Naked yoga

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Naked yoga (Sanskrit nagna yoga or vivastra yoga) is the practice of yoga without clothes. It has existed since ancient times as a spiritual practice, and is mentioned in the 7th–10th century Bhagavata Purana and by the Ancient Greek geographer Strabo.

Early advocates of naked yoga in modern times include the gymnosophists such as Blanche de Vries, and the actress and dancer Marguerite Agniel.

In the 21st century, the practice is gaining popularity, notably in western societies that have more familiarity with social nudity.

Ancient times

Yoga has been practiced naked since ancient times. In the Bhagavata Purana (written c. 800–1000 AD) it is mentioned:

::”A person in the renounced order of life may try to avoid even a dress to cover himself. If he wears anything at all, it should be only a loincloth, and when there is no necessity, a sannyāsī should not even accept a daṇḍa. A sannyāsī should avoid carrying anything but a daṇḍa and kamaṇḍalu."[http://vedabase.net/sb/7/13/2/ Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 7.13.2] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019071350/http://vedabase.net/sb/7/13/2/ |date=19 October 2013}}, Bhaktivedanta VedaBase

Alexander the Great reached India in the 4th century BC. Along with his army, he took Greek academics with him who later wrote memoirs about geography, people and customs they saw. One of Alexander's companion was Onesicritus, quoted in Book 15, Sections 63–65 by Strabo, who describes yogins of India.Charles R. Lanman, [https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1507563/1507563#page/n3/mode/2up The Hindu Yoga System] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160412052656/https://archive.org/stream/jstor-1507563/1507563#page/n3/mode/2up |date=12 April 2016}}, Harvard Theological Review, Volume XI, Number 4, Harvard University Press, pages 355–359 Onesicritus claims those Indian yogins (like Mandanis) practiced aloofness and "different postures – standing or sitting or lying naked – and motionless".Strabo, [https://archive.today/20120712112443/http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/15A3*.html Geography] Book XV, Chapter 1, see Sections 63–65, Loeb Classical Library edition, Harvard University Press, Translator: H.L. Jones, Archived by: University of Chicago

Spiritual nudity

File:Maharaj SwamiNigamananda.jpg, yogi and Hindu leader, India, 1904]]

The practice of spiritual nudity is common among Digambara Jains,{{cite book |last=Dundas |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Dundas |title=The Jains |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X8iAAgAAQBAJ |edition=2nd |date=2002 |orig-year=1992 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-26605-X |page=45}} Aghori sadhus,{{cite book |last1=Haviland |first1=William A. |last2=Prins |first2=Harald E. L. |last3=Walrath |first3=Bunny McBride |title=Anthropology: The Human Challenge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fm2RY5ZKmDIC&pg=PA416 |year=2010 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-0-495-81084-1 |page=416}} and other ascetic groups in the dharmic religions. The order of Naga Sadhus, conspicuous in the processions and bathing ritual at the Kumbh Mela, use nudity as a part of their spiritual practice of renunciation.{{cite magazine |agency=Reuters |title=Ash-smeared Naga Sadhus a huge draw at Kumbh Mela |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/ash-smeared-naga-sadhus-a-huge-draw-at-kumbh-mela-see-pics-1433406-2019-01-17 |magazine=India Today |date=17 January 2019}}

Early 20th century

Modern naked yoga has been practiced in Germany and Switzerland through a movement called Lebensreform. The movement had since the end of the 19th century highlighted yoga and nudity.[http://frieze-magazin.de/archiv/features/kalifornication/?lang=en Kalifornication, Frieze magazine, 9, 2013] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150702031419/http://frieze-magazin.de/archiv/features/kalifornication/?lang=en |date=2 July 2015 }}

In the early 20th century, the term gymnosophy was appropriated by several groups who practiced nudity, asceticism and meditation. Blanche de Vries combined a popularity of Oriental dancing with yoga. In 1914 she was put in charge of a yoga school for women in New York City. Five years later, she opened an institute for women, teaching Yoga Gymnosophy – a name that conveys the blending of yoga and nudism. She taught until 1982.[http://www.yogawoman.tv/yoga-resource-articles/a-short-history-of-women-in-yoga-in-the-west Eric Shaw, A Short History of Women in Yoga in the West, Feb 2011.]Stefanie Syman, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, 2010.Rebecca Anne D'Orsogna, Yoga in America: History, Community Formation, and Consumerism, University of Texas, 2013.

