The year is over, but it’s one we won’t soon forget! From further body awareness and acceptance, to exploring internal inquiry, to bombshell lawsuit updates, to the shifts in yoga teaching and how we view yoga from east to west, the past year was one of growing pains and transition, revelations and revolutions. There is much to be learned and let go.
Allow us to walk you down yoga’s Memory Lane with our YD Year In Review – The top 15 yoga posts of 2015. In order of most popular.
15. Stretching Is In Your Brain: A New Paradigm of Flexibility and Yoga (PART 1)
What actually happens when we stretch? This post from Jenni Rawlings really got our brains wrapped around what it means to be flexible.
14. New Dark Comedy Exposes ‘Underbelly’ Of The Yoga World
Yoga’s dark side also happens to be hilarious and in some cases very, very real.
(More: Watch: ‘Om City’ Takes A Deeper Look Into The Precarious Adventures Of Yoga Teaching)
13. Judge Rules Bikram Choudhury Will Face Most of Rape Allegations, Case Will Go To Trial
“Jane Doe No. 2,” who alleged she was sexually and emotionally abused during a 2010 Bikram teacher training, is one of six women to sue Bikram Choudhury for sexual assault or rape.
(There have been several updates since…including another lawsuit filed alleging wrongful termination, more Bikram Yoga studios dropping the name, and news that Bikram’s wife Rajashree recently filed for divorce, .)
12. Redefining Advanced Yoga
What is advanced yoga, anyway? This post from Charlotte Bell digs into the heart of why it’s so valuable to understand what “advanced” means to each of us, and what it doesn’t.
11. ‘Lululemon Diaries’ – Employee Recounts Cult-ish Corporate Culture And Disturbing Co-Opting Of Yoga
This employee’s account gave us a new disturbing peek behind the luon curtains to reveal a corporate culture that is “delusional, hypocritical, and cult-like.”
(More: Lululemon’s Chip Wilson Regrets Women’s Bodies Comments, “Biggest Disaster Of My Life”)
10. Get a Life, Yoga: Kill the Studio Paradigm
Yoga studios are closing almost as quick as they’re opening. But does closing = failing? Mary McInnis Meyer tackled the very important question: is the yoga studio model over?
(More: Yoga Corporate: What’s Happening To The Small Yoga Studios?)
9. How to Protect Yourself from Thinspiration Disguised as Yoga
Especially pertinent amidst the New Year diet frenzy, Hally Marlino laid out some super helpful ways to avoid the all too common messaging that we’re not good enough.
8. How I Went Broke Trying To Teach Yoga
Teaching yoga is not all it’s cracked up to be, and expectations aren’t either. We learned a lot from this honest post by Jessica Pishko.
7. Slow Yoga Revolution
In questioning “advanced” we’re also invited to question our purpose. J. Brown has written many thought-provoking pieces but this one about the slow yoga revolution struck a major chord in today’s power-driven yoga trend.
6. Breaking Down Janelle Monae’s ‘Yoga’ Video and Her Subversive Message of Female Empowerment
Not the first pop reference, but definitely one of the biggest. Janelle Monae named her hit single “Yoga,” had yoga/yoga-dancing in her video, and is apparently a big yoga fan herself. But is her song even about yoga or a deeper metaphor for something else?
5. BKS Iyengar’s Last Practice In Photos
BKS Iyengar is no longer with us physically, but these wonderful photos of his final practice gave us a better sense of who he was in spirit.
(More: Google Doodle Honors BKS Iyengar’s 97th Birthday And It’s Adorable)
4. Magical Thinking, Yoga, And Internal Inquiry
Taking a look, a good hard look at modern, and personal, yoga life. “Magical thinking is self indulgent, petty, and dangerous. It’s a version of spirituality that hasn’t grown up,” writes Karin L. Burke.
3. ‘F*ck That’ Meditation Is No BS
Not your standard meditation practice! But surprisingly satisfying and effective.
2. CNN Ranks Yoga Instructor in Top 100 Careers with ‘Big Growth, Great Pay’ But Forgets One Thing
It sounds like a dream job, but, hey CNN, we know better about the “great pay” thing.
(More: Yoga Teacher Training Boom Cranked Out Almost 30,000 Grads Last Year)
1. ‘When I look at this, my first reaction is of disgust. I didn’t see what my yoga teacher saw.’
Richard Widmark, Jr. showed us that every body is a yoga body and that practice is practice is practice.
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Cheers to 2015 for teaching us valuable lessons. And cheers to 2016 for an opportunity to continue the education and inquiry on and off the mat. Practice on!
Had a favorite story from 2015…share it in the comments!
I really enjoyed this end of the year round up of yoga posts. Great to have such useful articles all in one spot. Thanks!
I Laugh at the end of post picture which describes how tough to adjust bodyweight when exercise.