A once obscure Indian spiritual practice has become one of the world’s most popular exercise regimes. Let's take a breath, hold it, then take a Deep Dive.
🌎 Yoga has spread from its Indian home, where it was originally the preserve of religious ascetics, to become a massively popular practice throughout the world over the past couple of decades—particularly the rich bits.
🧘♀️ At the same time it has also splintered into a dizzying range of different new styles: ashtanga yoga, Iyengar yoga, vinyasa yoga, kundalini yoga, yin yoga, hot yoga and even beer yoga (the last of those, inevitably, was invented in Germany).
👳🏻 Although yoga’s current global popularity is unprecedented, it has been journeying to the West for more than a century, and in particular had a bit of a moment in the 1960s and 70s, when Westerners started getting into Asian spiritual beliefs and practices in a big way.
🤸🏾Many people outside India—and sometimes those in it—are practising it more for physical exercise than for the spiritual and mental aspects that are at its heart, although the desire to relax and find inner peace in an increasingly stressful world is also an important motivating factor.
QUOTABLE
“We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be achieved unless we first establish peace within our own minds.”
—Tibetan Buddhist monk Kelsang Gyatso
BY THE NUMBERS
200 million
There are more than 200 million yoga practitioners globally—and, despite the discipline’s rapid spread around the world, still more than half of them are in India
80 billion
The total market for yoga related goods and services was worth US$80 billion globally in 2017.
2014
After campaigning by India, the United Nations declared June 21 the International Day of Yoga in 2014.
75%
The number of people who practise yoga in the US grew from 20.4 million to more than 36 million in the four years from 2012 to 2016, a rise of more than 75 percent.
$7.3 million
Bikram Choudhury, founder of the eponymous form of hot yoga that took the US by storm, was ordered to pay US$7.3 million in damages to his former lawyer Minakshi Jafa-Boden for sexual harassment and unfair dismissal. Choudhury, who has faced persistent and widespread allegations of sexual harassment of women and abusive treatment of racial and sexual minorities, left the US without paying—and Jafa-Boden was awarded his company.
QUIZ
How much, on average, did Google searches for yoga rise by between December and January over the past five years?
A. 53%
B. 73%
C. 93%
Scroll to the bottom of the email for the answer.
DID YOU KNOW?
The sun salutation, perhaps the most common pose in modern yoga practice, doesn’t feature in any of the ancient Hindu texts, and was only invented in the 1930s.
THE EDIT
5 Stories To Get You Up To Speed
Selected by Gen.T honouree Yogananth Andiappan, founder and director of Anahata Yoga.
"Yoga Inc"–6 Reasons Why Yoga And All Things Holistic Are Taking Over The World Yogi Banker
Yoga And Meditation Continue To Gain Popularity In the US Forbes
New Survey Reveals The Rapid Rise Of Yoga–And Why Some People Still Haven't Tried It Harvard Medical School
The Timeline And History Of Yoga In America Yoga Journal
WATCH
Is Yoga China's Next Ping Pong?
CGTN delves into the future of yoga in China, assessing how the ancient Indian practice is fast becoming a mainstream activity
JARGON
Asana A pose or posture, and the suffix used in the names of all yoga poses.
Ashtanga An energetic form of yoga, invented in the 20th century, involving a sequence of poses that flow into each other.
Chakra The focal points in your body that your life force (see Prana, below) flows through.
Drishti Your gaze or focal point during a posture.
Hatha Often thought of as the original yoga, it involves a slow paced approach without a flow between poses.
Prana Life force, and by extension breath; pranayama means a breathing exercise.
Vinyasa A dynamic approach to yoga in which poses flow into each other.
THE FULL PICTURE
Profitable Poses
The total value of China’s yoga market is set to hit 46.8 billion yuan (US$6.8 billion) this year, up from 17.5 billion yuan in 2016, according to market research company iResearch Consulting Group.
Source: iResearch China
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Assuming The Positions
The OG Swami Vivekananda The process of popularising yoga around the rest of the world began with Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902). He came to global prominence when he travelled from India to the US and addressed the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, then undertook lecture tours of the US and UK, writing the book Raja Yoga in New York in 1896, and bringing both yoga and Hinduism generally to a vastly wider audience.
The 'Father Of Modern Yoga' Tirumalai Krishnamacharya
Often referred to as the father of modern yoga, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888-1989) pioneered the physical approach to the discipline that characterises most contemporary practice around the world. A doctor and teacher of Ayurvedic medicine, he stressed the combination of movement with breathing, and the importance of individually relevant yoga practice.
The Founder Of Yoga For Laymen BKS Iyengar
The founder of Iyengar yoga—for laymen, that’s the type that uses lots of props—BKS Iyengar (1918-2014) was also the author of the incredibly influential 1966 book Light On Yoga, which described a wide range of poses in extreme detail. A student of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who was also his brother in law, Iyengar credited yoga with helping him to grow stronger after he had suffered numerous health problems during his childhood, and rose to fame in the West after teaching legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
Gen.T Spotlight
Two honourees to follow
Yogananth Andiappan This week’s guest editor of The Edit (see above), Yogananth Andiappan is the founder of Anahata Yoga, the International Yoga Academy and the charitable Andiappan Yoga Community. Yoga is a family business for him: his guru, from whom he learned the practice, is also his father. READ MORE
Sandra Riley Tang A member of Singaporean indie pop band The Sam Willows, Sandra Riley Tang, also known as RRILEY, is a keen yoga evangelist. In 2014 she co-founded The Yoga Collective, which offers small group classes in the city. READ MORE
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Did you miss our Deep Dive on The Fetishisation of Authenticity? Read it here.
ONE FINAL THING
Downward Facing Goat
Ladies and gentleman, goat yoga is officially A Thing, because why not?
NEXT WEEK
Building A Team That Wins
That's it for this issue. Have a productive week!
The Deep Dive is a weekly close-up look at an idea, issue or trend that’s shaping Asia’s future. This issue was written by Richard Lord, with production by Samantha Topp and Denise Ng. It was edited by Lee Williamson.
We’d love to know what you think of this issue, and future topics you’d like us to cover. Please send your comments to editor@generationt.asia. And if you missed it, don’t forget to check out last week’s Deep Dive, on Why Job Interviews Are Useless.
