Talk:Modern yoga

Merger proposal
I propose to merge Yoga (postural) into Hatha_yoga. The content in the Prostural Yoga article is IMO a series of insinuations by Western scholars disassociating yogic asanas from Hinduism which can easily be incorporated in the context of Hatha Yoga. Moreover, most of the things are being repeated in Postural Yoga from Hatha Yoga. Rioter 1 (talk) 04:52, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Oppose. Modern postural yoga is a worldwide non-religious activity carried out by millions of people from the mid-20th century onwards for fitness, relaxation and well-being. Hatha yoga was a minor branch of medieval Hinduism carried out by Nath yogins from around 1100 to around 1800 AD, despised by Brahmins and other high-caste Hindus, after which its practice declined. Hatha yoga consisted of Shatkarmas (Kriyas), Bandhas, a limited number of mainly seated Asanas, Drishti, Pranayama and Mudras and was performed to purify the supposed Nadi channels in the yoga body, so as to enable the serpent Kundalini to rise through the Sushumna channel and enable Samadhi and ultimately Moksha, spiritual liberation. Modern postural yoga consists of many hundreds of Asanas, mostly created or adopted from gymnastics in the 20th century, and occasionally a little Pranayama: all the other components of Hatha yoga are much reduced or absent. The reuse of the name "yoga" was political, to do with early 20th century Hindu nationalism, creating a distinctively Indian method of exercise. Hatha yoga was never performed for exercise; it was always private; it was entirely uncommercial. Modern postural yoga always involves exercise, often as its dominant component; it is largely public, and now involves fashionable clothing, contributing to an image of urban cool: it could scarcely be more distant from private Hindu ritual practice. The article makes clear that there is some historical connection, but it is one of sharp difference in content and even sharper difference in objectives.

To reply directly to your unfounded allegations:


 * firstly, the content is well-documented to multiple reliable sources, not only scholars but practical yoga sources like Yoga Journal, independent reporting by newspapers, factual historical details from Hindu manuscripts and gymnastics manuals: in short, a wide range of reliable secondary sources. Further, some of the same "Western scholars" are cited in the Hatha yoga article as reliable sources, which they are.


 * secondly, the article does not make or rely upon "insinuations". For example, Hatha yoga did not, as is demonstrated in the article with multiple sources, contain standing poses, and the rapid growth in asanas of all types since the mid-20th century shows that postural yoga contains many asanas which were not used in Hatha yoga. The scholars involved made use of multiple primary and secondary sources of many types to draw their conclusions.


 * thirdly, it is untrue that most of the article is repeated from Hatha yoga. That article briefly conflates in its "Impact" section some of postural yoga's health benefits and data on 21st century American postural yoga practitioners with the medieval Hinduism described in its "Practice" section, something that needs to be corrected rather than amplified. The history sections of the two articles are different in focus but necessarily overlap, to demonstrate the abrupt change in the content and purpose of "yoga" (in two different senses) that took place in India in the mid-20th century. However, aspects such as postural yoga's use for exercise and its commercialisation are no part of Hatha yoga. Even if it were accepted that modern postural yoga was a pure continuation of the medieval hatha yoga tradition, rather than a major development partly based on it, it remains such a major yoga topic (indeed, to many readers, it will be what "yoga" actually means, and might be considered the top-level article on yoga, not a branch of something else) that it requires its own article; further, it is in development, and there is much more to be said about it.

