[shortsightedsid]

Unfortunately type 1 is a classic case of cultural appropriation. Yoga is fundamentally a spiritual exercise that aims to strengthen not just the body. Therefore, practices like Surya Namaskara are not just a series of exercises for strength and flexibility but also a must for spiritual improvement.

[robbomacrae]

Is 5-a-side, or soccer golf cultural appropriation? Or can we just celebrate new options evolving and enriching the lives of those who like it that way. How do we know your classic yoga is the real original and it didn’t come from some kind of stretch routine for an ancient dance?

[sg47]

There are ancient texts that describe Patanjali's yoga and the reason behind it.

[unmole]

The overwhelming majority of Indians are supportive of people from other countries practicing Yoga, even if it is for physical health. The Indian government itself events for the International Day of Yoga.

So, even if one thinks that cultural appropriation is a thing, the culture where Yoga originated is perfectly happy with the appropriation.

[goodpoint]

That does not make cultural appropriation ethical.

[slothtrop]

All culture is cultural appropriation. It doesn't manifest in a bubble. The staple foods you consume and assume to be Western are all historically the result of appropriation.

It doesn't really matter whether people want to call it yoga or not; we fundamentally have the right to practice whatever exercise we want, no matter our ethnicity or culture of origin.

[goodpoint]

The main problems are around taking elements of a culture without providing proper attribution or butchering them.

Reading the very first 3 paragraphs of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation is enough to disprove your claims.

[slothtrop]

Attribution is irrelevant, notwithstanding that it's explicitly traced to India already in this case.

> butchering them

Not sure what this is supposed to mean considering that culture is not static, and all cultural elements as they are appropriated help create something different from their source of inspiration, by definition.

> Reading the very first 3 paragraphs

Read the first sentence.

I wouldn't put much stake in a wikipedia edit-war that sources op-eds from media as citations, but don't see anything explicitly contradicting what I said - it doesn't make sense to liken India as a "minority" culture. In the first place for being on the global sphere, not local, and in the second their population stands at 1.2 billion. There's nothing minor about it. And it's been independent since 1947. Add to the fact, most people in their respective countries are part of the "dominant" culture.

Calling something colonialism doesn't make it so. Colonialism has a very real meaning: power or control over another group through colonies. You can't just wantonly use it as a modifier. Likening yoga to an act of colonialism is disgraceful.

Proponents can just come out and be candid about the fact that this is really a pissing contest over have-not cultures, i.e. the Indigenous. The insult in a hypothetical appropriation stems not from appropriation itself, but because their sociological group still gets the shaft today in the West, which is being attributed to colonialism. Just about anything would provoke a reaction because of widespread discontent, it's just a power they can exercise, and who can blame them? No one can "own" the likeness of wearing a feather in their hair, and they know this - it's not about the feather.

[unmole]

I thought the whole idea of cultural appropriation is that it was disrespectful of the culture that is being appropriated and is something done against the wishes of memebers of said culture.

Is there something else that makes it unethical?

[slothtrop]

That is now the definition that proponents of the term popularly use after backtracking from widespread push-back. Of course it's yet another case of bait-and-switch. The literal term "cultural appropriation" parsed at face-value does not suggest anything about disrespect; if one really wants to call out disrespect, they can just do so, there's no need for a buzzword in the first place. Racism is racism, disrespect is disrespect.

If the term doesn't clearly convey what it means, it's a shitty term, or it's designed to create friction rather than understanding. This is such a case, where those with identity-politics as a hobby and religion will talk out of both sides of their mouths.

Buzzwords are favored in media and op-eds because of their nefarious nature. We should dispense with them and communicate what we mean. Most of them share the same problem, e.g. "white fragility" ("well ackshuallyyy it just means that white people are uncomfortable talking about race" -- yeah? Then why call it that?)

[goodpoint]

> Is there something else that makes it unethical?

Yes.

The main problems are around taking elements of a culture without providing proper attribution or butchering them.

Translated to FOSS, it's the equivalent of reusing somebody's software without attributing authorship (even if the license requires it).

