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| No Holds Barred — Beauty, Aging, and Yoga By Blair Sabol It’s clear that with beauty and aging, everyone is on their own. After skimming Mireille Guiliano’s “French Women Don’t Get Facelifts” it is apparent that many French women DO in fact nip and tuck themselves and the rest can’t afford it with their socialized medicine ... And in the end, so what?
Actually how can you take the French attitude seriously when there is 80-year-old Jeanne Moreau chain-smoking her life away. And Brigitte Bardot doesn’t look so “happy in her aging skin” of late — but she does love her dogs. Furthermore the book was really confusing about “dressing your age.” Few women (or even men) know how to do that at any age. We are all too pressurized to have skinny bodies, big boobs, extended long caramelized hair and stilettoed heels. Most every woman nowadays struggles with her vitality and visual. French women no longer lead the way anymore so who does? The NYC and LA women have gone mostly distortedly plastic and even the Asian, Russian and South Americans all want to torque themselves into Beyoncé or her butt. So where does that leave us? Who knows what looking authentic or real is anymore. Does it even matter? |
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| I like what controversial Camille Paglia (Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia) said in a Wall Street Journal interview recently; “So many women don’t realize how vulnerable they are by what they’re doing in the street,” she says referring to women who wear sexy clothes. When she made the point in the past, Ms. Paglia — who dresses in androgynous jacket and slacks (and is 66 years old) has been told that she believes “women are at fault for their own victimization.” Nonsense. She says, “I believe that every person, male and female needs to be in a protective mode at all times of alertness to potential danger. The world is full of potential attacks, potential disasters.” Later she mentions “elite upper middle class women have become “clones” condemned to Pilates for the next 30 years.” |
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| But regardless of how women should love or feel or age or empower themselves — many seem to be mentioning yoga as the most legitimate way to stay in shape for whatever shape (age) you are in! However if there are no experts or “gurus” in beauty and aging — it is even worse with what has happened in the world of yoga. Maybe it started years ago with the spiritual Master Rajneesh who was run out of Oregon (with his cult) for sexual misconduct and high financial fraud. Then three years ago it was the popular John Friend of the Anusara Yoga style brought up on similar charges of sex and business unlawfulness. And now we have the infamous Hot Yoga (hottie??) Originator Bikram Choudhury falling on his own “sextrapreneur” petard with charges from his students of rape, racism, misogyny, threats of violence and homophobia. He seems to have won the ultimate bad behavior lottery! |
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| Now some of those female students were reported to have followed him into his motel room while they were attending one of his many $15,000 retreats. A lot of the allegations centered around being “in a room with him and massaging him” and then, and then, and then ... oops, it all “went horribly wrong." Now here’s a little personal history: In 1973 Vogue sent me to a Beverly Hills bank basement at 9 AM to do a story on Bikram Choudhury and his “Yoga College of India." (what college? what India? — but who cared?)
He barked at us through 90 minutes of 26 basic postures (what became his “patented” routine). We all sweated, we groaned, we fell on the floor and we laughed ... mostly AT HIM. How could you not? He resembled a shorter more toxic version of Paul Anka and he had a major “insult comic” shtick going on. At that time he was “the only game in town” so we came back — not only the next day but also that afternoon. We all did 9 AM and 5 PM classes. He insisted! My classmates were no slouches. Next to me was Martin Sheen, Juliet Prowse, Raquel Welch (who later did a successful DVD of his routine and he sued her ... she won), Shirley MacLaine, Marge Champion, Richard Simmons, Quincy Jones (and all of his ex wives) and on and on! Shirley even took “The Bik” on her club tours to teach all of her chorus girls and boys. Soon Bikram was living in multiple Beverly Hills mansions and cruising around in many Rolls Royces. About that time I bowed out of the overheated jammed sweat-soaked scene and moved on. (In those days no one took Bikram seriously enough to study past a year). But I was aware of his fame and fortune and his Don Rickles approach to yoga — and frankly I was amazed at his success since he was so obviously ridiculous. One thing was for sure — Bikram never (that I remember) set himself up as a “spiritual master” or a “guru." He was just a trash talking jokester — nothing more or less. To me he was the great American Hustler and if you couldn’t see that from your first bow pose with him — then you are drowning in your own “Om’s." In many ways I was aware that my Vogue piece and all the rest of his publicity set him up as “The Yogi to the Stars” (who wasn’t). I guess years later with Madonna and Jennifer Aniston and George Clooney attending — up went the Sleaze factor!! So now his day in Karma court is here!! |
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| But it’s not just Bikram — The whole Yoga world has been hit of late. Bikram and Friend are the first but won’t be the last. I just read an article by popular yoga instructor Cameron Shayne (sounds like a cartoon character) entitled “Can I have sex with my Yoga Instructor?” He admitted to having sex numerous times with a few of his female students. He vaguely fudged over the points of ethics, personal boundaries, vulnerability, student/teacher trust and most of all responsibility. Frankly — I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. Except at the end he questions, “why is sex such a big deal” (and that “there are no real victims”). He poses the question — “why do teachers misbehave?” And he answers by saying “Because they can.” I suppose that was great for him and a big “Namaste” to the rest of us!!