I should make one more thing clear for other readers, which is that "hatha yoga" is in use (e.g. in England) to mean "non-denominational postural yoga", as distinct from brands like Bikram Yoga and Iyengar Yoga. "Hatha yoga" classes do not however teach haṭha yoga with its kriyas, bandhas, and so on, but a gentle variety of postural yoga, often mainly for women. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:30, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Oppose. SHORT ANSWER: According to WP:N the term 'modern postural yoga' or 'modern yoga' is eligible for a standalone page. LONGER ANSWER: 'Modern Yoga' isn't a useful distinction to make (because of the problems with periodization). It is an invented term that is used inconsistently. If we were to follow normative periodizations we would have to include Vivekananda with say 'Bikram Yoga' which doesn't really help anyone understand what is actually going on today any better. Whatever we think of the scholarship (and personally I think: 'not much') the point is Wikipedia has clear rules on this. EVEN LONGER ANSWER: Hatha Yoga has also developed into a catch-all for a variety of activities that may or may not resemble earlier forms. We are dealing with highly polysemous terms which evade reliable analysis. Modern postural yoga may have borrowed from 20th century gymnastics but it is nevertheless symbolically comparable to earlier forms in the hearts/minds of people that practice it. The reuse of the name "yoga" still is political, today it is used to sell consumer goods, keep-fit regimes and 'spiritual but not religious' sentiments. It is linked with the political economy of neoliberalism, American exceptionalism, Victorian (British) feminized patriarchal respectability, gothic imaginaries, globalization, beatnik counter culture and much more besides. It is naive to suggest we can even talk from a post-political position about yoga today. There is evidence of yoga as far back as the 15th C being performed at trade fairs and at different places along the Silk route. Yoga has always had a mercantile element too with links to Banyan merchants and so forth. Modern postural yoga may involve exercise, but then so has ancient forms, the point is that 'exercise' means a great deal more than just an aerobic workout. Some exercises attenuated the cardiovascular system for longevity and for psychological affects while contemporary tastes often aim to raise the heart rate to lose weight and so forth. The point is that 'exercises' can take many forms too and does not create any meaningful distinction between contemporary or medieval / ancient formats. Buddhist sanghas and Hindu wandering ascetic were public figures especially at festivals and fairs again blurring the alleged distinctions between 'postural' and 'other' yoga. The consequences of adopting this taxonomy are truly bizarre because it suggests there is a counterpart to postural yoga - 'non-postural' which is of course totally absurd. The differences in content and objectives are not crisp but very soggy based on NOTABLY unreliable scholarship and puffed up claims in time-sensitive periodicals but they are nevertheless good enough for Wikipedia. 'Postural yoga' is probably no more and no less than shorthand for 'keep fit', but then so is almost any yoga with adjectives, including 'Hatha Yoga' and that of course is a sociological phenomenon that is very difficult to fix, and certainly not something Wikipedia is designed to solve. Thanks. Yoga Mat (talk) 13:04, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Name change
The name of this page was Yoga (postural) up until an undiscussed move after the above merge discussion, and moved without an RM. As Hatha Yoga is the recognized name of a yoga which uses asana, and the merge discussion had little participation, a wider discussion of the topic which would be gained by an RM seems appropriate. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:28, 25 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi everyone, I'd like to have this article called 'Modern yoga', a neutral name, and a descriptive one given that the form was created in the 20th century (Yogendra's Yoga Institute 1918 is close to the start of the movement). The alternative name would be 'Yoga', which is what it is commonly called, but that name is currently occupied by an article on classical Hindu yoga.


 * Modern yoga is derived from a combination of Hatha yoga (an aspect of classical yoga) and Physical culture. It is largely to do with yoga postures (Asanas) but often includes some yoga breathing (Pranayama) and relaxation, and has varying amounts of spiritual content.


 * Modern yoga differs from Hatha yoga in a large number of ways, explained and cited in the article. These include its objectives (fitness, etc), its context (the Western world, public exercise classes, payment), and its methods (mainly class instruction), all of which are quite unlike those of Hatha yoga, which had declined to the point of near-extinction in India by 1900.


 * I believe 'Modern yoga' would be the best name for the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:35, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * On a quick skim of the page I see no mention, at least near the lede or first dozen sections, of the definition of yoga (yoke, etc., union with the Divine). By removing union with the Divine from the goal of the practice the page becomes solely about stretching and holding the stretch. Perhaps the most appropriate name for the page would be Stretching (yoga). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:54, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Modern yoga has multiple objectives which are spelt out in the article. Few modern yoga teachers advertise their classes as having the goal of union with the divine; dictionaries (Collins, Merriam-Webster, Oxford—all cited in the article) give two separate meanings for the word "yoga", one ancient, one modern, focussed largely but not entirely on asanas, and those in turn are largely but not entirely for exercise. That does not mean that modern yoga is unspiritual, but it does make the spirituality dependent on the individual teacher and the individual practitioner: everyone is free to make of it what they will, and that is undoubtedly often deep and sincere. A name like "stretching" would be extremely non-neutral, given that many schools of modern yoga (such as Sivananda Yoga, Bihar School of Yoga) plainly have a spiritual focus along with their asana practice. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:10, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Much of my objection is that the term 'Modern yoga' seems to do away with the original meaning of Yoga, union with the Divine and how to achieve the states of that union. Instead it focus the meaning of yoga to simply stretching, with some breathing and maybe, here and there, a yoga teacher mentioning the good old days. When I ask someone who is "doing yoga" about that, they don't understand the original concept. Sources can say 'Modern yoga', or define yoga as this form and no other, and since Wikipedia uses common name via sources the term has a good case of being so-defined if an RM is held, but defining the term 'Yoga' as this removes its literal meaning from the topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:47, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that that is probably a personal discomfort that you feel; the literature, whether academic (now voluminous, I've given many refs), popular (even more voluminous, I've given several refs), and dictionaries (three sample refs) all agree that (modern) yoga is a thing practised by millions, and that it is a different thing from Yoga-in-Hinduism. Both are good things; both can be spiritual paths; but they work very differently. It is really not up to Wikipedians to try to define these things: the world has done the job already, and it is our task to describe, as best we can, what the situation is. We are not free to say "yoga is this and no other", as that does not match reality. Yoga in Hinduism has for 2000 years been multifarious, with multiple interpretations from at least the time of Patanjali. Medieval Hatha yoga similarly had multiple versions (and no complete logical system, by the way, but overlapping and conflicting partial systems). Modern yoga adds to this diversity. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:56, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * You may be correct as to recentism sources, but that shouldn't change the definition of Yoga from meaning union with the Divine, which should be mentioned in this page's lede. An RM may be productive, and may agree with you, but it would bring more viewpoints to this discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:02, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not talking recentism; there are sources stretching back a century now. I have explained here and cited in the article that yoga has two dictionary definitions, both valid: it is not a matter of changing anything. But if this isn't an RM, then please create one, I thought this was it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:24, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * , have reverted my page move, seems as good a name as any and you've put a great deal of work into it. The scope still should probably include a descriptor or two of "yoga" in the traditional sense. Probably one reason that recent sources don't include the meaning of the word and its millenniums old use is that they just don't go there and, never having had real yoga training and experience, can't imagine the archaic meaning is the real one. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:56, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's likely the explanation. Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:22, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Useful
I like the current title: Modern yoga. Also the comparison table is very useful. Ta! Zezen (talk) 14:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Review: OR, synthesis and other issues in this article
when you have time, can you read this article and share your thoughts? We need to check the sources and the content of this 6-month old Modern yoga article. I just did a limited check and find serious issues. The first efn note "[a]" of the current article reads "Perhaps the first use of the term "Modern yoga" was in the title of Ernest Wood's 1948 book.[1]" is OR, something we would expect a source should conclude rather than an editor. The next cited source is Singleton, who actually questions the premise of modern yoga being really different than traditional yoga in that chapter and elsewhere. And on and on it goes. There was a merge discussion above, closed by a voter and the primary editor who has contributed 99%+ content of this article. There is a case for a separate article on modern yoga given the work of Elizabeth De Michelis, Andrea Jain and a few others, there is also the reverse case that Mark Singleton, Ellen Goldberg and many scholars make. The current article reads, in some parts, like a fork of what used be a good sized section of our main Yoga article. The history section discussion has WP:CFork issues with the Yoga and Hatha yoga article. See this note as well. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:43, 22 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Compare this article's definition to those by scholars


