LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Muscles rippled, heads appeared in impossible places and the sweet smell of incense wafted in the air as the first World Yoga Championship ever staged in the United States got off to a mind-boggling start on Thursday.
Some 70 contestants limbered up for a four-day pose off in a contest aimed both at challenging the concept that competition is anathema to the ancient spiritual practice of yoga, and laying the groundwork for yoga to become an Olympic event.
"Yoga doesn't mean just sitting and meditating and eating health foods," said championship organizer and "hot yoga" guru Bikram Choudhury at the Los Angeles Convention Center, where the event is taking place.
"There have been yoga championships in India for hundreds of years. Competitions have also been held in Japan, Uruguay, Brazil. Argentina and Italy," Choudhury told Reuters.
"It is a combination of body-building, Miss World (news - web sites), Mr. Universe and gymnastics," he added.
The very notion of a yoga competition has disturbed the karma of some U.S. yoga enthusiasts, who bristle at the concept of selling what they consider an essentially mind-healing way of life.
But Choudhury, a former multiple Indian Yoga Champion who is as short on humility as he is long on ambition, shrugs off the critics.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030926/od_nm/life_yoga_dc
Some 70 contestants limbered up for a four-day pose off in a contest aimed both at challenging the concept that competition is anathema to the ancient spiritual practice of yoga, and laying the groundwork for yoga to become an Olympic event.
"Yoga doesn't mean just sitting and meditating and eating health foods," said championship organizer and "hot yoga" guru Bikram Choudhury at the Los Angeles Convention Center, where the event is taking place.
"There have been yoga championships in India for hundreds of years. Competitions have also been held in Japan, Uruguay, Brazil. Argentina and Italy," Choudhury told Reuters.
"It is a combination of body-building, Miss World (news - web sites), Mr. Universe and gymnastics," he added.
The very notion of a yoga competition has disturbed the karma of some U.S. yoga enthusiasts, who bristle at the concept of selling what they consider an essentially mind-healing way of life.
But Choudhury, a former multiple Indian Yoga Champion who is as short on humility as he is long on ambition, shrugs off the critics.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030926/od_nm/life_yoga_dc