Start from heart center. Push the tail into the couch. Hold and breathe. It’s time for another episode of Namaste Yoga. Or maybe the only episode of Namaste Yoga. Every weekday at 5:30 a.m., and then again at 9:30 a.m., and then again at 3 p.m., the Citizen Kane of hatha vinyasa airs on FitTV.
In the middle of a tastefully abandoned warehouse, three lithe, long-limbed yoga angels assume Exalted Warrior in perfect, slo-mo synchronicity. The disembodied voice of a tranquilized robot offers placid but firm guidance: “Soft belly inhale. Strong belly exhale.” Spines lengthen. Hips are squared. In the background, water cascades from tastefully leaky ceiling pipes.
In ancient times, when yoga television was strictly an esoteric PBS phenomenon, it didn’t take much to cultivate enlightenment—a camera or two, a pair of leotards, an Oriental floor runner. Shows like Richard Hittleman’s Yoga for Health, which first aired in 1961, and Lilias Folan’s Lilias, Yoga and You!, which made its debut in 1972, were characterized by a Zen-like austerity that came naturally with fringe-market public television production budgets. Their camerawork was static. There was no such thing as a location change.
And of course they were maddening to watch, so in the moment the moment became unbearable. Only the most aggressively anesthetized housewives could achieve quiet mind looking at all that simplicity!
So yoga television evolved. Sets migrated outdoors, usually to barren, beachy Edens. The camera awakened from its semi-paralyzed slumber and started moving with limber assurance. Casts grew larger, more supple, less clothed. Just one of Hittleman’s outfits—he wore slacks, socks, and polo shirts—could provide enough fabric to keep tofucake guru Rodney Yee in his signature skimpy nut-huggers for life.
But while instructors like Yee and the lusciously relaxed Rainbeau Mars have helped turn yoga into television’s sexiest source of armchair enlightenment and myofascial pulchritude, it’s Namaste Yoga that offers stressed-out prana junkies the purest, most potent hit of tranquility porn.
It starts with the show’s distinctive lighting scheme. When the three yoga angels are inside, grainy, soft-focus sunbeams spill through huge loft windows. When they’re deep in the forest, grainy, soft-focus sunbeams spill through the canopy. There are shadows everywhere, but there’s nothing ominous about them—they’re the warm, inviting shadows popularized by full-frontal Titians like Bob Guccione and Adrian Lyne. “Come closer,” they beckon. “Soft belly inhale. Strong belly exhale.”
Like a hummingbird on heroin, the camera hovers above the three women, languidly celebrating their core abdominal power. It circles around them, leisurely moving closer, leisurely edging backward—if the eye is still, how can the mind be still?
Alas, even these hyperactive shifts of perspective are not enough to banish distraction completely, so Namaste Yoga never stays in any one location for more than 30 seconds. In a steady flow of gentle dissolves, the angels pinball soothingly from wide grass lawn to industrial warehouse to empty dance studio. The angels never speak; they barely even display emotion of any kind. The unseen narrator’s voice is as hushed and insistent as a heartbeat. To keep the tedium of absolute silence at bay, music from heaven’s elevators plays in the background.
Who are the geniuses who’ve crafted such frantic, complicated simplicity? When were the shows produced? Where? How many different episodes are there? One? A hundred? A few minutes at Google.com could yield answers to these questions, but why bother? Namaste Yoga exists beyond geographic and chronological particulars. It is a perfect incarnation of TV in its most compassionate state, TV as itchy, eternal, ephemeral Present, TV as repetitive, ahistorical loop—familiar, comforting, context-free.
It’s also completely unnecessary to attempt to mirror the moves of Namaste’s yoga angels. In fact, it’s counterproductive. Trying to duplicate their calm, confident grace would only frustrate you and make you tense. It’s better just to sit back and relax. Crack open a beer. Have a slice of pizza. Watch the camera tickle tendons and adductors like a gentle wind. Behold peach-firm breasts straining against organic spandex—have you ever seen nipples so serene and self-actualized?
Release your shoulders. Roll the spine forward. Imagine thought emptying from your head like water down a drain. Imagine your head as peaceful as an abandoned bubblegum machine. Feel your breath grow deep and steady. Don’t be afraid to drool a bit. Nap for 15 minutes. Circle hands to heart center and change the channel. It’s time for The View.