Why is it that people are so quick to turn things like yoga and global warming into both a lifestyle and a religion? Fortunately, I think people are now waking up to the silliness of both.
A recent New York Times article documents a decline in the number of people attending yoga classes along with a rise in the number of people who are rebelling against the high-priced “yoga machine” that has overtaken the country in recent years.
“Yoga is definitely big business these days,” writes the Times’ Mary Billard. “A 2008 poll, commissioned by Yoga Journal, concluded that the number of people doing yoga had declined from 16.5 million in 2004 to 15.8 million almost four years later. But the poll also estimated that the actual spending on yoga classes and products had almost doubled in that same period, from $2.95 billion to $5.7 billion. “
The yoga fad has become very expensive. For example, a pair of the popular Groove yoga pants cost $108 and a Manduka mat can reach as high as $100. A typical class in New York can cost up to $20 and some of the higher end chains in Manhattan charge up to $185 a month.
Billard also lists the many high-end “yoga rock stars” that have grown up during the yoga-boom, such as David Life and Sharon Gannon who taught Madonna and Sting, and Bikram Choudhury who is known for his “contortions (and Rolls Royces).”
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