Trends and the high ground

Shit Yogis Say is a pretty funny video by Lululemon in response to a PR project gone bad. I remember when Lululemon was a small store on 4th (or was it Broadway) in Vancouver. The clothes were cute and expensive but not overly so. You didn't mind spending the money because you knew you were paying for quality and something somewhat unique. I don't begrudge Lulelemon's success, it is a Canadian company which is awesome and their clothing is high quality, but I resent the inaccessibility of quality products and services to those of us who can't spend $100 on a pair of yoga pants. I think this is attributable to the popularization of yoga and is evident in other trendy items such as iPods or X-boxes. Unlike these technological gadgets, yoga has the potential to heal society's mental and physical ailments and in my utopian worldview anything that heals or just makes people the world a better place should be accessible to everyone!

This is of course more of a rant since yoga is fairly accessible through online streaming (see Yogis Anonymous and YogaGlo), DVDs, books and classes at community centres. And sometimes I find myself belittling the trend setters and questioning their motives because yoga isn't about how good you look. It's about being in the moment and surrendering our attachments to materialism. "Letting go of that which doesn't serve you." is another important aspect of yoga and criticizing other people's choices and reasons for doing whatever doesn't serve me in the least! In fact it's not very yogic at all. It's just like what the yogis say "Nobody owns yoga!"

And hell yeah I saw his handstand!