Sunday, November 1, 2009

The next big thing

Flipping through Shape magazine (it's my wife's, honestly), I came across the page with the latest fitness fads which included some yoga hybrid workouts.  I'm usually pretty leery of fads.  By the time an idea is mainstream popular, they're usually more marketing than substance.  The resurgence of yoga is a good example.  Sure, yoga is great for you, but its sheer popularity means that a lot of people are trying to milk the popularity cow.  You get a lot of unqualified people with serious misunderstandings teaching classes just to meet the demand.  You also get crossover ideas which are questionable and quite possibly silly.

For example, the latest crossover trends I've read about include:
  • Doga - Yoga with your dog.  Bond with your dog while holding yoga poses.
  • Slackasana - Yoga on a slackline.  Ok, I admit, that does sound fun to me.  But it's mostly because I want to try slacklining, not because I feel an inherent urge to combine yoga with slacklining.
  • Koga - Combining the best of kickboxing and yoga.  Two great tastes that taste great together?  Not so sure about this combination myself.
  • Goga - Yoga for golf.  I'm not sure it's actually all that popular or trendy, but I thought I'd include it for the sheer absurdity of its name.
Given all the yoga crossovers I'm seeing, I'm predicting that we will see more yoga crossover classes.  Personally, I'd like to see two crossovers in particular.  We could combine the gentle arts of tai chi and yoga into the great new hybrid Toga.  Of course, wearing a white sheet to class would be optional.  The other combination I want to see happen would combine the surging popularity of MMA with yoga.  Keep healthy and fit, both body and mind, with the ultimate art Moga.  Moga would be the ideal class for martial arts posers everywhere (pun intended).

What do you think?  What crossover class do you want to see?

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