 * Elizabeth De Michelis, p. 2,, Brill Academic:


 * Modern yoga defined (her bolding) For purposes of this paper, the expression ‘modern yoga’ will be used to signify those disciplines and schools which are, to a greater or lesser extent, rooted in South Asian cultural contexts, and which more specifically draw inspiration from certain philosophies, teachings and practices of Hinduism.


 * De Michelis clarifies in footnote 7, "Buddhism and Jainism, however, are very important with regard to both the pre-modern and the modern history of yoga, but while elements of other religions are also to be found (the founder of the 3HO movement, [...]; and Sahaja Yoga, whose founder was brought up as a Christian, [...]), it may safely be said that most of what is called ‘yoga’ in everyday English stems broadly from a Hindu background (or Neo-Hindu and New Age to be more precise; see De Michelis 2004)."


 * Mark Singleton, pp. 18–19, Oxford University Press:


 * That is to say, as a “way in” to thinking about expressions of yoga in the modern age, these [Modern Yoga etc] are extremely useful categorizations. But typology is not a good starting point for history insofar as it subsumes detail, variation, and exception. Can we really refer to an entity called Modern Yoga and assume that we are talking about a discrete and identifiable category of beliefs and practices? Does Modern Yoga, as some seem to assume, differ in ontological status (and hence intrinsic value) from “traditional yoga”? Does it represent a rupture in terms of tradition rather than a continuity? And in the plethora of experiments, adaptations, and innovations that make up the field of transnational yoga today, should we be thinking of all these manifestations as belonging to Modern Yoga in any typological sense? [...] Though such readings should not be attributed to De Michelis herself, who explicitly acknowledges her typology’s provisional, heuristic status, they are a common consequence of adopting it as if it were more than a working construct. I have therefore sought to avoid using the term Modern Yoga (or “modern yoga”) in any rigidly typological sense. When I do refer to “modern yoga” it is intended to designate yoga in the modern age (or, more often than not, transnational anglophone yogas of the period) rather than De Michelis’s 2004 interpretive framework.


 * David Gordon White, Yoga in Practice, Princeton University Press:
 * These included, most notably, Swami Vivekananda, the Indian founder of 'modern yoga' (De Mechelis 2004)[...] (p. 20) [...] More than any other text, it was this work, the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, that Swami Vivekananda – the late-nineteenth-century reformer, nationalist, and father of modern yoga – championed as the theoretical foundation for all authentic yoga practice. (p. 27)

Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:23, 22 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Sarah, colleagues, I'm away from desk and can't reply in detail now but wholly disagree with the above opinion. Article text and table comparisons are all faithfully cited with no editorial opinion. If a comparison is presented in text and cited followed by another such it is normal editing. Presenting same in table increases readability and compactness and remains normal and correct editing.


 * Some overlap with yoga and hatha yoga is required for historical context and again is normal and good editing practice. Removing the mass of cited evidence for scholarly understanding of modern yoga's many clear and sharp differences from hatha yoga complwte with citations and then claiming they aren't sharply separated could be thought a rather unfair way to argue.


