable about this experience was where we performed the Yoga. We were on the boardwalk, standing on a small portion of grass, looking out onto Lake Ontario. It was breathtaking. Perhaps I am nostalgic for summer time because snow now graces our roads here in Calgary, but if all Yoga experiences were like that I’m sure everyone would do it.
As Langenberg states in her article, Yoga is a type of physical exercise that promotes body/mind equilibrium. It seems that nowadays there is a massive disparity between physical health and mental health. This kind of gap can be alienating and stifling. Once in a while popular culture gets it and pops out a line such as when Elle Woods says, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands.” Perhaps if everyone took up Yoga the crime rates would go down.
I had mentioned before that I am embarrassingly ill informed about Yoga. I didn’t even know it originated in India! Neither did I know that it was seen by some as “a mind-control technique and therefore a cult.” Langenberg credits the lack of awareness to a bias against the exercise. Yoga had yet to be properly established in Alberta and people were skeptical of it. But according to Langenberg that was during the 1960s and it has since been accepted into everyday life—which also explains why I was unaware of that stigma.
As an outsider looking into the Yoga community, it strikes me that even Yoga is not impervious to the time crunch that stalks western society. The new “fad” with Yoga is “Hot Yoga”, also known as Bikram Yoga or TriBalance Yoga to a more practiced Yogi. To my understanding, these types of Yoga are performed in rooms heated to 40 degrees Celsius. To me this just seems like a more time-effective way to burn calories. Most of the people that I know that go to Hot Yoga are ecstatic that they can lose 500-1250 calories in only 90 minutes. With what I have learned from Yoga through Langenberg’s article, doesn’t this defeat the purpose of Yoga? If the yogi is too focused on calorie loss they risk being distracted from the other benefits. Once again, I feel like western society has lost sight of what is important.
Being allowed the time to revisit thoughts is probably one of the main attractions to Yoga for me. With a society that is focused on a go-go-go mentality I think it’s important to have some time to say: it’s ok to do something “unproductive”. In my opinion productivity is only good for a short time, even the most prolific writers decide to take time away to recharge. People often forget about recharging. For this reason I am happy that Yoga plays a part in so many lives. Langenberg talks about the multiple purposes of practicing Yoga, “for workouts, for general exercise, for psychotherapy, or for restorative physiotherapy.” Having to stop and listen to your own heart and be aware of your limbs can have a very healing effect, on both mind and body. I would say that is more productive than anything else people normally do. But, I don’t know much about Yoga—honest!
Sincerely,
Nicole (The Intern)
To read my previous blog posts, as well as others on the site, click here.
For information on the Twitter Campaign and for the official rules click here.
To read the issue mentioned in this article, click here.
To read the issue featured in my next blog, click here.
In 2002, Alberta Views was still only published six times a year but with 70 pages of content. These issues remained as diverse as years previous with spotlights on politics, culture and community. I tend to gravitate towards issues that feature healthcare, education or family dynamics and so I will not deny nature and change my ways now.
I picked up the Nov/Dec issue of 2002 partly because of its giant disclaimer on the cover (“Is This the End of Medicare?”) and partly because the word “Yoga” caught my eye. The cover hosted three different clay faces ranging from gold to green and shifting slowing through varying degrees of tarnish. It would be easy to jump straight to the apocalyptic warning about our health care system but I decided to take another route and investigate Yoga. (If you are interested in reading about current problems the magazine sees with our health system, check out the November issue on newsstands now!)
Yoga has always intrigued me yet I am rather embarrassingly ill informed about it. As a child and teenager I was classically trained in ballet and therefore really understood the art of movement but the art of stillness and breathing was new to me. I probably just proved my ignorance because as any well-versed yogi would know, Yoga is not just about posing. The Yoga based on still posing is called Hatha and may be extremely popular in western countries but there are many others as well.
What I really enjoyed about Marcia Langenberg’s article “Yoga in Alberta” was how she elaborated on the history of Yoga without letting it drown the piece. The way it was written gave subtle winks to those who knew a lot before but was not so in-depth as to patronize newcomers. So Alberta Views has done it again, but his time back in 2002! They’ve produced a well-researched, interesting article about life in Alberta. Instead of copping out with an easy “10 ways to lose weight through Yoga” like some other print magazines, Alberta Views presented an article about the growth of Yoga in Alberta and how the perception of it has changed over the years. As someone who has always thought of Yoga as accepted, this was a very interesting perspective.
Growing up, especially in high school (which about four years after this article was published), I found that there was a large contingency of girls who “did Yoga”, but because I was busy with other activities I received a very different introduction to it. My first interaction with the life style came when I was 16 and visiting my Aunt in Toronto. As far as I can remember she has always been an avid advocate of Yoga. She has tried many kinds. I don’t really remember what kind of Yoga we were doing but according to Langenberg’s descriptions I would say it was Astanga. What was so memorable about this experience was where we performed the Yoga. We were on the boardwalk, standing on a small portion of grass, looking out onto Lake Ontario. It was breathtaking. Perhaps I am nostalgic for summer time because snow now graces our roads here in Calgary, but if all Yoga experiences were like that I’m sure everyone would do it.
As Langenberg states in her article, Yoga is a type of physical exercise that promotes body/mind equilibrium. It seems that nowadays there is a massive disparity between physical health and mental health. This kind of gap can be alienating and stifling. Once in a while popular culture gets it and pops out a line such as when Elle Woods says, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands.” Perhaps if everyone took up Yoga the crime rates would go down.
I had mentioned before that I am embarrassingly ill informed about Yoga. I didn’t even know it originated in India! Neither did I know that it was seen by some as “a mind-control technique and therefore a cult.” Langenberg credits the lack of awareness to a bias against the exercise. Yoga had yet to be properly established in Alberta and people were skeptical of it. But according to Langenberg that was during the 1960s and it has since been accepted into everyday life—which also explains why I was unaware of that stigma.
As an outsider looking into the Yoga community, it strikes me that even Yoga is not impervious to the time crunch that stalks western society. The new “fad” with Yoga is “Hot Yoga”, also known as Bikram Yoga or TriBalance Yoga to a more practiced Yogi. To my understanding, these types of Yoga are performed in rooms heated to 40 degrees Celsius. To me this just seems like a more time-effective way to burn calories. Most of the people that I know that go to Hot Yoga are ecstatic that they can lose 500-1250 calories in only 90 minutes. With what I have learned from Yoga through Langenberg’s article, doesn’t this defeat the purpose of Yoga? If the yogi is too focused on calorie loss they risk being distracted from the other benefits. Once again, I feel like western society has lost sight of what is important.
Being allowed the time to revisit thoughts is probably one of the main attractions to Yoga for me. With a society that is focused on a go-go-go mentality I think it’s important to have some time to say: it’s ok to do something “unproductive”. In my opinion productivity is only good for a short time, even the most prolific writers decide to take time away to recharge. People often forget about recharging. For this reason I am happy that Yoga plays a part in so many lives. Langenberg talks about the multiple purposes of practicing Yoga, “for workouts, for general exercise, for psychotherapy, or for restorative physiotherapy.” Having to stop and listen to your own heart and be aware of your limbs can have a very healing effect, on both mind and body. I would say that is more productive than anything else people normally do. But, I don’t know much about Yoga—honest!
Sincerely,
Nicole (The Intern)
To read my previous blog posts, as well as others on the site, click here.
For information on the Twitter Campaign and for the official rules click here.
To read the issue mentioned in this article, click here.
To read the issue featured in my next blog, click here.
