The problems with Yoga Journal

[Guest guest]

are numerous. I shall detail a few here.<br>1.

advertising affects editorial content. This is true in every

commercial magazine - this is how they make money. A mag

gears its stories and themes to please the advertisers

so that they keep advertising with them. They also

seek to create advertising friendly content to lure in

bigger and bigger advertisers. This is why Yoga Journal

sounds wishier and washier on every subject. eg. Instead

of acknowldeging that vegetarinaism is and always

has been part of the yoga path, they give a few pros

then a few cons and then say make up your own mind.

Alas what was the point of wasting the typeface. Many

articles follow this prescription.<br>2. Yoga Journal

seeks to attract an ever growing reader base. That

means they want to show that yoga has a wide appeal and

can be practiced in tennis clothes or a baseball

uniform. Too, that it is for golfers and fashionistas.

Yogas appeal is not that is can be adapted every issue

for a new test marketing group - its appeal is that

if you practice a prescribed method under a true

teacher, it will change your life - in spurts, bouts, with

pain and joy over the period of your lifetime.<br>3.

Yoga Journal is an Iyengar biased magazine. Save when

Richard Freeman wrote the asana column (and even then to

a certain extent), Yoga Journal uses the new

fangled techniques and so called alignment of Mr. ("I

made up the asanas") Iyengar.Certainly after reading

last years interview with Mr. Iyengar in their own

mag, YJ had reason enough to chuck this so called

master's selfish, anti-traditional approach. Why is the

Iyengar method a detraction? Because it is not inherent

to the ashtanga system and actually opposes it (keep

in mind this is an ashtanga message board)Thus it

can lead the unsuspecting student away from the

ashtanga practice, create injuries and (much worse) place

the focus of the mind away from the breath and gaze

and toward an obsession with external form (ie. heel

skins and puffed kidneys). Also it could send the

student to purcahsing and then parading about in goofy,

puckered panty - shorts.<br>4.Yoga Journal does not take a

deep or profound interest in yoga, they are too busy

mainstreaming it for their own readership growth and thus

monetary gain. Yoga Journal consistently passes up

opportunites for in-depth articles on great yogis of past and

present, true yoga philosphies and pursuits (it ain't all

watered down Sankacharya's advaita in India) and instead

highlights the surfacely hip and humdrum. <br><br>Missy

Pinky says - cancel your subscriptions, or take some

time off writing on this board to write some letters

to its dollar signed twinkly eyed editors and ask

them for some real yoga content.