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Following on yesterday’s “Nazis loved yoga” thread lede: from the 20th C on, this love has at times been mutual. This helps account for today’s hyper-aggressive, body-shaming, magical health libertarianism that can horseshoe the worlds of yoga and MAGA together. /1
The yoga-fascism story hinges on a colonial transformation of premodern yoga into an exercise of nationalist pride. Echoes of a medieval contemplation were repurposed by Indian modernizers creating a homegrown version of Euro physical culture to re-dignify the colonized body./2
Some of their Euro idols were proto-fashy strongmen obsessed with eugenics and the purity of noble semen. Some early Hindutva admired bona fide Nazis, because they opposed the British, because of the “Aryan” mythos, and because they too dreamt of ethno-religious purity. /3
Fascist elements became embodied and exportable through the training that key Indian evangelists of modern yoga endured. For them, yoga was about overcoming the humiliation of occupation, poverty, sickness. Yoga was about performing the transcendence of the motherland. /4
It cost them. Iyengar and Jois said the now-acclaimed father of the movement, T. Krishnamacharya, beat them while they were doing poses. Pictures of them as men show the rigid, militarized stances of schoolboys presenting for inspection, but wanting to hide, expecting blows. /5
The abuse, common for colonial-influenced public schooling, became intergenerational, with Iyengar and Jois known for assaulting students — Jois sexually. To rise in the ranks of their brands, students learned to spiritualize abuse as “purification”. /6
Abuse cases in the contemporary yoga industry, therefore, have roots not only in rape culture but male violence wrapped in the flags of ethnonationalism and oriental(ist) spirituality. The culture washes latent fascism with promises of health, beauty and exotic “authenticity”. /7
One term I use for this is “somatic dominance”, which may not currently feature corporal punishment but still is able to presume knowledge and extreme influence over the bodies of students/clients/followers through a confusion of expertise with charisma. /8
Yoga dominators today can use “adjustments” and IG instead of brute force. They can diagnose in universals and prescribe panaceas. They can co-opt social movements and therapeutic trends. In lieu of evidence, they offer flexing, oratory, emotional contagion, spectacle. /9
So if you’re wondering where the aggression and sadism of alt-health influencers comes from as they profess “empowerment” and “intuition” while body/fat/birth/trans-shaming and denying COVID, check their CV for modern yoga, but know yoga is a hub for alt-health spiritualities./10
Note I am *not* claiming that yoga=fascism, but that these modern histories are tangled, and that even the most progressive-identifying parts of the former are vulnerable to the domination spectacle of the latter. When yoga groups become cultic the vulnerability compounds. /11
The Global North yoga industry is littered with the wreckage of authoritarian dominators who set up lucrative pyramids based on transcendent charisma and magical medical claims, glued together with trauma-bonding. Their site of power was the student/follower’s body. /12
If a conspiritualist influenced by this yoga disses public health during COVID, it’s because it threatens THEIR control over follower’s bodies. This is especially true of PCR tests and vaccines, which directly challenge the leader assessing/changing the student’s chemistry. /13
Public health as a global scientific project degrades the yoga/fascist fetish for blood-and-soil ecology *and* insults their imperialism in relation to yoga vacay spots in the global south where they feel they should be free to salute the sun on beaches, unmasked. /14
The #notallyogapeople are right, though. While major brands have shown their abusive/fashy colours, there are small but potent movements in global yoga dedicated to trauma awareness, anti-ableism, anti-cultism, and intersectional community service. /15
And though it’s beyond my scope/experience, I am told and believe there are extant strands of pre-globalization practice in the Indian diaspora that have nothing to do with any of this fascist stuff. I’d like to learn more about them, how they cope with conspirituality. /16
Sources:
Singleton on the Mysore Yoga Revival. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/yoga-body-9780195395341
Leidig on Hindutva/Nazism connections:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0031322X.2020.1759861
Imy on Fascist Yogis:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0021937116000010
Singleton on the Mysore Yoga Revival. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/yoga-body-9780195395341
Leidig on Hindutva/Nazism connections:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0031322X.2020.1759861
Imy on Fascist Yogis:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0021937116000010
Donna Farhi on Iyengar: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018693565/donna-farhi-yoga-s-culture-of-abuse
My investigation of Jois: https://thewalrus.ca/yogas-culture-of-sexual-abuse-nine-women-tell-their-stories/
Shameless self-promotion bit: I facilitate webinars in this stuff.
http://matthewremski.com/wordpress/what-i-do/8-critical-problems-in-modern-yoga/
My investigation of Jois: https://thewalrus.ca/yogas-culture-of-sexual-abuse-nine-women-tell-their-stories/
Shameless self-promotion bit: I facilitate webinars in this stuff.
http://matthewremski.com/wordpress/what-i-do/8-critical-problems-in-modern-yoga/
Great antifascist, anti-ableist yoga accts to follow: @accessibleyoga, @TheoWildcroft — maybe they can suggest more cuz I’m not so connected with Twitteryoga!