 * On Singleton who has made a career of showing the origins of the modern mainly postural kind of yoga, it is wrong indeed absurd to state he doesn't think modern yoga a distinct thing. What he says early in his 2010 book is that he finds the De Michelis typography of "Modern Yoga" and its subtypes inadequate as too stiff. He then spends the rest of the book showing why that is ans uses MY as in the article i.e. what began in one way with Vivekananda and became more postural with Yogendra Kuvalayananda and Krishnamacharya ...


 * To sum up the article is or was well structured well cited and relied on wide scholarly opinion as well as much reportage and expert writing not any editor's opinion. Modern yoga is manifestly a real thing in the world to the extent that it is thought by millions to BE "yoga" and the young pre-research Singleton indeed imagined it to have been somehow in a continuous tradition with hatha and even Patanjali yoga which he lile Mallinson and others now see not to be so.


 * It is critically important that we report on these scholarly debates without falling into the trap of edit warring through them. I have accordingly reported the views of many scholars impartially and ask all involved editors to check the sources for themselves and to remain equally impartial. Many thanks Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:52, 23 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Chiswick Chap: As I noted above with direct quotes from the source, and in the section below about the table, this article does not reflect the sources, does not follow our content guidelines, and is loaded with too much OR:Synthesis and POV-pushing. It reads like an essay that misrepresents the sources – on Modern yoga, Hatha yoga and Yoga – and is ignorant of the mainstream scholarship on Yoga. Your first reply above is a generic statement. It does not address the issues I note, explain why the article does not reflect the sources as quoted and specific content policies I mention. That is not helpful. This article is perhaps one of the more serious cases of WP:CFork I have seen. Let us focus on the De Mechelis' definition above versus what this article states, and the OR:Synthesis issue in the table mentioned in the section below. That may help us make progress in light of our content guidelines. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:48, 23 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Sarah Welch: as I told you, I was unable to say much that was specific, given the very limited access I had (only seeing one thing at a time through a very narrow window), but now I'm back and we can start to address your concerns. On mainstream scholarship, I have made use of numerous academic papers and have on my bookshelf at least 17 textbooks, mostly read from cover to cover, so please moderate your assertions. As for not being "mainstream", I have obtained pretty much all the books that discuss modern yoga that can be found, and have familiarised myself with the work of the SOAS Hatha Yoga project. On POV and personal essay and other such serious accusations, I would much prefer to have this discussion without those sorts of terms being bandied around. I am happy to tell you that I have no special or entrenched point of view on modern yoga, indeed my understanding of the topic was much changed by reading the books and papers mentioned. I have no axe to grind and I take care in all my articles to state the facts simply and directly, citing the sources I used. On the charge of misrepresentation of sources, I am of course horrified. If anything has been misstated - not unlikely in such a complex project - then of course anyone can fix the mistakes, and if I become aware of any such I'll fix them myself. I have no idea why you should suppose I am biased in these ways and I assure you that everything I wrote can be sourced reliably. I do not agree that the whole article must be academically sourced, as many of the matters are of commercial and practical fact, and can be derived from reliable popular sources like surveys and major newspapers; obviously the history is an academic matter.

On content forking, I believe you are simply mistaken (unless you are speaking of something specific that I have not grasped), and I am upset by your choice of language ("one of the more serious cases of WP:CFork I have seen"): modern yoga (not only in De Michelis's sense, and she did not create the term) is a major subject and easily worthy of its own article. The limited copying of materials from other articles is acknowledged in edit comments and is more than justified by the fact that although modern yoga is in many ways new, it also owes much to hatha yoga and other traditions, so the history is naturally a summary of what the articles on the historical topics state, and I made that apparent with "main" and "further" links as is usual. The article is not a content fork of anything, but a brief introduction to a large subject, which is not (in large part) an academic matter at all, but an activity (indeed, almost a sport in one sense) practised by millions under the name of "yoga", and when they visit Wikipedia and search for "yoga" they are in their thousands surprised to find an article on something else altogether, but I digress. On "Let us focus on the De Mechelis' definition above", other scholars such as Singleton have criticised her typology; and I had mentioned EDM in the article. I had also included dictionary definitions as these reflect popular as well as academic understanding of what the subject is; I note that some of these citations are among those recently broken. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:23, 28 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. There is at least some indication of a terminological confusion in the above discussion. What is called "yoga" in the West is called "yogasana" in India. Indians know very well that it does not encompass all of yoga. But western misappropriation of Indian terminology is so widespread that they have given up all efforts to correct it. But this terminological confusion can be pointed out easily; it should not be essentialised in comments such as "modern yoga is different from hathayoga". It is kind of like saying "Cincinnatti Bengals are not Bengalis", which would be a completely nonsensical statement. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:35, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

