Politically Correct Yoga

I was in a Hot Yoga class, and the instructor was taking us through the routine. At one point he is directing us to do what is traditionally known as the superman pose, but instead of superman, or superwoman, he said superhuman. This is what I call politically correct yoga!

I understand that we live in a hypersensitive society, but it kind of bugs me out that at some point, someone went out of their way to complain about the pose being called “superman.” I mean, I get we are trying to change the world, but is it really that troublesome that it’s called the superman pose? After all, it is named after the comic book character, Superman, who happens to be a man? So I don’t get what the issue is?

If there was a pose that resembled a move that Wonder woman did, and it was named as such, I wouldn’t care. When I’m told to go into Utkata Konasana, or the goddess pose, I don’t say, “Hey! That’s offensive, I’m a male and I’m an not religious!” That’s just the name of the pose, who cares? “Well, I’d like it to be called ‘Omnipresent Universal Energy pose’ or I’ll be offended!” You get me?

I mean, it doesn’t affect me either way, and I probably shouldn’t even write about this as this site is meant to focus solely on fitness, and I don’t want to take away from that focus with social justice matters, you can go to NYCTalking for that! But, I thought this was interesting and worth sharing in this fitness site.

Someone cared enough about it to make it into an issue and bring it to someone’s attention in the yoga world. Me, I don’t give a damn, I can do Goddess pose all day, and I don’t feel that my identity or gender is threatened in any way, shape, or form. Though some would probably argue that I feel that way because I’m one of privileged. In any case, I don’t want to drag this out, I guess everyone’s sensibilities are different and some people are just hypersensitive. That’s all good, I just had to talk about this as I thought it was rather interesting.

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