[SAUNDERSAN]

http://www.hulu.com/watch/134936/yog...h-and-Wellness

Interesting documentary on how a spiritual exercise became a secularized and mainstream business. The comments on yoga competitions immediately made me think of the threads on kendo and competition.

[Uciaucrx]

A very interesting documentary, not least because my friend is currently deciding whether to pay £20,000 to attend the Bikram Yoga course!

I have to say, 'Welcome to Western Capitalism'! Someone's spotted a marketable niche (yoga) and is making a lot of money out of exploiting it. In the process they've reduced the 'spiritual' side of yoga to something that is no longer important, which might be missing the point of yoga, but if there's a demand for it then they will sell it. I can sort of see parallels with Kendo except my impression is that there isn't big bucks in it. When I trained in Kendo there was a definite bias toward taikai and competition training which I personally didn't like and yes, perhaps the spiritual side of things suffered as a consequence, so it wasn't a hard decision for me to evetually leave my Kendo dojo. Now Iaido has taikai which again I personally don't like the idea of, but that's my choice and I've avoided them despite pressure to have a go. If my training became geared toward winning competitions then I might have something else to say.