Soul Mat · 19 November 2008
I keep seeing the yoga mod squad tooling around Bentwood, a pride of golden lions at rest, bespectacled in oakleys and low-riding their surf shorts. They drive a screaming yellow new Land Cruiser, loaded with racks and mirrors and sporting a logo.
"www.yogamatic.com: your custom yoga mat company"
Fine. I just checket it out. They have a credo and everything.
We believe that one’s 12 square feet of floor space… should truly reflect one’s individual spirit and interests. After 18 months of research and development… we arrived at a formula that finally enables people the freedom to express themselves, whether that be in the creation of their own mat, or in the adoption of YM’s unique artwork… Your “soul mat” is sure to be found here.
I think I need to start an award. The Yoga Consumerism trophy. The Seriously Not Getting It medal. Kali Yuga Luminaries.
But I’d rather laugh than cry. They are having a good time with their venture capital:
What would the ashtangis put on their mats? “NO EXIT”? Rosebud the sled? Durvasa? A black hole?
Don’t say SKPJ. Don't even.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: astanga yoga
, markets-networks-society
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Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 19, 08:45 PM · #
Practice and all is coming…??? Hahaha. I know, how generic.
It’s cool. I’d prefer the black hole maybe.
Posted by: Laruga · Nov 19, 10:34 PM · #
Times like these…wouldn’t you rather be a Somali pirate?
This is what comes with the ‘feminization’ of yoga – wittery blurbs, tawdry baubles and garbha pindasana all round. Time was, all one needed was a trident, a bag of ashes and the ability to (on occasion) control one’s cock. How has it come to this?
The mirror mat: a kiss in dd, a hump in ud and a good old projection boost to shine it all around
Durvasa curse America.
Posted by: meniscusmerangue · Nov 20, 01:38 AM · #
That’s pretty funny.
But surely they would make more money sublimating onto toilet seats or on the flip up part:
Free your mind etc etc… Toilet Humour has its own category ferchrisake. What kind of business plan do they have? Is there a market for Yoga Humour?
Why is there no humour in sacrifice?! :)
Posted by: Gregor · Nov 20, 03:49 AM · #
There’s humor in sacrifice! Just no artifacts to present as evidence (or to sell). :-)
I just watched “Point Break” the other night, and your description of the crew sounds like the Point Break surfers. So I’ll vote for a cosmic surfboard mat.
Posted by: karen · Nov 20, 04:26 AM · #
I think they’re sincere about the biz plan. They really think there’s a niche they MUST fill. They seem to market online and by the Red Bull method: driving that clown car around town.
Katie asked if soul mat is like door mat. Yes… just toss your soul down here, spread it out to dry like a sweater? Heraclitus says it’s not good for your soul to get moist… much better to just wring it out every morning.
No humor in sacrifice! Ha! What about Kirkegaard’s brutal image of Jesus Christ, hanging on the cross under a little sign that says “Nothing in Excess”? Mat with crucifix: too much????
Or, for the anti-rational magical thinking ones: crystal ball mat? :)
Maybe there could be a sort of mood ring mat. Switching between cosmic surfboard/ black hole/ mirror/ flat black.
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 20, 10:15 AM · #
I just thought of something. Self-adornment is as old as tribes. What our age has done successfully is capitalize on the self-adornment impulse, spreading the boundaries of the self to be adorned. Now your car represents you; your home decor is a reflection of you. Sort of creepy. But interesting, this sense of selfhood beyond the body. Now, maybe that expanded selfhood (on that includes the environing world) can be decommodified, related to in different ways, ensouled.
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 20, 10:16 AM · #
Yes, the Thousand Points of Light of the kinder, gentler Kali Yug.
But I might consider a Manduka with a pair of yellow footprints at one end edge.
Posted by: Carl · Nov 20, 10:31 AM · #
Mmmm. Interesting, this thought about how self-adornment has spread to external objects.
So, now — if a yogi is overly concerned with his/her physical body (body itself as self-adornment), is that very different? A kind of physical materialism that’s confined to the body itself?
You make us think dangerous things :-)
Posted by: karen · Nov 20, 11:14 AM · #
I am going all out and getting an anti-gravity mat!