The comparison table and OR:Synthesis
Chiswick Chap: After going through the sources, I have removed the table, per WP:Synth which states, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources". If you can find a peer-reviewed scholarly source or sources that discuss Hatha yoga and Modern yoga, wherein there is such a comparison, we can certainly summarize it either in a tabular format or text format. Otherwise, you are creating a table that you believe is true from on your own wisdom/prejudices/opinions/feelings, but is OR:Synthesis. Yes, there are a few sentences in the table that can go elsewhere in the article, and are already elsewhere in the article. FWIW, this is not my only objection in this article. There a lot of additional sections that need a close review and cleanup. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:43, 23 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I replied above. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:54, 23 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't mean to be negative about the feedback. It is clear to me that changes will be needed to keep everyone happy and to prove that every claim is from the literature (as is the case: some claims will need two sources,  the citing authority and the source they cited). I don't intend to withdraw the GA nom as it has already queued for months so I'd prefer to work through any issues here which is already a review: I'll explain that to the GA reviewer if need be. I hope it goes without saying that no editor involved in the current discussion will attempt a GA review at least the dispute is resolved. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:21, 23 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I think it would be best to withdraw the GA nomination at this stage because it is clear that there are significant disagreements about the content of this article, which do not appear to be of the kind that can be settled quickly. A fundamental requirement of GA status is that the article should be stable. If the nomination proceeds, it is likely to fail. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:20, 24 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Well, you're probably right about the conclusion of instability, not least because since I last looked, 19 Harvard/referencing errors have been introduced. I would be very grateful if all involved editors could take care especially when removing references or citations, in case they are used somewhere else in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:53, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Citations missing for recently added refs
The following refs are missing their corresponding citations: Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

* Whiteman 1993 * Maas 2014
 * Wujastyk 2011
 * Maas 2006
 * Tola, Dragonetti & Prithipaul
 * White 2014
 * Nanda 2011

The article uses the format "Doe, John" by the way. – Chiswick Chap


 * I added the missing harv. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:51, 29 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Many thanks. I've started to format the new items' authors in "Doe, John" style to match the existing; the article also uses ISBN-13, I've fixed one that I found. Books should be in the list of Sources; I have replaced cite book refs with sfn refs in several cases. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:23, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * White 2014 is still missing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:58, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing issues
Chiswick Chap: There is a lot of populist literature on yoga out there which would not meet our MEDRS, HISTRS and RS guidelines. Syman is a literature graduate, feedmag web magazine publisher, mobile publishing tools career background person and a yoga practitioner. Syman is a questionable non-academic source. If you can find a scholarly source for the table you just added or one that provides a comparison, I would welcome such a table/comparison with that source. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:51, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * That is a slur: you are conflating the undoubted "populist" material with a book which certainly isn't that. Your argument is "bad exists; Syman's book exists; so it is bad", which is false. Syman is in no sense "populist", and in particular she is distinct from "populist" yoga material put out by some yoga schools and blogs both in the care she has taken and in being free of any of their conflicts of interest. Syman's is a well-researched and reliably published book. She is, furthermore, summarizing facts about the differences between modern and hatha yoga that are widely agreed by academics. In addition, your choice of language, with a heading like "Sourcing issues", is emotive, implying that I'm deliberately selecting dodgy sources, when in fact I'm doing the opposite: I'm using the best printed sources out there to explain the domain as simply and directly as possible. Syman spent many months researching her book, and she lists 120 books in her bibliography, as well as providing detailed notes for each chapter. Her book is a reliable secondary source, cited to a wide range of academic and primary sources. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:35, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I see you have summarily removed the table, which you knew I would oppose, while simultaneously writing here. That is in my view entirely wrong, both in principle (the matter had not even been discussed, but you knew I would oppose it), and in practice for the reasons I've just given above. I would be grateful if you would restore the table. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:37, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * In the interest of harmony and compromise, I have located academic sources for Syman's hatha yoga claims, and reliable modern sources for her modern yoga claims, to demonstrate that she is reliable, in addition to the Syman refs which show that she made claims spanning the whole table. The result is like this, which I hope is acceptable on all counts.

Stefanie Syman describes some of the differences between hatha yoga and modern yoga in her book The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, as summarized in the table.

(All the sources are already in the article)



