Could yoga be an olympic sport?
Hi,
With the Olympics just around the corner, I'm just really curious to know what people think about this.
Is there anything wrong with wanting to reach some kind of physical peak, or is it just too much emphasis on asana and missing the whole point of yoga?
Personally, I think there's a kind of inevitability to it. Perhaps not in the actual olympics, but at least an event that is purely about how "good at yoga" (in leyman's terms) someone is. It'll then just be people's choice whether they think it has merit or not.
As an analogy, I used to play guitar. I knew classical and jazz players who really disapproved of heavy metal guitarists because they just wanted to play fast and it was just "all technique and no feeling" and not as "musical". Anyway, would be interested to hear what people think.
I think it's out of the question, because A. Yoga is not a sport (if anything, it could only be qualified for an Olympic sport under the name "asana" perhaps), B. Yogic discipline discards competition and Olympics is a competition, thus has to do with ego and a true yogi could therefore never participate, C. I believe gymnastics is already an Olympic sport and I am pretty sure that a fairly large amount of alignment in gymnastics is derived from yoga postures (so even if there ever were a category called "asana" in the Olympics, it would be somewhat redundant).
Sushumna Yoga
www.sushumna.in