The best yoga pants for dudes are from ... Lululemon, of course!

I have my own set of excuses for why I don't do yoga.  Now, there is one more reason for me to stay away from one of those yoga classes: Lululemon's yoga pants for men are selling like they are on, ahem, testosterone!

Lululemon yoga pants for men.  Yep!  Lululemon is waiting for you, my friend ;)

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Given all the controversy over how those yoga pants fit skin-tight over the females, should I worry that these yoga pants will be like the male ballet dancer's appearance?  But then, apparently not the case, or not many are worried:

On that sales update:

Anyway, it makes some sense that the men’s section is seeing much faster growth than Lululemon as a whole. For starters, it’s just a lot newer. Lululemon didn’t even start talking about having dedicated men’s stores until late in 2013. Since then, though, the company has seized on the young, successful, relatively wealthy male shopper as its biggest business opportunity

The company is targeting yogis and non-yogis:

The men’s business at Lululemon is projected to reach $1 billion in annual sales in the next few years, though men’s clothing and accessories for now accounts for less than a fifth of volume at the company’s stores. The retailer has said that male consumers aren’t just yogis, which was the audience that the retailer initially targeted for women. Instead, Lululemon has made inroads getting male runners, cyclists, and CrossFit athletes to buy the company’s gear.

But, location always matters, when it comes to siting a store for the men's yoga pants:

Lululemon last year opened its first standalone men’s store in the SoHo district of New York City. Executives say the company continues to tinker with how they can address the market, either by opening more standalone stores or by expanding its merchandise assortment in existing locations. Lululemon maintains that those locations would need to be near a women’s store (the New York City store is across the street from a women’s store). That’s because girlfriends and wives are still responsible for introducing a lot of men to the brand.
“Our male guest does have a lot more permission to come into the Lululemon [collection], but she still shops for him,” said Chief Executive Laurent Potdevin

Why is this a big deal?

That’s a bigger deal than it may seem, because getting men to buy clothes once exclusively worn by women is a very tough sell. While pretty much any macho sports or surf brand can slap a logo on a women’s T-shirt and stand a good chance of gaining traction, there are few precedents for a women’s brand being proudly worn by guys — think college guys in Lilly Pulitzer shorts, or ballplayers wearing Victoria’s Secret boxers.

 So, get on with the program. Buy yoga pants and sign up for those classes.  Oh, if you are in India, well, be warned if you are not all pumped up about the International Yoga Day on June 21st:

 Amid protests by minority groups against the reported move to make yoga compulsory in schools, Yogi Adityanath, Gorakhpur MP from the BJP, said here on Monday that those who wanted to avoid yoga could “leave Hindustan”.
He said people opposing “Surya Namaskar” should drown themselves in the sea.

Namaste! ;)

The downward facing dog returns to India's cities

A few years ago, when I decided that it was high time that I started preparing for a healthy sixth and seventh decade (and, gasp, more?) of my life, I went to a yoga class.  It certainly felt weird with "om" and "namaste" from the yoga teacher, who was a White American woman.  I wanted only the physical fitness exercise and not any spiritual awakening during those fifty minute sessions.

I quit that.

I am yet to take up yoga again because I cannot seem to find a yoga studio or a teacher who can't keep the physical fitness regimen and spirituality in separate compartments.

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In the old country, the land of yoga and chai (every yogini here seems to be a big time chai enthusiast as well!) the prime minister, Narendra Modi, is on a campaign to bring yoga into the forefront.  On to the international front too:

One of PM Narendra Modi's first global imprints could come soon with the fructification of his proposal - which he announced in his UNGA speech — for an International Day of Yoga. As many as 50 countries - US, Canada and China most recently — have signed up for co-sponsorship of a draft resolution which India's UN mission is preparing for declaring June 21 as international Yoga day.

One would think that India has so many problems to deal with that campaigning for an international yoga day shouldn't even be on the list.  But, hey, what Indians want to do has not been a problem for this American for many years now ;)

There are a number of reasons why Modi is pushing for this international yoga awareness.  One of them is also his fascination for another Narendra from India's past: Narendra Nath Datta.

There is a good chance that the name "Narendra Nath Datta" might be an unfamiliar one even to people in the old country.  But, tell them the other name of his, and they might even smack themselves on their foreheads for not making the connection: Swami Vivekananda.  (Did I hear you smack yourself?  hehe!)

Modi's fascination for Vivekananda runs deep.  Troublingly deep.  It is a rich topic for another day.  For now, I want to stay focused on yoga.