Once again, please see OR:Synthesis guidelines. We cannot combine different sources or different parts of the same source to make or imply new conclusions (WP:Synthesis). James Mallinson and other scholars who specialize in Sanskrit literature/pre-modern yoga/philology have shown that Hatha yoga has been much more than what you are implying through that table. Tantric influences were added later, etc. A non-specialist generic author such as Syman's opinions are not of the same quality or reliability as a academic scholar on this topic. Similarly, De Mechelis includes much more under the "modern yoga" typology than what you are implying through that table. A better way to include the same information and more would be to improve and expand on "what modern yoga is", its various subtypes in different countries. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:40, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I've read the policy, and I am in no way contradicting it here. The source is Syman; additional sources are available if desired to show she is correct. It's a matter of opinion whether there's "a better way"; my view is that a table shows at a glance some of the major differences, and in an article for the general reader, which is our audience after all, a table is indeed the best approach when there is much to summarize and take in. As for quality and reliability, we've established that Syman is a reliable source, and the supporting citations (which we don't have to use) demonstrate that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:51, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * You have not "established" that Syman meets our WP:RS guidelines, nor addressed the reasons I gave as to why she is a questionable source. You can't possibly be dismissing academic scholars such as Mallinson and their peer-reviewed publications in favor of a generic non-academic author such as Syman. That table is misleading, based on cherrypicking and combining different sources (or different parts of the same source). It misrepresents what Hatha yoga has been, and also misrepresents what is included in modern yoga by scholars such as Elizabeth De Mechelis. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:04, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Look, I'll forget about the table for now in the interests of harmony, but the article requires some text to replace it. I am in no way dismissing Mallinson and other specialists, indeed I admire them greatly for their detailed and tremendously productive work, and Mallinson's combination of scholarship, living as a wandering sadhu and paragliding is unsurpassed; I cite him freely as a splendid source. What I am saying, however (if you're willing to bear with me, please, for one moment) is that Mallinson himself has said that he knows little (I think his modest word was "nothing") of 20th century yoga - not entirely true because he is adept at the asanas including the 20th century Surya Namaskar, and accordingly he and his colleagues tend to write only about traditional yoga; and they do not, therefore, publish comparisons of old and new, as their domain is the old. On De Michelis, please see the thread below: her MY is not the same as the domain of this article, so we may have been writing at cross purposes. Clearly, in EDM's terms, MY encompasses much more than the mainly-postural yoga that people recognise in the West, but unfortunately M-PYTPRITW is a bit too much of a mouthful for the title of an article. Suggestions welcomed, however. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:42, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Summary style for sections with "main" links
The "Pre-modern yoga" section (and some others) have "main" links, indicating that these sections are intended (rightly, I believe) to contain brief summaries of the contents of the articles named. Policy is for such summaries to be as brief as possible, typically just one or two paragraphs, and to be written in summary style, condensing the other article down to its main points without elaboration. The current "Pre-modern yoga" section goes beyond this, and should be condensed to the minimum needed to make the point (yoga existed with asanas and other practices, many centuries ago). The boxed quotations and triple image are similarly out of scope of this article, for the same reason; perhaps one of the images could be used. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:29, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * No, because the pre-modern history and the context is relevant, important and necessary for NPOV. The article in the later sections, before my first edit, has largely focussed on bashing pre-modern yoga using questionable sources and OR:Synthesis. It has been a misrepresentation of pre-modern yoga, with little actual content on modern yoga. I suggest we rewrite the modern yoga section, add in asanas section perhaps in a summary style, and include other subtypes of modern yoga to improve this article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:13, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I am sorry to hear you feel like that, as I felt we were starting to collaborate effectively, and I intend to work with you and other editors in a calm and friendly way. On the pre-modern history: we agree that it is important as context, and we agree on the need for strict neutrality. The text (as I've just stated on your talk page, on another matter) was mainly from Yoga and Hatha yoga, with attribution, and as such was provided exactly as neutral context; if that material was unbalanced, well, Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, but the intention was strictly neutral, and I have no idea why I should wish to "bash" pre-modern yoga, nor any inkling of how the text there could have been thought to consist of any sort of "bashing" of anything. For the record I find pre-modern yoga fascinating and complex.


