Beer YogaHave you seen the recent craze of drinking a bottle of bear whilst practicing Yoga? It is a fitness craze from Germany and gaining popularity in Asia and Australia, combining yoga poses while drinking beer.

Don’t close your mind to it. At the end of the day, if it brings people into Yoga practice it may be a good thing. Watch this video first:

This is a very entertaining idea, and one that may have something to it before those hardened yogi’s out there baulk at the idea.

Yoga does use the ideas of both mindfulness and meditation in its practice. Strictly speaking these are not the same thing. Mindfulness brings us into the present moment, being aware of all our senses and thoughts without passing judgment in the process.  Literally the aim is to ‘come to our senses’, hoping this practice will help us be ‘fully awake’ or ‘paying attention’ in all we do.

Meditation also requires mindfulness, but goes a step further and asks the practitioner to keep their minds so focused on the object of attention that time becomes inconsequential, the flow of concentration is unbroken and rather than simply learning to be mindful, the primary goal of yoga (meditation) is ultimately to come to realise our true Self or nature in the process.

The ultimate aim of yoga is to teach us the skills and ability to live life from our inner ‘mindful’ place or ‘Self’, rather than an ego tinged version of our real nature, where the ‘outer’ identity seeking part is in the driving seat. You could argue, alcohol can dampen the ego in some cases allowing our inhibitions to leave us, but as we all probably know has the opposite effect in others. So no yogi could advocate alcohol as a means to reaching the loftier goals of yoga. But using it as a path to being mindful, well that could certainly work.

Yoga is primarily a science of the mind. In Hatha yoga we use the body as the focus to still or to quieten the mind i.e. to be mindful. So having said all the above, there is no reason why you can’t use any object, including a beer bottle with its sensation of drinking to do this. There is no doubt drinking and performing physical asana, does raise certain risks, and perhaps eyebrows… but in its essence anything can be yoga as long as it’s your real inner nature in charge. If that for you is a beer loving nature…why not!

Why not learn more about Yoga and book your place on our Hatha Yoga course today. Expand your horizons.