Nov 5 
This week we practiced Sivananda Yoga with Jenn Kretzer. One of the things I really enjoyed about this practice is it's breathing exercise, Jenn emphasized the importance of breath in order to feel present during the exercise and it genuinely made me focus much harder on maintaining clean even breaths during the movements. I also found that I had a really easy time keeping up with her main stretches, and completed the entire exercise without having to take a break. It's definitely less intensive then Ashtanga, which required so much commitment to the practice that I was willing to give seeing how I'm much more of casual/beginner practitioner. 

Something that I've definitely noticed is Yoga's transformation into a pop culture subject. Yoga's rising popularity among social media platforms had made it popular enough for capitalism to run it's course. Like mentioned this week, we see fake gurus, tantric sex practices, etc. All of these things are caused because people are capitalizing off of yoga in pop culture, and people in the west eat it up because so many people are ignorant to what yoga actually is. 

Now, I feel it's hard for people in the west to really know if they're getting something authentic, and it also calls to question if any form of yoga in the west is authentic at all. Yoga has 100% drifted from what it originally was in India, and especially seeing how its portrayed on sites like Instagram where it's sexualized and presents this faux mask of spirituality to reveal something much more capitalistic in nature. 

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