Or a large company making a backdoored fork of Firefox called "FireFox" and misleading users into blaming Mozilla for it.

It gets worse when the copycat overshadows the original.

Besides, I met plenty of people, both from India and not, complaining about the butchering of Yoga.

[unmole]

> culture without providing proper attribution

What would be the appropriate means of providing attribution in case of Yoga? Would a rendition of Sare Jahan Se Achcha before each Yoga session suffice?

> Translated to FOSS

Applying copyright and trademark law to a practice that is a part of humanity's intangible cultural heritage is beyond farcical.

> Besides, I met plenty of people, both from India and not, complaining about the butchering of Yoga.

I've probably met a few orders of magnitude more Indians than you have, considering how I live in India. I have only heard of appreciation when foreigners adopt even superficial aspects of Indian culture. I don't see why Bharat Tyagis[0] get to be gatekeepers.

My Chinese colleagues were horrified by what is called Chinese food in India.[1] But the world would be a poorer place if we gave up this wonderful cuisine because of some misguided notions of appropriation. You can pry my manchurian[2] from my cold dead hands. Wait, did I just appropriate American culture and disrespect an impassioned defence of a cherished constitutional right?

If you still have a problem with cultural appropriation, please start with giving up the concept of zero and the positional notational system. Afterall, it's been butchered and misattributed to the Arabs for centuries.

0: https://devdutt.com/articles/hiss-of-the-pio-bharat-tyagi/

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Chinese_cuisine

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchurian_(dish)

[goodpoint]

> Applying copyright and trademark law to a practice that is a part of humanity's intangible cultural heritage is beyond farcical.

I never said to apply copyright and trademark to cultural heritage. I was making a comparison.

Besides, you just made a good example of appropriation: registering the name of a cultural item from another culture as your own trademark in another countries. It happened a lot of time with food.

> But the world would be a poorer place if we gave up this wonderful cuisine because of some misguided notions of appropriation.

I never said one should give up any cultural artifact. You are making a strawman after another.

[pcmoney]

Taking the parts you like from something and leaving the parts you do not is not cultural appropriation.

Any culture can redefine anything they want from other cultures. Just like most western yoga studios are LGBTQ friendly and many Hindus are not.

[rocknor]

> Just like most western yoga studios are LGBTQ friendly and many Hindus are not.

That is false. Please don't spread this myth. The homophobia is mostly a social hangover from colonial times. Steps are being taken to change that, and it should go away with time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_religion#Hin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_India

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_India

https://time.com/5918808/homophobia-homosexuality-lgbt-asian...

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/11/asia/british-empire-lgbt-...

[pcmoney]

Glad it is improving but I don’t see how “many Hindus are not” is false?

Also blaming pretty much everything bad on colonialism is a pretty tired excuse.

[amriksohata]

100% correct @rocknor

[amriksohata]

Well this reminds me of Superbrain yoga

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs

Which guess what? Is just a variation of a Yoga move from India that the teachers used to give to improve cognition in children who were not focussing in class

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murga_punishment

The idea is that squats or moving your head up and down rushes blood to your head. Further if you hold certain activation points like your ears whilst doing it, it activates certain parts of the brain that improve coordination and brain power.

All ripped from Hinduism, what I suggest to those who love Yoga and feel they benefit from Yoga is explore the other types of Yoga mentioned in the Gita. After all, if the Rishis/Sages were right about Yoga, Hinduism is clearly onto something in the Gita about the other types of Yoga.

[mtalantikite]

I agree with you, but from what I’ve read in Mark Singleton’s research Surya Namaskar actually only appeared in the early 20th century and when it was advertised at Mysore palace where Krishnamacharya was teaching, it was as a separate class from “yoga”. That’s not to say you can’t practice it as a moving meditation, but it definitely is part of the modern movement of asana practice.

[_y5hn]

Being modern, doesn't mean bad though. Old texts and practices aren't really that relevant in a modern life setting. What matters is how it is used and for what purposes.

Some of the old texts may seriously alter perspectives, though it also need to be lived.

[kranner]

Sincere question: what do you mean by "spiritual improvement"?

[_y5hn]

Karma yoga probably.