Yoga first came to mass North American attention in 1893 when Narendra Nath Datta, better known as Swami Vivekananda, gave a lecture on the principles of spiritual yogic practice at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

America is a trendsetter, thanks to its economic, military, and cultural dominance.  Thus, when America's popular TV shows and movies routinely feature yoga studios and attractive men and women, well, it should be no surprise that India's affluent class is now taking up yoga:

In recent years the practice of American-style yoga has come into vogue with the Indian middle class. While hatha yoga never disappeared from Indian society, the how and why of its new popularity reflects a shift toward the consumer culture associated with yoga in the West.

I am reminded of my grandmothers' comments about men wearing earrings.  In the old traditions in the old country, it was not uncommon for men also to wear earrings.  That tradition is also why my earlobes were pierced as a part of my first birthday celebrations.  Alas, I have no photo of the young me wearing earrings!

Trust me, that's how I looked as a kid! ;)

But then it soon became unfashionable--my parents did not go through that ceremonial ear-piercing for my brother, who is only two years younger than me!  As it became fashionable for men in America and Western European countries to sport studs on their ears, that fad spread to India too and my grandmothers had quite some chuckle over it.  If only they had lived long enough to see the number of young women with nose-rings here, perhaps even outnumbering the number of young women with nose-rings back in the old country.

So, no surprise that yoga has returned to India.

The researchers found that the new, Westernized yoga was often scrubbed of its traditional spiritual aspect, and was now “easier” and “more fun,” as well as an indication of high social status. “It is now becoming like a designer stamp to be doing yoga,” one woman said. Its association with the West makes it glamorous.

Ah, yes, it is all about the fashion trends.

It is one crazy world; but, dammit, all these make life so fascinating!

Caption at the source: "Indian students from a Delhi Public School perform yoga"

Why the middle class doesn't buy Lululemon at WalMart

I am a university professor in the social sciences, and one who comes to political and economic issues mostly from the center-left.  However, unlike most people in those two camps, I do one thing quite frequently. And to many of  those people my action will certainly be offensive. Even unpardonable.

I have no problems going to WalMart and buying a few things there.  And to check my blood pressure too ;)

A few years ago, my daughter was shocked.  "But, I thought you hated WalMart?"

That was a long, long time ago.  And she had missed out on my evolution!

I disliked WalMart not because it was flooding the market with stuff that we really did not need.  It was just that a WalMart almost always immediately altered the spatial arrangement of various economic activities.  Smaller stores closed down, and the empty buildings were not only a waste but were also terrible eyesores.

But then I made my peace with it and continued to coexist.

Sometimes, even when I do not need to buy anything, as much as I might simply walk through the mall, I walk through a WalMart too.  Because, it gives me a feel for what the vast middle-class that lives on tight budgets purchase.  I get a sense of how a middle-class family with a couple of kids has to juggle the competing claims for the few dollars they have.

Over the past few months, it seemed like the crowds weren't there.  The store--the same one that I have been popping into for years--seemed less cluttered, and with fewer customers.  Some of that can be explained away by online shopping, perhaps.  But, the trend was no different at the other big box store--Target.  Could there be something?

Turns out that I was not imagining anything at all.

A couple of days ago, Slate reported with the following headline:

The Working Class Is Sinking and Dragging Walmart Down With It

Today, WSJ has this as the headline for a story on Target:

One Thing That’s Consistent at Target Lately: Fewer Customers 

If I didn't have students to interact with I might not have known about the middle-class reality.  Early in my teaching career, I was shocked to realize that most students in that class hadn't ever flown in a plane.  Not even once.  It was one hell of a reality-check for me.  Teaching at regional universities--in California and here in Oregon--I deal with demographics that are starkly different from the student population at the affluent private university where I was a graduate student.

Thus, I know students are serious about money when students tell me how relieved they are that there are no textbook expenses for my classes (though, I started going textbookless for pedagogical reasons and in order to make use of the rich materials that are for free on the web.)

And then there is the "other" America; here is a classic example--"Yoga participation grew 4.5% in 2013" but:

sales of yoga apparel were up 45%, according to Matt Powell, an analyst for SportsOneSource, a sporting-goods industry tracker.
"Everyone is wearing yoga pants, even people who aren't doing it," said Karen Score, the owner of Yoga Mandali, an independent yoga store in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Ms. Score, who also runs an adjoining yoga studio, is drawing up brochures for fall classes with the tag line: "Do you wear yoga pants? Why not try yoga?"
Lauren Wheeler-Woodburn estimates that she owns at least 25 pairs of yoga pants.
As a graduate student at the University of Southern California and social-media strategist, she says she wears them mostly every day, for class or to work, or just sitting at home lounging.
"I sound like the yoga pants version of a crazy cat lady," said Ms. Wheeler-Woodburn, who prefers Lululemon but dons other brands too.