Posted by: Gregor · Nov 20, 02:42 PM · #
We are living in the dust of Moses: good old idols have been caste away and woe to the man accused of idolatry. So if our society has dampened enthusiasm for a good old fashioned “murti” adorned with butterballs in the corner and Beverly Hills adjacent, then perhaps the idol impulse has sprouted anew wedded to conspicuous consumeristic consummators. Therefore we see the image on the car, shirt, hat, and – why the hell not – mat.
Causes: Avidya or Maya or 300 million people in the US and it takes only about (guessing) 50 to cover the essentials of food, shelter and fire. What are the other 100 million gonna do? Some could make trouble and some could unmake trouble and some could make yoga mats. I guess I am saying as silly as billboard mats sound it could be a lot worse.
Footnote: about 10 years ago I stenciled in on a light blue mat in big black letters: “God is Good God is Everything” – I thought that was what yoga was about so I thought it would be good to remind myself of it in every downward dog. Afterall, its the remembering to wake up thats the hardest part (for me anyways). I later came to understand that for most, that was not what yoga was about and people just thought I was a maniac on a blue mat – at least they didn’t f’ with me too much, and now I think I know why.
Posted by: e&sj · Nov 20, 02:54 PM · #
hi (0v0)
you find the funniest things. i could not see myself practicing on a mat such as that one titled “oat” – thinking while practicing of a breakfast bar. you may be right that ashtangis might gravitate to a skippy jay version of the dalai one.
cheers,
Arturo
Posted by: arturo · Nov 20, 04:54 PM · #
Well… I can’t help but think it would be excellent to once in a while dedicate my practice to Che. OK, I have Marxist samskaras in abundance. Say what you will.
Posted by: jlafitte · Nov 20, 05:15 PM · #
The Che yoga mat is beyond funny.
God is…—Good God!—is everything?
Yes, it could be worse. We could be doing “Yoga Trance Dance” on those mats. (Bad Owl.)
Karen, if I am the department of dangerous thinking, you are the department of paradox. To your question, I wonder… what is the boundary between self-care (body-care) and self-adornment? The body is soooo tricky. Different cultures have different standards for taking care of the body… vanity of vanities… :)
Carl… kinder, gentler Kali Yug. I think I might have to draft a fictional mission statement for the Thousand Points of Kali Foundation on account of that comment.
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 20, 10:15 PM · #
There’s nothing about the idea of expansion of the ‘adorned self’ to include ‘external’ objects that would not make sense to the average Scythian nobleperson (or the shamanic characters of the parish). True, this ‘nobility’ has increased in number, but so has the size of the tribe.
Though providing plenty of scope for juvenal behaviour, this ‘firstnamelastname’ yogaworld nonsense and this matmarque malarkey is just plain wrong.
Nice to see those of you who were creaming over the election of Obama are back to chucking these ideas around like trustafarian jugglers on the make.
Posted by: meniscusmerangue · Nov 21, 01:46 AM · #
I thought that you made up those designs. No shit. I thought, “Boy, that owl, she’s pretty spot on with making fun of . . . oh . . . someone actually wants to practice yoga on Che Guevara?” That is so unbelievably wrong.
Posted by: RE · Nov 21, 07:05 AM · #
the che one is suitable. i’m with jlafitte.
Posted by: bindifry · Nov 21, 07:48 AM · #
Now that I think about it, Kali might be nice.
Posted by: karen · Nov 21, 09:30 AM · #
Sadly, I’m in love with the Esc mat.
Posted by: V · Nov 21, 12:39 PM · #
Leave it to Che to be a polarizing figure.
Kali and Esc are both terribly funny.
And leave it to the Classics scholar to think there’s nothing new since BCE under the sun (maybe you need more sun? It’s 78 here). Capitalism’s imperative for surplus value, planned obsolescence, seasonal fashion—making for not just quantitative differences in the consuming classes but qualitative differences in relationships with objects.
BTW, are your comments not posting here? Several people are saying this. Unless your name is Zee, I’m not blocking comments. Sorry. Textpattern gets a little fussy sometimes.
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 21, 12:52 PM · #
Oh, and I should ask!
I’m designing a floor program for someone with a broken ankle. It needs to avoid stretching the calves and be a strong workout. I don’t know much about exercise so am in danger of scheduling nothing but Navasana variations. Any ideas would be really nice, if you have them????
Eight minutes til lunch hour ends…
BTW, fellow degenerates, the new Beyonce’ is totally good. She sings Ave Maria.
