This story appeared on the web on March 1st 2012 as a public relations stunt for an organisation called USA Yoga.
It’s just now been taken up by world media due to the Olympics starting in London.
Yoga is supposed to be a spiritual practice. I find it most frustrating when people think it is just about contorting your body into weird shapes. Those Olympic gymnasts would all be spiritually evolved by now then surely! Instead it is widely understood that the way gymnasts over-use their bodies causes them severe back and hip problems in later life.
There have been yoga competitions in India, my research found that it was done to promote Yoga, before it was so popular. When teaching Yoga to children we might have a fun competition too, to encourage them. But for adults Yoga is non-competitive and non-judgmental. So, as you can probably tell, I think Olympic Yoga is a really bad idea!
You can see the article on:
