Yoga As Competitive Sport?

It could go a little like this, we're guessing:

"Om, chanti, om, in your face! Namaste, om, chanti."

Traditionally — as in for thousands of years — yoga has been used for finding harmony and peace within one's self. That you streamlined your legs, abs and arms in the process was seen as a joyful perk along the way to enlightenment.

But now, one of yoga's bold-faced names, Bikram Choudhury — he of the Bikram style of yoga which employs 26 asanas (poses) in a heated room — and his wife, Rajashree, are setting into momentum the world of competitive yoga, reports the New York Times.

With yoga gaining in popularity so rapidly, maybe creating a space for it competition-wise, was just a matter a time, though one has to wonder how the news will be received by the thousands upon thousands of yogis and yoginis who are attracted to yoga for its non-competitive (i.e. zen-like) nature.

The Choudhurys have high hopes for this direction: they hope yoga will one day be at the Olympics.

The yoga community will have to think about this one. Is this what we mean by pretzal logic?

Photo courtesy of Martin Louis@sxc.hu.