Woman Creates Rage Yoga: It’s Just Like Regular Yoga Except for the Swearing and Beer
By Chris dela Torre | CBC News
You won’t hear “namaste” even once — prepare yourself for an assortment of words that are a little more colourful.
Instead of a sun-filled studio, Lindsay Istace’s Rage Yoga classes are held in a curtained corner of Dickens Pub — a dimly-lit basement haunt in downtown Calgary.
The serene sounds of new age music that might permeate a conventional yoga class are replaced by pounding heavy metal.
But perhaps Rage Yoga’s most distinctive feature is the addition of screamed swear words and offensive gestures like the middle finger as a way to release stress and add a sense of humour to age-old yoga poses.
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“I’m a very loud, colourful personality,” said Istace, who has been leading the classes on Monday and Wednesday nights since January.
“I wanted to create a practice that I felt comfortable in, and I knew I wasn’t alone.”
Rage Yoga founder Lindsay Istace: ‘When I started going to yoga classes, I felt like I didn’t really fit in at a lot of those different studios. (There’s a) very deadpan, serious, overly serene approach to things. And that’s just not how I roll.’ (Chris dela Torre/CBC)
Unconventional techniques
Istace, who is also a trained contortionist and fire eater, says Rage Yoga is not a new yoga discipline, but brings a more casual attitude to an existing form of the popular health practice.
According to the Rage Yoga website, the movements are based on Vinyasa yoga, but performed at a slower pace.
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“When I started going to yoga classes, I felt like I didn’t really fit in at a lot of those different studios,” Istace says.
“(There’s a) very deadpan, serious, overly serene approach to things. And that’s just not how I roll.”