Yoga and male culture

Discovered today one of the new safety officers at work (also volunteer firefighter), is a real yoga practitioner for past 8 years. And he looks fit-wiry.

He reminisced about some other workplace experiences, in northern Alberta and B.C. in the oil exploration areas, where workplace was more cowboy male traditional dominant.

When some of the guys first found out he practiced yoga, they ostracized him. He had to prove his male "normality" to the cowboy-oil worker yahoos, by showing them he also did...judo and karate. And to make yoga more acceptable, he suggested to them: "Look if you want to meet women...."

Though things are less sharply male vs. female divided in a hostile way, it would be HIGHLY unusual to see guy(s) practicing yoga where we are at construction site.

Soccer is more the preferred game to chat or watch. Or hockey.

I work in software and we have a yoga instructor come in once a week for classes - which we gender-segregate, but there are enough students in both the mens and womens classes to keep it going (though we have a LOT more men than women at our company, so it's like 90% of the women and 10% of the men that attend :p). Some of the guys still get SERIOUS crap every time from other guys for doing yoga, despite being in a "modern" industry. :rolleyes: The guys that do the yoga, thankfully, could care less.

It seems like our more gender-mixed groups tolerate it better, and the groups that are all men or almost all men end up with much more of a macho culture. Seems also to depend on their management - if their management is more participatory in the macho thing, it's much worse. None of our departments are exclusively male, but some are one-woman shows or the women are only peripherally involved.

Anyway... yoga rules ;)

There's a yoga class at my climbing gym, and it's well-attended by both genders. I guess climbers are already somewhat counter-culture, though ...

There was a stretching class for a while at work, which was sort of yoga-inspired but not officially yoga, and mostly women attended, although we did have a few guys who showed up.

Hmm, you know I took yoga in Uni for 3 years and I only ever had one guy in my class.

Although I knew some who went to Bikram yoga, loved it, and weren't afraid of telling people about it, maybe it seems more macho if you sweat a lot?

I wish more men would take yoga classes, I'd like that.

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Originally Posted by shootingstar

He had to prove his male "normality" to the cowboy-oil worker yahoos, by showing them he also did...judo and karate. And to make yoga more acceptable, he suggested to them: "Look if you want to meet women...."

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And if you want to meet guys, try a martial arts class. I'm often the only woman in class with a woman head instructor and one day a week woman-only class. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Trek420

And if you want to meet guys, try a martial arts class. I'm often the only woman in class with a woman head instructor and one day a week woman-only class. :rolleyes:

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Is a women-only martial arts class different in teaching style or learning atmosphere compared to male-attendee dominant class?

No. :D The class came out of a discussion/celebration that in a very male field here's my Sensei with her own dojo, a world reputation for some 25 years. Then she felt some new students might feel intimidated by a mixed class (they don't). Plus someone was writing a paper about women in MA, so voila! A women's class formed. And now this once weekly class has been ongoing for almost 2 years. :D

Women quickly find the men-folk while obviously bigger in most cases, are very supportive and work on equal footing with all here. I can only think of 2 guys over the years who could not deal with training with, which sometimes means being thrown by women.

They didn't last long :p

They quickly realize that attitude is not tolerated and they'd be happier elsewhere. :rolleyes:

Some might prefer to train with women, it's never mattered to me. It's different, not better or worse. It is good to see each technique mirrored by athletes with bodies more similar to mine. Sometimes hard to visualize in my body "Scott did this technique, he's 6'5"+, how's that possible for me? :confused:" But I enjoy that challenge.

In class I'm just one a' the guys. Nothing less is expected of me and nothing more than my best. Aikido is about connection, and the more variation more better. To practice same technique with partners of different size, attitude, experience or even the same person in different moods helps to learn to find the connection, blending, throwing then being thrown across the room ;)

It's not self defense, and that's not why I train. I would not want an all-women's school because I'm not likely to be attacked by another woman. I hope to never ever "use it" but if so like the idea of seeing some huge guy and thinking "well, ok, he's about ____'s size, I can deal with him. I've pinned bigger, I can do this" ;)

But I have enjoyed workshops, individual all women classes. I always come back to and enjoy being in a mixed school. Oh, and we have Yoga too, both men and women participate in that.