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 21, 12:54 PM · #
Take two:
I’m going to curse on your blog twice.
A) You’ve got to be shitting me
B) Mine would say Fuck Yoga
Posted by: LI Ashtangini · Nov 21, 01:00 PM · #
One-legged pushups.
Posted by: V · Nov 21, 01:03 PM · #
FCUK YOGA? Sonya… do you think we could make money with this?????
Ok, one more comment and then I have to work:
For Carl,
draft text of the Thousand Points of Kali Foundation mission statement:
We realize that Kali Yuga has been upon us for quite some time, and it has by all accounts been brutal.
Look around. Magical thinking, self-defensive relativism, self-tranquilizing “spiritual” practice, avoidance of moral questions, body dysmorphia. Rampant denial symptoms—what experts call spiritual bypassing—are the signs of the times.
Witness our pitiful moment in human history: The Secret, yoga retreats to Bali, actually believing in astrology, compulsive self-affirmation, loss of relationship, self-isolation, bad gurus, reduction of physical maladies to “the mind,” Yoga Journal, etc.
We at the Thousand Points of Kali Foundation believe a kinder, gentler Kali Yuga is possible. Our mission is to recognize the seed of truth at the heart of the delusion and degeneracy of our age. In the bacon-wrapped chestnut canapé our age serves us, we honor your inner water chestnut. We believe that sometimes narcissism, fear and consumerism may indeed contain a simple, deeper core desire to be whole.
We honor the seed in our way, by seeking out pitch-perfect expressions of our time, the thousand points of kali yug. To nominate yourself or someone you know for a Yugee, just think about us really hard—the same way you do when you’re working on manifesting parking spaces and new cars with The Secret. In other words, don’t call us. We’ll call you.
Jai Che Guevara.
Namaste’.
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 21, 01:04 PM · #
Good call. I’ll use those.
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 21, 01:05 PM · #
Jai Che!
Posted by: Carl · Nov 21, 03:07 PM · #
just for fun i did a word count on the next to the next to the last comment, and it has 258 words, 1320 characters. but there are so many “of the moment” ideas there that they seem to qualify for the thousand points of the kali yuga foundation. hehe.
Posted by: arturo · Nov 21, 09:10 PM · #
leave it to the social scientist to flail around her grave-robbed, obfuscatory amulets to bamboozle the gomukhated.
Where you live it will always be ’78.
Floor work:
Alternate behind back, hands to prayer paschim with with dandasana lifts; ankle (shin) supported mayurasana/chaturanga variations; supine straight-leg twists; nav-lift(not swing)-ardha nav (reps); vais-set up on elbow, shin supported plus face front; ankle supported neck bridge into half reverse push up;swarm of locusts.
Posted by: meniscusmerangue · Nov 22, 04:52 AM · #
I think I could get into a “mood mat”- but mine would always be black anyway since my yoga body temperature seems to be around 105 degrees.
I worked on a project using bronze colored spray paint next to where I had my mat on the floor … spray paint particles hit floor, feet walked across floor and over mat… mat had bronze foot prints for several weeks until they wore off. I didn’t know I was overlooking a brilliant business idea.
huh.
Posted by: Liz · Nov 22, 05:51 PM · #
i like Liz’s design approach. it reminds me that i once fell off a headstand (the sixth of the seven), kicked the candle stand, which spilled hot wax all over the mat (and wall) in a pattern. that’s a business idea in development, eh? hey, a fave blogger is calling My..re PJ’s place, so why not have a mat with that title and a pattern of pajamas? we creative types need outlets, don’t we? happy sunday.
Posted by: arturo · Nov 23, 05:27 AM · #
oh! i just thought of a good one. a picture of a can of Peanut Butter, with the brand name SkippyJ and the caption, “better than the leading brand.”
ok I’m going to practice and promise I’ll be quiet the rest of the day.
Posted by: arturo · Nov 23, 06:02 AM · #
I can see it now: “Ashtanga Yoga. Great with jelly.” (noting of course that, in the UK, or so I’ve heard, PBnJ is considered to be repellent)
Posted by: patrick · Nov 23, 01:32 PM · #
Nice, you two.
Ashtanga Yoga: Relish for your Reality Sandwich.
Posted by: (0v0) · Nov 23, 02:58 PM · #