Tuesday 12 June 2012

John Friend Blogovates

John Friend posted a very long-winded explanation of his perspective on his Anusara-gate scandal:

www.elephantjournal.com/2012/06/john-friend-here-is-my-side-of-this-story-from-the-beginning/

I'd post comments on Elephant Journal, but they'd get deleted in a microsecond.  My quick thoughts:

  1. Editing is not an art, in fact it's pretty damn easy but this article is an editing fail.  Headings are good, figuring out what topics to let lie fallow is better, however.  
  2. The most interesting part is the discussion of the ongoing negotiations with the Anusara leadership council on transfer of trademarks and such.  To say that this is only about the 'trademarks' is somewhat duplicitous since it's really about control of the Anusara brand. He does manage make the leadership committee to look like douche-bags too, in how they attempted to dictate to him outside the reasonable boundaries of the intellectual property issues.  
  3. I note the one thing he didn't talk about was the attempted sale to the Israeli woman.
  4. I'd say that he's been humbled.  He is, after all, human.  
Hopefully YogaDork will repost the letter so that there can be an open forum discussion (since Elephant Journal censors so aggressively and inappropriately).  

Friday 8 June 2012

World of Lulu

The Hindu epic Bhagavad Gita is a long story that provides much of the basis for yogic philosophy.  It is like a parable, only really, really long and hence not a parable.  The Bee-Gita, as all the cool kids call it, lays down the four primary paths to achieving enlightenment:
  1. Raja, betterment of the self.
  2. Karma, giving the self to others.
  3. Jnana, the quest to comprehend nature.
  4. Bhakti, devotion to god.
These are not the only paths to enlightenment, simply the four most common paths. Now with a lot of yoga being oral tradition, not everything of importance is written down. If it were, yoga gurus could be held at their word, and we wouldn't want that. As such, there are many other sub-forms of yoga that one can exploit in their haste to achieve Samadhi.

It's recently come to my attention that there's a lost teaching derived from the Bee-Gita, where they discuss the role of yogic clothing. This is a big thing folks, and probably the most paramount form of yoga out there! This form of yoga has been given the title, the World of Lulu. "Lulu" is Sanskrit for enlightened garments, or so I'l told (in that they enlighten your wallet).

In Lulu Yoga, one's yogic power is derived by the summation of the power of each individual garment.  Depending on the design, fabric, color, and of course price of each garment the attributes they improve (or worsen) will vary, as does the overall power of the bonuses (or maluses). In addition, special rare garments also imbue the wearer with mystical powers, for example, to aid in attracting that special hot yoga teacher.


Each garment occupies a given slot on the Lulu yogi's body. Thus one wears a legs-piece, a chest-piece, and so one with the legs slot being the most powerful yogic garment and others trending down from there. Stacking of multiple garments in the same slot is forbidden by the rules of Lulu Yoga.

Some garments work together in synergistic-yogasmic harmony, forming garment sets that provide additional bonuses. An example would be pairing a thong with a pair of translucent leggings, or wearing a onesy with no pants. Only by having a complete ensemble of yogic garments can the Lulu yogini achieve the maximum achievable attribute scores needed to achieve yogasm via the path of Lulu Yoga.  This is referred to as min-maxing or twinking of the Lulu yogini.



The rarest (and hence most powerful) garment drops are only found in advanced yoga dungeons festivals such as Wanderlust or Tadasana.  Such progressive garments can be imbued with additional powers by attending the practices of Lulu ambassadors, yoga teachers possessed of particularly strong Lulu Yoga derivative powers.

Once one has assembled a sufficiently powerful assemble of Lulu garments, one can begin to
Groups of Lulu Yogis often form cliques to take on the ultimate test of the Lulu Yogi, the Landmark Forum. This is known as, "raiding the Landmark Forum," for indecipherable reasons. Most cliques will institute gear score requirements before allowing members to take part in higher tier practices and workshops. The ultimate goal then is to spend gobs of time at practices, festivals, and forums to acquire the bestest set of yogic gear, thereby entering into the state of Luluadhi, or a state of constant yogasm.