Yoga Teacher Training Forum

I've been to many chanting, clean yoga classes were everybody leaves in a rush after it's done. Some people have to work, see friends and family, etc. True there is a fantastic energy that is disbursed after a great class, but going to a yoga class is an extremely personal experience, why somebody goes, what they experience and the internal energy they have cultivated is theirs to do with what they want. I think you're missing Jacquie yoga snobs underlying point, that one can enjoy yoga for the great internal feeling and energy it cultivates without faking a squeaky clean life style.

Most yoga students, drink alcohol and have their vices...it doesnt make them bad people. We all know about the famous gurus with multiple partners who happen to be their students, yogis that smoke, get high, drink coffee etc. Walk down the beach at Sivananda in the Bahamas and youll see 10 yogis from the ashram at the first beach side cafe reading the paper with coffee and a cigarette. Is it really necessary to enforce a clean image on yoga as a whole?

Having many different takes on yoga seems to me a better way for each teacher to create there own niche. But this must be clean attitude is akin to when moral police come to power and suddenly dark perverse art has a renaissance. Define yourself by what you teach, not by putting others down.