Ahem, do you know how much those Lululemons cost?  No wonder she is a grad student at the same university where I earned my doctorate!

Just for the heck of it, I checked whether WalMart carries that brand.  

You guessed it correctly!

But, you can buy a yoga starter-kit.

The lotus and the downward dog

A few years ago, when the luxury of a dual-income household afforded me a gym membership, which I rarely used anyway, I went to one of the yoga classes there. It felt strange that I had never cared for yoga back when I was growing up in the very country that was the homeland for yoga, but I was at a yoga class in a land halfway around the world that was now home to me.

The teacher was a white woman. Of course. And before the class began, she had us do some breathing exercises with the sound of "om" in the background. And ended the class with a "namaste." I could not understand why she could not conduct a yoga class that was focused on the exercises without all the om and the namaste.  I never went back!

Yoga is big business here in the US, despite all the om and namaste:

Across America, students, stressed-out young professionals, CEOs and retirees are among those who have embraced yoga, fueling a $27 billion industry with more than 20 million practitioners -- 83 percent of them women.

As Ramesh humorously noted a few months ago, the industry is not merely about the teachers and asanas, but also about the yoga gear:

What foxes me is this. Who on earth wants to pay $ 92 for a "Om pant".  Do yoga by all means, but concentrate on , well, the yoga. Does it matter an iota whether your pant is "om" or "not om" ?? 

So, how did this yoga craze begin?  In a review essay, William Dalrymple writes about a whole bunch of stuff that is simply way above my head--damn these smart people!  He notes there:

The Sanskrit word yoga means “union” and is etymologically linked to the English word “yoke.” Its earliest occurrence in the Rig Veda, which dates from the second millennium BCE when both the Pyramids and Stonehenge were still in use, links the word to the rig with which war chariots were yoked to horses; by the early centuries AD the same word is being used to convey the idea of the body and the senses being yoked and reined in so as to move toward the Absolute.
It is possible that the oldest image in Indian art shows a yogi in meditation: one of the Indus Valley seals dug up at Mohenjo Daro by Sir John Marshall in 1931, dating from between 2600 and 1900 BC, shows a cross-legged figure that Marshall interpreted to be Shiva as Mahayogi and Lord of the Beasts. This interpretation has been questioned by some scholars, but the Vedas, which date from maybe five hundred years after the Indus Valley seal, already contain references to flying long-haired sages that indicate even then the presence of a mystical tradition related to the world of the yogis.

I had no idea that yoga and yoke would be examples of the Indo-Latin family tree for languages. Something new every single day!

there has always been a clear duality visible in the objectives of the yogis. Some were focused entirely on the interior: on breathing exercises and mastery of the body as a route to self-understanding and spiritual liberation. Others, however, were clearly searching for the magical tantric powers that they believed yoga could unleash. There are hints of this tension already in the Yoga Sutras where Patanjali outlines the route to union with the Absolute, while making it clear that an accomplished yogi can perform all sorts of useful tricks in this life: flying, transmigrating, reading other people’s minds, and even defying death itself.

One interpretation of the Buddha's life that I recall is that he went through years of living the life of a yogi from that physical, body route.  The extreme rigor he put the body through as the route to self-realization didn't work though.

Even now there are yogis in plenty in India who practice that extreme-yoga, which always makes me wonder if an atheist will willingly engage in twisting self into a pretzel and denying oneself of food and water for days.

I am far more comfortable with the wisdom from my favorite yogi of all, Yogi Berra, who said you can observe a lot by watching. I will watch those doing yoga, especially when 83 percent of the yoga students are women ;)

Chili pepper pasta in yoga :-)

A funny, and informative, piece in the NY Times magazine. The intro itself is filled with humor:
‘At the beginning of class, we stood at the front of our mats and let out a long, dirgelike moan,” the first-time yoga student recollected. “Then the teacher yelled, ‘Chili-pepper pasta,’ and everyone hit the floor.” Sanskrit, the language of yoga, is said to unite sound and meaning; that is, saying the word gives the experience of its meaning. But for the novice yogi (the word for male as well as female practitioners), whose ears need to be tuned to a new frequency, that experience can be as elusive as an overnight parking spot in Manhattan. Thus, chaturanga dandasana (four-legged staff pose, which looks like the bottom of a pushup, your body hovering inches above the floor) might become “chili-pepper pasta” if you’ve got dinner reservations at the latest outpost of the latest fusion craze. And the ear-twisters don’t end there. So let’s do some untwisting.