Summary Of Mark Singleton's Yoga Body

In Mark Singleton’s Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice, delves into the history and origins of the practice of yoga as well as its expansion and presence in modern society. Singleton begins by discussing yoga as a modern postural practice. Traditional Indian yoga did not emphasize the postural, physical aspects of yoga that have been so popularized in modern, Western culture, but rather it was emphasized as a spiritual road to Enlightenment. Singleton argues that the beginning of modern yoga as a form of exercise began with Hindu aims to develop a form of exercise unique to India in response to the European and British rise in popularity of masculine strength. In the 1890’s Vivekananda set up the groundwork for modern Hinduism with his display of his interpretations of yoga to an immense audience. The practice of postural, physical yoga, was derived separately from traditional yoga techniques – this is evident in that hatha yoga traditions do not incorporate any standing positions at all, while these are used often today. Hatha yoga flourished during the thirteenth century in India and began to fade during the eighteenth century along with the arrival of the British.

Through the portrayals of exquisite postures and contortions, yoga was further stigmatized as an aspect of a mysterious, strange Eastern culture. These contortionist poses and images that circulated were often understood in connection with yoga, however, so many of these poses are not unique to traditional Indian yoga. The media and books that contained these images were designed to entertain and appeal to that part of the human mind that is so entangled in mysteries and what others do, rather than to educate. None of these books seemed to discuss the spiritual parts of yoga that were of upmost importance in traditional