Competitive Yoga
   HOME
*





Competitive Yoga
Competitive yoga is the performance of asanas in sporting competitions. The activity is controversial as it appears to conflict with the nature of yoga. History The International Federation of Sports Yoga has organised annual championships since 1989, and is led by Fernando Estevez-Griego (Swami Maitreyananda). These competitions are not restricted to asanas, but cover all eight limbs of yoga identified in the '' Yoga Sutras'' of Patanjali. The 1989 competition was held in Montevideo with the asana competition in Pondicherry. Competitive yoga has been practised by adults in America since 2009 under the auspices of the nonprofit organisation USA Yoga; competitions were later introduced for children from the age of 7. The fiercely contested Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup is held annually in Los Angeles. Ghosh inspired the yoga style of Bikram Choudhury, the founder of Bikram Yoga, and Choudhury has been closely associated with America's competitive yoga from its inception. The documenta ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Asana
An asana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose,Verse 46, chapter II, "Patanjali Yoga sutras" by Swami Prabhavananda, published by the Sri Ramakrishna Math p. 111 and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The ''Yoga Sutras of Patanjali'' define "asana" as " position thatis steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Patanjali ''Yoga sutras'', Book II:29, 46 Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English. The 10th or 11th century '' Goraksha Sataka'' and the 15th century '' Hatha Yoga Pradipika'' identify 84 asanas; the 17th century ''Hatha Ratnavali'' provides a different list of 84 asanas, describing some of them. In the 20th century, Indian nationalism favoured physical culture in response to colonialism. In that enviro ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bikram Yoga
Bikram Yoga is a system of hot yoga, a type of yoga as exercise, devised by Bikram Choudhury and based on the teachings of B. C. Ghosh, that became popular in the early 1970s. Classes consist of a fixed sequence of 26 postures, practised in a room heated to with a humidity of 40%, intended to replicate the climate of India. The room is fitted with carpets and the walls are covered in mirrors. The instructor may adjust the students' yoga postures. Choudhury's teaching style was abrasive. Bikram Yoga spread rapidly across America and the Western world, reaching a peak of some 1,650 studios in at least 40 countries in 2006. Choudhury attempted to copyright the Bikram Yoga sequence from 2011, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In 2016, facing lawsuits and accusations of sexual assault, Choudhury fled to India, leaving Bikram Yoga, Inc. to be run by others. Origins Bikram Choudhury was born in Calcutta in 1944. He began studying yoga in 1969. He arrived in America in 1971, an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hatha Yoga
Haṭha yoga is a branch of yoga which uses physical techniques to try to preserve and channel the vital force or energy. The Sanskrit word हठ ''haṭha'' literally means "force", alluding to a system of physical techniques. Some haṭha yoga style techniques can be traced back at least to the 1st-century CE, in texts such as the Hindu Sanskrit epics and Buddhism's Pali canon. The oldest dated text so far found to describe haṭha yoga, the 11th-century ''Amṛtasiddhi'', comes from a tantric Buddhist milieu. The oldest texts to use the terminology of ''hatha'' are also Vajrayana Buddhist. Hindu hatha yoga texts appear from the 11th century onwards. Some of the early haṭha yoga texts (11th-13th c.) describe methods to raise and conserve bindu (vital force, that is, semen, and in women ''rajas –'' menstrual fluid). This was seen as the physical essence of life that was constantly dripping down from the head and being lost. Two early Haṭha yoga techniques sought to e ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Samadhi
''Samadhi'' (Pali and sa, समाधि), in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools, is a state of meditative consciousness. In Buddhism, it is the last of the eight elements of the Noble Eightfold Path. In the Ashtanga Yoga tradition, it is the eighth and final limb identified in the ''Yoga Sutras'' of Patanjali. In the oldest Buddhist suttas, on which several contemporary western Theravada teachers rely, it refers to the development of an investigative and luminous mind which is equanimous and mindful. In the yogic traditions, and the Buddhist commentarial tradition on which the Burmese Vipassana movement and the Thai Forest tradition rely, it is interpreted as a meditative absorption or trance, attained by the practice of '' dhyāna''. Definitions ''Samadhi'' may refer to a broad range of states. A common understanding regards ''samadhi'' as meditative absorption: * Sarbacker: ''samādhi'' is meditative absorption or contemplation. * Diener, Erhard & ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Rajiv Malhotra
Rajiv Malhotra (born 15 September 1950) is an Indian-born American Hindutva ideologue, author and founder of Infinity Foundation, which focuses on Indic studies, and also funds projects such as Columbia University's project to translate the Tibetan Buddhist Tengyur. Apart from the foundation, Malhotra promotes a Hindutva view on Indic cultures. Malhotra has written prolifically in opposition to the western academic study of Indian culture and society, which he maintains denigrates the tradition and undermines the interests of India "by encouraging the paradigms that oppose its unity and integrity". Biography Malhotra studied physics at St. Stephen's College, Delhi and computer science at Syracuse University before becoming an entrepreneur in the information technology and media industries. He took early retirement in 1994 at an age of 44, to establish the Infinity Foundation at Princeton, New Jersey in 1995. Besides directing that foundation, he also chairs the board of gove ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Oxymoron