Marguerite Agniel, author of the 1931 book The Art of the Body : Rhythmic Exercise for Health and Beauty,{{cite book |last=Agniel |first=Marguerite |author-link=Marguerite Agniel |title=The Art of the Body : Rhythmic Exercise for Health and Beauty |date=1931 |publisher=B. T. Batsford |location=London |oclc=1069247718}}{{cite web |last1=Routledge |first1=Isobel |title=Meditation and modernity: an image of Marguerite Agniel |url=http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2014/11/meditation-and-modernity-an-image-of-marguerite-agniel/ |publisher=Wellcome Library |date=28 November 2014}} wrote a piece called "The Mental Element in Our Physical Well-Being" for The Nudist, an American magazine, in 1938; it showed nude women practicing yoga, accompanied by a text on attention to the breath. The social historian Sarah Schrank comments that it made perfect sense at this stage of the development of yoga in America to combine nudism and yoga, as "both were exercises in healthful living; both were countercultural and bohemian; both highlighted the body; and both were sensual without being explicitly erotic."{{cite book |last=Schrank |first=Sarah |editor1=Berila, Beth |editor2=Klein, Melanie |editor3=Roberts, Chelsea Jackson |chapter=Naked Yoga and the Sexualization of Asana |title=Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change: An Intersectional Feminist Analysis |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GDfQDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA159 |year=2016 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-1-4985-2803-0 |pages=155–174}}{{cite book | last=Schrank | first=Sarah | title=Free and natural : nudity and the American cult of the body | publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press | publication-place=Philadelphia | year=2019 | isbn=978-0-8122-5142-5 | oclc=1056781478}}

From the 1960s

In the West since the 1960s, naked yoga practice has been incorporated in the hippie movement[http://www.hippy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=243 Hippie Roots & The Perennial Subculture, 2003.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161024110448/http://www.hippy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=243 |date=24 October 2016 }} and in progressive settings for well-being, such as at the Esalen Institute in California, and at the Elysium nudist colony in the Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles.

Male-only groups

File:Yogi Aaron.jpg has taught male-only naked yoga in New York.]]

Aaron Star, owner of Hot Nude Yoga, began his version of naked yoga in April 2001. The style combined elements of Ashtanga, Kundalini, and Contact Yoga with elements of Tantra.[http://www.shantilight.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=40 Aaron Star – Hot Nude Yoga Founder] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216235313/http://www.shantilight.com/store/index.php?route=product%2Fcategory&path=40 |date=16 December 2014 }}

Because of the success of Hot Nude Yoga, male-only naked yoga groups began to blossom all over the world, from London, Moscow, Madrid to Sydney, often becoming associated with the gay community.{{cite web |url=http://gaynaturists.org/yoga/immersion/ |title=Naked Yoga for men – Gay Naturists International (GNI) |publisher=Gaynaturists.org |access-date=1 August 2012}}Carolyne Zinko, [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/24/DDG9FCSNDS1.DTL Doing it in the altogether is what makes this yoga practice altogether free from distractions] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111018125544/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2005%2F05%2F24%2FDDG9FCSNDS1.DTL |date=18 October 2011 }} SF Chronicle, 24 May 2005 Nowadays, there are also specific naked yoga clubs for homosexuals that are not simple yoga classes, but rather communities for keeping fit and sharing sexuality.[http://www.nakedyoga.net/LostArt.html Homosensuality] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304025824/http://www.nakedyoga.net/LostArt.html |date=4 March 2016 }} Star says that his practice affords men in cities a way to express closeness and intimacy without having sex.[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/18/naked-yoga-kathryn-budig-toesox Yoga's Naked Commercialism] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130707082257/http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/18/naked-yoga-kathryn-budig-toesox |date=7 July 2013 }}

Schrank writes that "the most press" has however gone to Joschi Schwarz and Monika Werner's Bold and Naked studio in New York. It provides classes in tantric massage as well as both male-only and co-ed naked yoga. She praises its "positive coverage" as helping yogis of all kinds to feel good, but is concerned about the contradictory message that yoga is simultaneously "liberating and sexy".

