Tradition vs. Innovation: Why do we make these shapes with our bodies?
I often hear yoga described as an iceberg – asana, the physical practice, what we do in the group classes that so many of us attend, is simply the tip of the iceberg. Despite this, like the tip of an iceberg, the poses are the most visible aspect of yoga in the Instagram era. With the recent attention to alignment, anatomy, and practicing the poses in a safe and sustainable way, it is becoming increasingly useful to understand the evolution of modern asana practice to strike the “right” balance between tradition and innovation.
In his book “Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice,” Mark Singleton traces the path of modern asana practice – which, some may be surprised to find out, doesn’t go back all that far. (All the quotes from the book throughout this post are noted with the page number.)
Learning how the physical practice came to exist as we know it today provides an essential context for understanding why we make these shapes with our bodies. While some point unequivocally to tradition as the answer to this question, the truth is that “yoga as it is practiced in the globalized world today is the result of a new emphasis on physical culture” (210).
Swami Vivekananda is credited with introducing Hinduism to the Western world at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, Illinois, sparking an interest in “yoga,” which at the time did not refer to the physical practice we know today. Singleton points out that in Vivekananda’s writings, he “makes an emphatic distinction between the merely physical exercises of hatha yoga and the spiritual ones of ‘raja yoga,’” and insists that because similar physical postures are found in other systems, they are “mere secular exercise” (71).
Indeed, the first several chapters of Yoga Body show the influence of the physical culture revival of the late 1800s-early 1900s on modern asana practice. English physical culture had a big influence on colonial India, which already had its own physical practices entirely separate from yoga. In addition, modern asana clearly borrowed from bodybuilding, harmonial gymnastics, contortionism, and several other physical culture movements.
Much of what we practice in asana classes today, and much of what we consider “traditional” asana, is heavily influenced by the teachings of Krishnamacharya in the 1930s. Several of his students carried on his teachings with their own spin, resulting in some of the wide variety of asana styles seen in studios today. However, even Krishnamacharya borrowed freely from gymnastics and bodybuilding routines. The sun salutation (surya namaskar) that is popular today, thought by many to be rooted in ancient yoga tradition, “was first conceived by a bodybuilder and then popularized by other bodybuilders… as a technique of bodybuilding” (124). It is thought that Krishnamacharya added surya namaskar to his yoga asana practices as he assembled a physical practice influenced by popular movement styles of the time.
Armed with the context that history provides, we can no longer cite tradition as the reason why we make these shapes. Singleton writes, “While it is going too far to say that modern postural yoga has no relationship to asana practice within the Indian tradition, this relationship is one of radical innovation and experimentation. It is the result of adaptation to new discourses of the body” (33). Looking around the studio today, it’s clear that asana practice has evolved even further. Like Krishnamacharya, today’s teachers are still experimenting and creating new poses. Dana Trixie Flynn of Laughing Lotus, for example, has popularized new shapes like “OMG” and “Unicorn,” which will likely not be found in any ancient texts. New scientific knowledge about human anatomy is informing a different approach to the physical practice, and this knowledge will continue to expand in the future.
We must honor the traditions of yoga as our expression of the physical practice evolves, embracing new knowledge and adapting the practice in ways that are rooted in science. By deepening our understanding of anatomy and individualizing the asana practice, we continue a rich tradition of innovation in the physical practice of yoga asana.*
If the history of yoga is interesting to you, Yoga Body is a great place to start. The lengthy bibliography can guide you to explore even further. I’m thinking about starting a yoga book club – please comment below if you’re interested in joining! Yoga book recommendations are also much appreciated.
*The final paragraph in this post was revised on 7/19/2020 after listening to Luvena Rangel on the J. Brown Yoga Talks podcast. I realized that I had inadvertently suggested that the traditions of yoga are ours to adapt and change, while in fact they are part of the Indian cultural heritage and must be respected as such. Luvena agreed with my perspective that there is a place for modern anatomy and the application of our changing understanding of movement to allow the practice of asana to be more accessible to practitioners. However, I was also reminded that asana is only one small portion of the rich tradition of yoga. The way I originally worded this paragraph suggested that asana was of primary importance, which it is not.