 * I do not think the modern yoga section needs wholesale rewriting. On the "other subtypes", I think we may be at cross purposes; the subject of this article is not De Michelis' MY but the domain familiar to millions of "yoga" practitioners worldwide, namely a yoga consisting mainly of asanas, with occasional pranayama, a little relaxation, and sometimes a little guided meditation thrown in: a yoga that the Malaysian government could say was acceptable in its country provided it was not accompanied by religious practices. This corresponds roughly with EDM's "modern postural yoga", is called "transnational anglophone yoga" by Singleton, and "yoga" by most of the world. This domain was more clearly explained before your additions of EDM material, and removal of dictionary definitions and other text and citations. My intention from the start has been to explain this kind of yoga that is "modern" in the sense of having taken form from the 1920s, triggered perhaps by Vivekananda, but departing from him in being medicalised, made almost entirely physical and postural, and becoming internationalised and then branded and commercialised. It is for other articles to describe the various spiritual and meditative yogas created in the modern period, and indeed to span EDM's typology which is not my intention here (that would correspond to a major change of direction and purpose). I do hope this is clear; the choice of title for this article is admittedly difficult as there are no short and unambiguous terms available, as "yoga" in particular is already taken and the Wikipedia-reading public will not recognise any of the academic terms in use. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:34, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I would like to say also that if you came to this article assuming it meant EDM's MY, it must indeed have seemed to cover only part of the subject, and much of what I've said must have seemed to be coming from another planet! The mainly-postural yoga that people recognise in the West is a practical subject, addressed in newspapers and popular books, as well (recently) as an academic one, and there is no special reason that I know of to treat it as an academic discipline: the opposite, of course, would be true if we were writing about EDM's MY. Perhaps that underlies your "our WP:RS guidelines" - I was puzzling over what "our" could have meant in the context. As far as I know there is no special preference for academic sources in Yoga articles, especially ones on the modern side; clearly the medieval and classical era articles require a far more scholarly and historical treatment. For modern articles, well-researched and extensively cited books like Syman, Jain (Selling Yoga), Goldberg (The Path of Modern Yoga) and so on are in my view ideal sources. I am sorry to have caused any confusion on the article's subject. It will be necessary to revise the definition section and maybe other parts (and perhaps the Pre-modern history will not seem quite as important any more?) to make clear what the article's domain is. It may also be necessary to rename the article, but that won't be easy: for instance, "Postural yoga" won't do as M-PYTPRITW frequently includes some pranayama and relaxation, and occasionally other elements; "International yoga" isn't really a recognisable term and would include things like Siddha Yoga, which is out of this article's scope; "Transnational anglophone yoga" both ignores the spread of M-PYTPRITW into other language areas (Latin America, Germany, France, ...) and is a clunky academic mouthful when people are expecting the Y-word on its own. But that can be approached in "slow time". All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Chiswick Chap: I have been wondering if this article should be titled "History of yoga" or "Yoga (postural)" – as it used to be and suggests in a section above – or should it remain "Modern yoga". On the reliability of sources, it depends. For technical topics such as the health impact of yoga, the history of yoga, Sanskrit literature and textual evidence, etc... publications of generic authors with limited or no relevant academic qualifications/training are questionable sources. We need to rely on reviews per WP:MEDRS guidelines, HISTRS and peer-reviewed academic scholarship. Syman and such are not appropriate here, when we have scholarly articles from Mallinson and others from academia who have spent decades researching and studying classical yoga, hatha yoga, modern yoga, etc. Yes, we should stick with the scholarly publications and typology of Elizabeth De Michelis and the likes. That would be truly encyclopedic and spirit of the wikipedia project. Yes, you are right, I was quite surprised when I first read this article... as you put it, "coming from another planet"! The article is currently a bit of a mess, because it repeats Buhnemann's views etc in several places, and comes across as trying too hard to push the POV that there is no continuity between HY and MY. All this needs to be cleaned up. The article should trim some parts, move some content elsewhere, and dedicate much more of its length to what modern yoga is, the different types, its theory, beliefs and practices, a balance of views on its alleged benefits and alleged problems, etc etc. It may well be August or later before we get all this sorted out. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:35, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for this: it is helpful to know your views. As can easily be verified, I created the article to cover the yoga that is currently practised, not the history of yoga-in-general, which is another topic altogether. The fact that there is now any doubt about the article's focus indicates that its title must urgently be changed. I do not think that "postural" is a satisfactory qualifier, though I used it under the influence of academic texts, because it is way too unfamiliar to the public. "Yoga (exercise)" is better as it indicates clearly the focus with a qualifier that people will relate to, even if they feel impatient about the need for a qualifier at all - I am convinced that a high percentage of the page hits on "Yoga" are looking for the article we're trying to write here, but that's another story.


 * I'm afraid that the confusion with De Michelis's "Modern Yoga" makes the current title unworkable, even though Goldberg's excellent book uses the term in the sense I intended. On "the different types", that has multiple meanings. The different styles of asana practice are covered simply and plainly; De Michelis's types were once covered in a footnote, and should perhaps be the subject of another article; or we can put a brief mention in the section at the end on research, basta. I do not agree at all that the article should be based on EDM, nor that it should focus on academia, that would not at all be "truly encyclopedic" and it would hopelessly confuse the reading public, so I resolutely oppose your view on that. On sources, of course we must abide by the WP:RS rules, but with respect they do not mandate the use of academic materials to the exclusion of all else. Actual medical claims must be MEDRS, but there is (rightly) almost none of that here (it's covered in another article, too).