The only thing that is very different in the women's class .... after class we have tea and cookies :D :rolleyes: :)

Heh, one of the guys I work with is totally into yoga. No one gives him crap but then again this is Boulder, and I do work at a natural pet store. I tried yoga once, it was a heated Hatha class in the dead of winter. Loved it, but I have a hard time fitting "scheduled" things into my life. I think there are a lot of guys who do yoga around here, I see them carrying around mats all the time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shootingstar

Discovered today one of the new safety officers at work (also volunteer firefighter), is a real yoga practitioner for past 8 years. And he looks fit-wiry.

He reminisced about some other workplace experiences, in northern Alberta and B.C. in the oil exploration areas, where workplace was more cowboy male traditional dominant.

When some of the guys first found out he practiced yoga, they ostracized him. He had to prove his male "normality" to the cowboy-oil worker yahoos, by showing them he also did...judo and karate. And to make yoga more acceptable, he suggested to them: "Look if you want to meet women...."

Though things are less sharply male vs. female divided in a hostile way, it would be HIGHLY unusual to see guy(s) practicing yoga where we are at construction site.

Soccer is more the preferred game to chat or watch. Or hockey.

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Interesting... I showed your post to my boyfriend that practices yoga, and he said that there are several guys in his yoga group. They are like 2/3 women and 1/3 men.
He also thought about the masculine and feminine sports, and decided that we must be a funny couple :D
He has always been into yoga, cycling, running, and triathlon. He does not like football, baseball, or any of the guy's sports...
I have always been mostly into martial arts and gymnastics, and cycling 'on the side'. And of course I love the football games...
Since we met ten years ago, I started to introduce him to martial arts, and he started to introduce me to yoga - so that we had more activities to do together.
So I guess now we have a mix of masculine and feminine sports in the household :D

My husband doesn't really like traditional male sports either. We do watch baseball if we are home and it's on TV, but we don't plan anything around those sports. In fact, he's a pretty good baseball player, but gave up playing years ago. Same with golf. They both took too much time away.
I tried to get him into aerobics, but he hated it and there was no way I could ever play tennis with my eye hand coordination. It took a couple of years, but he secretly bought me cycling clothes, set up his old mt. bike for me, and said, "Out you go!"
Then I made him start x country ski and snow shoe with me.

I know this isn't exactly yoga, but my partner's pelvic tilt exercise is quite different from mine.

Yoga would be a big step for him since his body doesn't seem to have the same natural flexibility as mine..even when I haven't done stretching exercises for awhile and I'm stiff at that point in time. If I could illusrate a maneouvre that I can naturally do..while lying on my back...he doesn't even like LOOKING at the pose. There's probably a yoga position/exercise name for it.
:cool:

Very advanced yoga has some unusual maneouvres ..that he doesn't like to look, like acrobatic gymnastics contortions at the circus that we may admire...it makes him wince to look.. Yea, he's abit wierd that way.

In the past his other sports have been downhill skiing and cross-country skiing. He definitely has not down downhill in past few decades due to balance problems (or his fear of) when he gets his sinus problems/headaches.

The safety officer/volunteer firefighter confirmed that he could do a headstand --unassisted by wall support. He said enthusiastically: " I could teach you....." No, no...not right now, my neck.. I said. :)

So why do all the posters that show a number of yoga asanas, always depict men???

I wonder if it isn't just that men are in general less flexible than women, and because they tend to see everything as a competition, don't like being in a class where the women "do better" than they do (even though that's not what it's about - and yes I know that some women can be competitive in yoga class, it's definitely an impulse that I struggle with :rolleyes:).