What started a couple of years ago as a rogue movement of fundamentalist yogis making a stand against the increasing bastardization of yoga, has blossomed into an organized grassroots movement against yoga’s excesses. This movement, comprised of disgruntled yoga practitioners, has solidified with the formation of a group called Stop Yuppie Yoga United Front (SYYUF).
Poster put out by the "Stop Yuppie Yoga United Front" organization
This group of self-styled yoga purists is calling for a return to yoga’s roots; to a time when before the yuppie yogis (according to the group a yuppie yogi is a highly yuppified individual whose main interest in yoga is the fabled “yoga butt”) took it for their pastime. SYYUF feels that yoga has been turned into a circus side show; having been brutalized beyond recognition and had its so-called ‘spiritual heart’ turned into a yuppie play thing. Using tactics similar to other fanatical groups, these yogis have placed manifestos, flyers and posters outside yoga studios, yoga clothing stores and yoga conferences. They also allegedly tacked a treatise written on a pink yoga mat to the doors of a leading high-end yoga studio in New York City
The NYC yoga studio which had the treatise against yuppie yoga attached to its doors recently
Their treatise read:
“The yuppie yogi is a slacker; a pretty girl/boy, shaved, sexed and clothed in high end yoga togs whose soul is void of the yogic spirit. The yuppie yogi is the devil; scrapping and bowing before the cesspool of the Industrial-Yoga-Complex while spouting regurgitated propaganda of unity, happiness and harmony that they found in pop-yoga magazines. These semi-educated yuppies, espouse the simulated experience of yoga “stuff” while their brains are filled with fluff and the repugnant rambling of the scores of clueless yuppie yoga teachers.
"The true yogi is not a nice man or women, concerned only with yoga’s popularity and trendiness. The true yogi shouts unpleasant truths from the mats of countless yoga studios and forces upon the yuppie yogi the ghastly consequences of surrounding their bodies and souls to a narrow minded and timid yoga elite who too long has perverted the concept of yoga.“
"The true yogi does not stand in tadasana in famous yoga studios; nor chant Om among the mindless yuppie yogis participating pop-kirtans, nor pranam before a pimp-celebrity, bobo yoga star. Stop Yuppie Yoga NOW!!
SYYUF feel they are stalwarts for the prevention of further atrocities against yoga perpetrated by the yuppie yoga elite and has been agitating for the disruption of what they call “the celeb-fornication of yoga.” They seem particularly disturbed with the recent trends of yoga-music festivals especially embodied in one such venue called Wanderlust. SYYUF say they want to reestablish yoga for the common yogi and is calling for direct action against mass acceptance of yoga as a false economy for the few smug manipulative yoga elite and their ensuing grip of control over yoga. SYYUF is advocating a boycott against pop-yoga studios and institutions across the land.
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