The future of Yoga now is finding the “grass roots” real teachers left behind who are holding the line. Not the “rock stars” and one shot "workshop wonders.” So after 20 years of ricocheting from one dirty (in more ways than one) Yoga studio to another I found Jenn Chiarelli at my local Scottsdale Life Power outlet. Her background was a plus — since she was a professional dancer at the Cleveland /San Jose Ballet Company who seriously injured her back and fell into yoga as a healing technique. But then she did her 8 years of serious study and totally understands bodies of all shapes and ailments. Her reaction to all of those Yoga scandals is heartbreak; “First of all ‘teacher trainings’ are not meant to be pornographic. So many big classes have become hook-ups in the mode of Studio 54. Our culture has sexualized and materialized everything and now Yoga is the worst.” She went on to admit that there are “obviously a lot of vulnerable women (and men) who come looking for that connection to their damaged bodies and minds — the Yoga world needs to get a grip.” Jenn teaches in a moderately heated studio (Important fact: Overheated classes are now being blamed for dangerous dehydration and are being proved counter indicated for so-called “detox” ... no wonder all Bikramis run to Starbucks post class for triple shotted lattés). But her emphasis is on breathing and slowness and quiet. Her adjustments are anatomically knowledgeable. She explained “most male teachers can’t get past their egos — touching a female body is loaded for them and they intrinsically lose it.” And although Jenn has her own “Yoga Teacher Training” held in Costa Rica July 7-29th, her technique is not on mastering the poses, but on the spaces between getting in and getting out of them. Not to mention “synching up” how you are ON the mat with how you are OFF the mat. “I’ve gone back to the real heart and soul of Yoga teaching since Yoga in the US crashed and burned. I think Yoga today might need a rehab.” |
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To keep herself centered and authentic Jenn visits her own teacher at Berkley three times a year. “It’s a shame that most Yoga practices have become so aggressive — it was never meant to be a “beat up workout or marathon run.’” I realized that Jenn has never been my “guru” or “spiritual master” but just a terrific ethical “teacher” and dare I say a simple “facilitator.
But everything in the world of Yoga has hit the wall — even the successful Lululemon clothing line with their scandalous issue and recall of “see through” Yoga pants. The designs were removed from the line, their CEO was fired, and the stock took a giant tumble. Obviously it’s not only the Yoga world that the culture inflates and destroys. It happens everywhere in politics and business and entertainment as well. We pedestal people only to create monsters who then end up abusing their power — and down everyone goes. Nowadays everyone seems to be “desperately seeking” a person, place or thing to ...“fill in their blanks.” One of the biggest psychoses of our era is “neediness." As for Bikram — it's an appropriate ending to a man who eventually brutally sued most of his former biz partners for the use of his name, over-sexualized his students, and basically degraded everyone else in between. Then again if Martin Scorsese can glamorize “The Wolf of Wall Street” — maybe a movie on Bikram being Yoga’s “Dirtiest Downward Dog” is next up ... |
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