Stretching limits of yoga

When Barbara Ruzansky was preparing to open West Hartford Yoga in January 2003, a teacher approached her with proposal for a class: Swing Dance Yoga. Ruzansky, whose studio is now one of Connecticut’s largest yoga centers, declined.

“I had to say that we’re just teaching pretty straight yoga here – with many different traditions – and we just weren’t interested in combining those things,” she said.

Purists might gasp at the thought of cutting a rug, yoga-style. But it’s just one of a number of yoga hybrids or “fusion classes” that have been spawned by the current yoga boom. The yoga mix includes Disco Yoga, Yogalates (and other yoga-Pilates combos), yoga-weight-training programs like Iron Yoga, yoga-martial arts mixes, yoga walking and other crossbreeds. Most began in New York or Los Angeles and have gradually migrated elsewhere, according to Katie Rollauer, research manager at the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association in Boston.

The hybrids offer novelty, convenience and accessibility as they capitalize on the growing popularity of yoga. A Yoga Journal survey released Monday found that 16.5 million adult Americans practice yoga – a 43-percent increase since 2002. According to the survey, 25 million people say they plan to try yoga within the year. IHRSA reports that yoga participation has nearly tripled in the past five years in its 4,800 member clubs in the United States.

Ruzansky and other yoga veterans worry that some hybrids downplay yoga’s spiritual side, though she and other teachers acknowledge that fusion classes may open the door to seekers who go on to plumb yoga’s depths. And they say that it is possible to innovate in yoga without violating it.

For example, Martin Berson of Avon, Conn., who teaches yoga classes throughout the region, says he’s against hybridization. Nonetheless, he brings a bit of martial arts to the Extreme Yoga for Men class he teaches at the Taking Care Center in downtown Hartford. In a yoga movement, the five men in the class mimicked Berson as he quickly pulled his arms back in toward his chest. “OK, now the karate way,” he said, and he and his students reversed the motion, punching outward.

“Different exercise, same function – waking up the (body’s) core,” he said. Berson has been practicing yoga for more than 30 years and studying Okinawa-style karate for nearly as long. He said that what he brings from karate to yoga is a handful of training methods that he feels help students quickly achieve the correct yoga posture or motion.

For a student like Stan Wojcoski of Manchester, Conn., Berson’s class is a natural, because he’s also a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwan Do. But even Roger Arnold of Meriden, Conn., a lapsed yoga student who has come back to the fold, enjoys the martial art elements of the class. “I would endorse him using more of the karate forms,” he said.

Berson, working with holistic psychotherapist Linda M. Catrambone of West Hartford, also has helped create what they call Empowerment Yoga. In group sessions or one-on-one, it’s aimed at using various yoga postures, mantras and moves to open up the chakras which, in traditional Asian medicine, are the body’s energy centers. Catrambone said that it can help with a number of issues, from blocked emotions to workplace focus.

Although Catrambone describes Empowerment Yoga as “very, very hybrid,” it’s clear that it encompasses contemplation and self-discovery.

Several teachers and yoga experts observed that so-called hybrids can embody the spirit of yoga if they incorporate its essence, which Ruzansky called “the journey inward.” Ruzansky notes that there is a good deal of borrowing and invention within various schools of traditional yoga.

Nora Isaacs is a former managing editor of Yoga Journal who now works on Breathe magazine, a newly established yoga and lifestyle publication. Two years ago, she did an article exploring yoga hybrids for Yoga Journal. Hybrids can be worthwhile, she said, if the teacher’s aim is true. “In yoga, we talk about intention,” she said. “If someone has the intention to help people or help make their lives more meaningful, that’s great.”

Garrett Sarley, chief executive at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Lenox, Mass., distinguishes between hybrid yoga and what he calls “combination yoga.” That’s what he and his wife, Ila Sarley, had in mind when they wrote the book, “Walking Yoga” in 2002. (Sarley said that they wanted to call it “Walking and Yoga,” but the publisher insisted on the two-word title.) A combination, he said, honors both practices. “The thing that makes (yoga) most attractive and powerful is the sense of centeredness and coming home to your body, which is really coming home to yourself,” he said. “If you define it more broadly, you start to see that being present and in your body in golf could improve your golf game. It’s about how much there you are.”

If there is a threat to traditional yoga, it may come not from what’s added to it, but from what’s taken away. Some teachers feel that gym yoga — the kind that often is taught in health clubs — strips away the spiritual context. Yoga is about more than just what happens on the mat, said Hansa Knox, president of the Yoga Alliance, a nonprofit organization that sets standards for yoga teacher training. But she also notes that students can only learn what they’re ready to learn.

The Yoga Journal survey found that the leading reasons for taking up yoga are stress reduction, flexibility and weight control. Clearly, there is a market for workout-only yoga.

And maybe that’s all for the best, Isaacs said. Americans are, by nature, innovators, adapters and hybrid-makers, she said. Most people come to yoga class because they hurt their backs or their hamstrings and need something that is a little easier on their joints. An exercise-type yoga class might not answer life’s deepest questions, but it could be a start, she said.

“Someone in one class might take a deep breath, and it might change their life,” she said. “With accessibility comes an opportunity for people to choose to learn more.” And if they so choose, there is plenty of orthodox yoga available. “There is so much yoga now, there really is something for everyone.”