All genders

While naked yoga had mainly been the domain of male only groups, from 2011 courses in Britain and the United States were offered to all genders.{{Cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/naked-yoga-the-bare-truth-its-already-big-in-the-us-and-has-now-landed-here-9259879.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220618/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/naked-yoga-the-bare-truth-its-already-big-in-the-us-and-has-now-landed-here-9259879.html |archive-date=18 June 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Naked yoga: it's already big in US, and has now landed here |date=15 April 2014 |work=The Independent |access-date=23 October 2017}}

Schrank noted the popularity of naked yoga in 2016, with its simultaneous desire to experience one's own body in freedom, and a "troubling" sexualization of the body in yoga culture. She observed that in the United States, there is a connection between female nudity and slavery, something that has left a racist legacy. Schrank noted also the "uncomfortable" relationship of yoga and sex, not least in scandals of sexual abuse by yoga gurus, and that feminists have written critiques of the "objectification of young, white women and exclusion of women of color." On the other hand, she praises the naked yoga teacher Katrina "Rainsong" Messenger's book R.A.W. Nude Yoga: Celebrating the Human Body Temple,{{cite book |last1=Messenger |first1=Katrina "Rainsong" |title=R.A.W. Nude Yoga: Celebrating The Human Body Temple |last2=Sarda |first2=Michel F. (illustrator) |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-927015-48-6}} featuring monochrome photographs of both men and women, as impressive, tasteful, and sensual but not erotic. Schrank personally tried a naked yoga class in Los Angeles, at first finding it safe and pleasurable because not sexualized, until after two months the experience was spoiled by a class which was sexist and "overtly sexually competitive".

In film

Esalen's naked yoga was depicted in the 1968 comedy film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.{{cite web |last1=Croce |first1=Fernando F. |title=Reviews: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice |url=http://www.cinepassion.org/Reviews/b/BobCarolTedAlice.html |publisher=CinePassion |access-date=1 November 2019}}

Other film depictions include the 1967 I Am Curious (Yellow) with Lena Nyman,{{cite book |last=Kirkpatrick |first=Rob |title=1969: The Year Everything Changed |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bsdlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT110 |year=2019 |publisher=Skyhorse |isbn=978-1-5107-4314-4 |page=110}} the 1973 The Harrad Experiment{{cite news |last1=Greenspun |first1=Roger |title='The Harrad Experiment' Opens at Baronet |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/05/12/archives/the-harrad-experiment-opens-at-baronet.html |work=The New York Times |date=12 May 1973}} and that same year the short documentary Naked Yoga.{{cite web |title=Naked Yoga (1973) |year=1972 |url=https://archive.org/details/NakedYoga1973 |access-date=1 November 2019}}

References

External links

[http://asanaexposed.com/2015/06/15/naked-yoga-alliance-interviews-naked-yoga-teacher-anya-from-new-jersey/ Naked Yoga Alliance Interviews naked yoga teacher Anya from New Jersey]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060629135953/http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/01426013.htm The Boston Phoenix AU NATUREL Yoga buffs By Nina Willdorf, Issue Date: April 26 – May 3, 2001]
[http://chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-09/23/content_377178.htm China Daily 23 September 2004 Naked yoga OK in San Francisco]
[http://www.nuff.org.uk/factfile/ Naturist UK Fact File page on yoga and naturism]
[http://gaiatreehouse.com/images/columbia.pdf Striking a pose, stark naked by Charlotte Maitre]

Category:Yoga styles

Category:Naturism