 * On the "pre-" history, overnight reflection says to me that all we need is a couple of sentences to the effect that yoga has a long history, that yoga as exercise is derived from hatha yoga, but that the current focus on asanas as the main or exclusive component of yoga practice is unlike anything found in ancient or medieval times. All of that can be cited to reliable academics... To look at the "pre-" section another way, readers will indeed find it odd if they come to an article on the yoga-as-exercise they know and love, only to find a 2,000 word account of something that precedes that by a thousand years or more, and which does not have exercise as its focus. I'm sorry to say this, and I deeply dislike citing policy at people, but the section is now seriously WP:UNDUE, and in large part off-topic. Given the confusion about whether this was a history of yoga, that is understandable, but it remains wrong in this article, and I intend to remove it as clearly and definitely out of place. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:35, 1 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I too prefer the title Yoga (exercise), even though it appears that there is somewhat of a controversy about whether it is exercise or not.
 * The WP:UNDUE issue is easily solved by spinning off a History of Yoga article. I believe there is no scholarly consensus on the continuity between Hatha Yoga and the Modern Yoga. So as per WP:YESPOV, Wikipedia should describe the debate rather than engage in it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:29, 1 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Indeed Kautilya3. Chiswick Chap: No. That disagreement may be one of the roots of our content/approach dispute. This article was confusing and will remain confusing if it inadvertently misrepresents modern yoga to be purely postural practice in the modern era or in the pre-modern era or now-but-not-in-the-past or the reverse. Yoga has had a complicated history and remains complicated now. It has had a historic secular/health side in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain communities, it has had an ascetic/esoteric/spiritual side, and a combination of both in many parts of Asia (not just India). That is true for modern yoga, with postural practice and its modern innovations being a prominent part of its practice. That is what the mainstream scholarship is stating and debating. For modern complexity, please see sources that discuss modern yoga as in actual contemporary practice, such as 1 (it is a systematic review of 55 studies), 2 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. This article needs to summarize sources such as these, EDM and others to bring a better balance in this article. I am also open to re-titling and/or splitting the article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:43, 1 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Sarah Welch, no, we have agreed that a) yoga has a long and complex history, and b) there is a mainly postural kind of yoga today (alongside spiritual sects, gnana yoga, kriya yoga etc etc which have separate articles). The yoga-as-exercise kind is a major subject in its own right with no disrespect to history, hatha yoga, religion, spiritual varieties, etc, it's just another subject. The subject of modern-yoga-encompassing-all-the-above is a DIFFERENT topic (and a valid one), it's just not the subject of this article. Feel free to start that (large, complex) article, I think it is missing at the moment, but please, not here. I do not disagree at all with mainstream scholarship, though the scholars disagree largely amongst themselves. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:53, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap: The mainstream scholarly articles should help decide the best title and content organization. As I mentioned in another section above, we have WP:Cfork issues here and in our yoga-related wikipedia articles. We should not be forking similar content and creating conflicting articles. It is confusing to the reader, is difficult to maintain and raises other issues. Someone created a Yoga as exercise article 10+ years ago, which you re-titled as Yoga for therapeutic purposes about 6 months ago. Why not stick-to-the-scholarly-sources and keep all Modern yoga content here, while concentrating on yoga-as-exercise in that Yoga (exercise) article, as Kautilya3 suggests as a compromise? Such an approach would be consistent with De Michelis, Singleton, White, Jain, Alter, systematic subject review article links I provide above, etc. We can certainly add a summary-style section with appropriate links in the related articles. BTW, that Yoga (exercise) article too needs some cleanup. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:42, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting. User:Kautilya3 I think suggested a different spinoff, a History of Yoga, something I'd agree with: it will be a major piece of work which will remain unstable for many years as philologists unearth more and more ancient documents. But you have suggested something very sensible, turning the existing redirect into what its title actually suggests: the old article was a mess and on a different subject altogether. I have, in effect, already written most of that future yoga-as-exercise article, though reconstructing it will take quite a lot of work (there is no single version in this article's history which corresponds to it exactly); leaving the rump here for you to do with what you will, which would indeed include cutting down yoga-as-exercise to one section (to reduce the Cforking with the future article on Yoga-as-exercise), alongside new yoga-as-chanting, yoga-as-meditation, yoga-as-devotion etc ... Yes, why not. I'll do a lawful copy of whatever I want to that (new) article when I have sufficient time in this fruit-picking and jam-making season (IRL), and you can make this into an EDM-typology-structured tour of Modern Yoga research. It's a legally-sanctioned hijack. Off you go. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:23, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we have four topics: classical Yoga, Yoga (exercise) (aka Yogasana), History of yoga and History of yogasana. My proposal above was really for "History of yogasana". I think we will go miles in resolving disputes as soon we recognize that Yoga (exercise) is really Yogasana.
 * We see similar pointless disputes all over "Indology" topics. For example, the Europeans coined a term called "caste" and we keep on disputing for centuries whether "caste" means varna or jati. These are silly disputes which will instantly evaporate as soon as we throw away the western abuse of terminology. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:10, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

does this mean that you want to remove the focus on Yoga exercise and broaden it to all forms of modern Yoga.? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:31, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, as stated a few lines up from here, we have I believe agreed to make this article "an EDM-typology-structured tour of Modern Yoga research" so as not to waste more time arguing. Accordingly I've added EDM's classification, and we need to adapt the lead and article structure to reflect the 4 types that she describes. That means cutting down the 'modern postural yoga' (as exercise) yoga account, and adding the other 3 types in about the same amount of detail. The MPY section will eventually link to a separate article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:51, 5 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I will be okay with something that neither creates nor encourages WP:Cfork'ing. We need to fairly summarize the quality scholarly sources, for the four types of modern yoga, in proportion to the prominence of each in the published sources. That may mean, yes, unequal sections for each of the four. Per WP:NPOV and WP:Due. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:08, 5 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes. I've greatly cut down the MPY section and added brief (stubby) sections on the other three types, in one or two cases relying on primary sources for brief factual accounts of what they say they do in accordance with WP:PRIMARY; scholarly sources on each of those schools or denominations would be very welcome. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:19, 10 July 2019 (UTC)