Yoga In The Western World

Rebecca McCune of Sun Ray Yoga joins Laura to address Yoga from a physical, a mental and a spiritual perspective. Yoga in the West tends to have the image of an exclusively physical, although exotic, kind of exercise.

Over the years it has both the stereotypes of being too “easy” in terms of real aesthetic or weight loss exercise, or too difficult and exclusive in terms of lithe young women in spandex who can put themselves in any pretzel shape. People come to yoga for flexibility and stress relief, having often received a prescription from their doctors these days as a kind of medicine. It is indeed a kind of medicine, and so much more, based on a five thousand year-old system of developing personal responsibility through rigorous discipline of the body and mind, leading to liberation of the spirit.