UNITED KINGDOM, March 9, 2011: The blonde Californian in her 40s writhed as she performed her ‘power flow yoga’, to the shock of traditionalists. By the time Shiva Rea, famed for inventing the high-energy Yoga Trance Dance, had completed her demonstration at a yoga festival in northern India, some 20 people had left the room.
For thousands of years, yoga has been expressed through gradual control of the body, breath and mind. But criticism of Rea’s spirited show at the week-long International Yoga Festival in Rishikesh underscored the growing and sometimes acrimonious split between purists and practitioners of new, non-traditional forms of yoga.
Hundreds of visitors, most of them foreigners, come each year to the Rishikesh festival from dozens of countries, bringing their yoga mats to learn about breathing, posture, chanting and nutrition from experts in all types of yoga.
German nutritionist Daniela Wolff, 50, said that she felt happiest with the festival’s tradition-minded Indian teachers, such as the spry 103-year-old Indian guru Swami Yogananda who gave his course every morning at 6:00 am sharp. ‘They are genuine, do not use fancy words, there is no music. Most importantly, they don’t need to prove anything to anyone,’ Wolff said.