Yoga’s share in the multi-billion dollar fitness industry

CHRISTY GREN
EMERGINGMARKETS 
JUNE 21, 2019

Yoga’s share in the fitness industry is huge – Yoga classes, Yoga apparel and accessories, and Yoga retreats, altogether make Yoga an $80 billion industry.

What was practiced by holy men in India to experience untethered spiritual awakening has traveled across the world, far and wide and has become a ubiquitous phenomenon. Yoga’s share in the fitness industry becomes apparent in the sheer number of yoga practitioners around the world. According to a 2016 research by Yoga Alliance, there are 300 million Yoga practitioners around the world with 36 million practitioners in the US alone. Yoga Alliance also noted that in 2016, there were more than 6000 Yoga studios in the US.

People pursue Yoga for different reasons- fitness, wellness or therapeutic. The esoteric practice of Yoga, which focuses on the harmony of the mind, body, and spirit however, remains to be carried forward by a handful of yogis. With the evolution of yoga, the focus of yoga for fitness and wellness has become more important than the spiritual aspect. This trend has ignited the modern practice of Yoga that also borrows teachings from other fitness styles such as Pilates and Barre.  Either way, Yoga’s share in the fitness industry – complete with yoga studios, yoga clothing and accessories, and yoga retreats, is surging and all kinds of yoga – power, Vinyasa, hot, cold and even beer yoga and goat yoga, is booming. A study showed that around $80 billion is spent on Yoga worldwide. The annual spending on yoga classes, clothing, and equipment is more than $16 billion.

Market research firm Technavio noted that the yoga mat business is expected to reach $14 billion in 2020. The US is the largest market for Yoga wear with estimated revenues of $27 billion a year and growing at 20%. The active bottoms and leggings market alone is reported to be $1billion industry according to NPD Group analyst Marshal Cohen. Lululemon– the industry leader in Yoga clothing sold its first pair of Yoga leggings in 1998. Years later, Yoga leggings have found a place in almost every woman’s closet, even for women who haven’t tried Yoga. There was a time when Yoga leggings replaced jeans. In fact, in 2017, the US import for women’s knit pants surpassed that of jeans. The activewear industry has tried different tricks - anti-wrinkle, anti-stink, nylon-micro fiber, and other innovations to tap the surging activewear and Yoga wear industry.

India – the Yoga capital of the world

India is where Yoga originated. Over half of the 300 million Yoga practitioners of the world are of the Indian origin. Prime Minister of India re-branded Yoga by convincing the UN General Assembly to declare 21st June as the International Yoga Day. On this day, thousands across the word roll out their mats and practice yoga.

India and specifically Rishikesh is known as the Yoga capital of the world. According to Yogic lores, Hindu deity Lord Shiva was the first Yogi who practiced Yoga in the foothills of the Himalayas in Rishikesh. So, how did Yoga that was once practiced in dark caverns to seek divinity become a worldwide phenomenon?

A lot of credit can be given to Swami Vivekananda who is considered to be the first Indian to take Yoga to America. He wrote several books on Yoga, including the Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, and Jnana Yoga. Popularly addressed as the traveling monk, Swami Vivekananda traveled from Calcutta to the west in the 1800s, spreading and educating the west about Yoga.  He spoke about India and Hinduism at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, before embarking on an influential lecture tour in the States.

Later, several other monks and Yogis traveled across Europe and America and. The love affair with the East was born and so emanated the desire to experience the deep spiritualism that Yoga offers, among scores of people. In 1920, Paramhansa Yogananda traveled across the US imparting knowledge about Kriya Yoga and Yoga for spiritualism. He wrote several books, some of which are deemed as priceless pieces in Yogic education, including titles like “The journey to self-realization” and “Autobiography of a Yogi.”

Eventually, a steady flow of westerners voyaged to the East to learn Yoga in the many ashrams of India. The Beatles visit to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh in 1968 drew greater international attention towards Indian spiritualism and Yoga.

https://www.industryleadersmagazine.com/yogas-share-in-the-multi-billion-dollar-fitness-industry/

Awake: A new film tells the extraordinary tale of a 'superstar guru'

Jyoti Sharma Bawa

Hindustan Times
June 18, 2016

It was 1920. A young yogi with flowing hair landed on America’s shores, as a delegate to the International Congress of Liberals in Boston. A century ago, India was very much the land of mystical hocus-pocus and half-naked fakirs for Americans. But the yogi, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, would go on to change that perception to a large extent.

We know him better as Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) and are familiar with his seminal spiritual work, Autobiography of a Yogi. A contemporary of Swami Vivekananda, he told America: “Everything else can wait but your search for God...” He spent over 30 years in America, spreading the science of Kriya Yoga and its tradition of meditation.

The story of this remarkable man is now the subject of a Hollywood film, Awake: The Life of Yogananda. Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmakers, Paola di Florio and Lisa Leeman, the docu-feature was released on Friday in India, ahead of International Yoga Day on June 21.

Filmed over three years with the participation of 30 countries, it has been described as an “unconventional biography.” Awake examines the world of yoga, modern and ancient, in the East and the West. It features interviews with Beatle George Harrison, the late Ravi Shankar, holistic health pioneer Deepak Chopra and many others who were inspired by Paramahansa.

Indeed, Yogananda has often been called “the Father of Yoga in the West,” and the “First Superstar Guru”.

He counted several prominent personalities as his followers, like botanist Luther Burbank, Kodak camera inventor George Eastman and actor Dick Haymes.

In India, Mahatma Gandhi requested him to initiate him and some of his followers into Kriya Yoga.

His teachings and his work, both have withstood the test of time. Through his spiritual institutions Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) and Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS), Yogananda’s work continues to grow. The society has more than 500 centres around the world and disciples spread over six continents.

In fact, according to the Walter Isaacson biography, when Steve Jobs died in 2011, he had only one book on his iPad: Autobiography of a Yogi. The book was also given to the people attending Jobs’s funeral.

For Jobs or for the man on the street, Yogananda’s teachings are the medium that helps them realise that elusive “something else”. As Yogananda put the essence of his teachings: “Man remains engaged in an unceasing quest for that ‘something else’ he hopes will bring him complete and unending happiness. For those individual souls who have sought and found God, the search is over: He is that something Else.”

In an interview to IANS, di Florio said of the film’s release, “It feels like Paramahansaji’s teachings of India’s ancient wisdom have come full circle... India holds a very special place in my heart. The opening of Awake in India marks a seminal moment.”

Actor Anupam Kher, who has lent his voice to the film, described the experience as “cathartic” in earlier interviews. He said the film was especially important as it gave him a chance to “understand the theory of the guru”.

The New York Times said it was heartening to “see interviews with Ravi Shankar, Deepak Chopra and George Harrison (who died in 2001). It’s a bit more so to hear contemporary scientists marvel at Yogananda’s understanding of neuroplasticity decades before Western science considered it.”

The film is the story of one man and his purpose to free mankind of ego and suffering, to make East meet West and offer both a lasting happiness. Who knows, maybe self-realisation can be found in a cinema hall?



http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-cinema/awake-a-new-film-tells-the-extraordinary-tale-of-a-superstar-guru/story-XVrLH9Kv6dguyy4izE9wMK.html