An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction. An oxymoron can be used as a rhetorical device to illustrate a rhetorical point or to reveal a paradox. A more general meaning of "contradiction in terms" (not necessarily for rhetoric effect) is recorded by the ''OED'' for 1902. The term is first recorded as Latinized Greek ', in Maurus Servius Honoratus (c. AD 400); it is derived from the Greek word ' "sharp, keen, pointed" Retrieved 2013-02-26. and "dull, stupid, foolish"; as it were, "sharp-dull", "keenly stupid", or "pointedly foolish".. Retrieved 2013-02-26. "Pointedly foolish: a witty saying, the more pointed from being paradoxical or seemingly absurd." The word ''oxymoron'' is autological, i.e. it is itself an example of an oxymoron. The Greek compound word ', which would correspond to the Latin formation, does not seem ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Yoga Journal
''Yoga Journal'' is a website and digital journal, formerly a print magazine, on yoga as exercise founded in California in 1975 with the goal of combining the essence of traditional yoga with scientific understanding. It has produced live events and materials such as DVDs on yoga and related subjects. The magazine grew from the California Yoga Teachers Association's newsletter, which was called ''The Word''. ''Yoga Journal'' has repeatedly won Western Publications Association's Maggie Awards for "Best Health and Fitness Magazine". It has however been criticized for representing yoga as being intended for affluent white women; in 2019 it attempted to remedy this by choosing a wider variety of yoga models. Beginnings ''Yoga Journal'' was started in May 1975 by the California Yoga Teachers Association (CYTA), with Rama Jyoti Vernon as President, William Staniger as the founding editor, and Judith Lasater on the board and serving as copy editor. Their goal was to combine "the ess ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Slate (magazine)
''Slate'' is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former '' New Republic'' editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 2004, it was purchased by The Washington Post Company (later renamed the Graham Holdings Company), and since 2008 has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by Graham Holdings. ''Slate'' is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. ''Slate'', which is updated throughout the day, covers politics, arts and culture, sports, and news. According to its former editor-in-chief Julia Turner, the magazine is "not fundamentally a breaking news source", but rather aimed at helping readers to "analyze and understand and interpret the world" with witty and entertaining writing. As of mid-2015, it publishes about 1,500 stories per month. A French version, ''slate.fr'', was launched in February 20 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bikram Choudhury
Bikram Choudhury (born 1944) is an Indian-born American yoga guru, and the founder of Bikram Yoga, a form of hot yoga consisting of a fixed series of 26 postures practised in a hot environment of . The business became a success in the United States and then across the Western world, with a variety of celebrity pupils. His former wife Rajashree Choudhury assisted him in the yoga business. In 2009, he began a series of copyright claims to protect the series of postures of Bikram Yoga; this was ultimately unsuccessful, and other studios continue to teach the series. Choudhury was the subject of civil suits alleging sexual assault and discrimination against racial and sexual minorities. In 2017, a court awarded $7 million to his former lawyer, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, who gained control of his yoga business when Choudhury fled to India without paying her. Since then he has continued to train yoga teachers outside the United States in countries including Spain and Mexico. Life and w ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Yoga
Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciousness untouched by the mind ('' Chitta'') and mundane suffering (''Duḥkha''). There is a wide variety of schools of yoga, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism,Stuart Ray Sarbacker, ''Samādhi: The Numinous and Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga''. SUNY Press, 2005, pp. 1–2.Tattvarthasutra .1 see Manu Doshi (2007) Translation of Tattvarthasutra, Ahmedabad: Shrut Ratnakar p. 102. and traditional and modern yoga is practiced worldwide. Two general theories exist on the origins of yoga. The linear model holds that yoga originated in the Vedic period, as reflected in the Vedic textual corpus, and influenced Buddhism; according to author Edward Fitzpatrick Crangle, this model is mainly supported by Hindu scholars. According ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup
Bishnu Charan Ghosh (24 June 1903 – 9 July 1970) was an Indian bodybuilder and Hathayogi. He was the younger brother of yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, who wrote the 1946 book ''Autobiography of a Yogi''. In 1923, he founded the College of Physical Education, Calcutta. His writings influenced the development of modern yoga as exercise in India and Bikram Choudhury founded Bikram Yoga based on his teachings. Annual yoga championships in Los Angeles are named the Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup in his honour. Life Bishnu Charan Ghosh was born in Lahore, the youngest of eight children of Bhagabati Charan Ghosh (1853–1942) and brother of Mukunda Lal Ghosh, better known by his spiritual name, Paramahansa Yogananda. His parents' guru was Lahiri Mahasaya, who taught Kriya Yoga. Yogananda introduced Ghosh to yoga at his Ranchi School for Boys in Bengal, where he was one of the first seven pupils. As well as Yogananda's set of 84 "Yogoda" asanas gathered from different sources, his brother t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]