Yogawoman Review

If you do yoga and you are a woman (me! me!) you are going to want to see the new documentary film entitled Yogawoman. And if you are interested in yoga's evolution over the past 60-odd years, regardless of your sex, you will also get a lot out of this film, which traces the popularization of yoga, largely due to an influx of female practitioners, since the middle of the last century.

According to the film, there are 20 million people now practicing yoga in the United States, 80% of whom are women. With so much of yoga's current market share attributed to women, it's easy to forget that yoga was a man's, man's, man's world for much of its long history.

Yoga's gender gap started to close in 1937, when Indra Devi prevailed upon renowned yoga guru T. Krishnamacharya to teach her. He reluctantly took her on as his first female student and later trained her to teach. Devi introduced yoga to the Hollywood starlets of the 1940s, and yoga's popularity with women has only increased since then. Women now drive the multi-million dollar yoga industry, which includes clothing, magazines, books, videos and lifestyle products.

Yogawoman weaves several threads together to form a picture of the state of yoga for women today. The first thread is historical, looking at how women have come to the fore and interviewing an impressive number of yoga's female leading lights, including Lilias Folan, who became the face of yoga in the 1970s due to her public television program; trance dancer Shiva Rea; Om Yoga founder Cyndi Lee; noted yoga author Donna Farhi; meditation specialist Sally Kempton; Jivamukti co-founder Sharon Gannon; and noted teachers Angela Farmer, Sarah Power, Elena Brower and Judith Lasater, among others.

As these women discuss their personal paths as women in yoga, several of the film's larger motifs emerge. Seane Corn's Off the Mat Into the World philanthropic program, which aids women with HIV in Uganda, is given special attention as a successful female-driven social program. Iyengar expert Patricia Walden introduces the idea of personal redemption through yoga with her story, a topic that is echoed by numerous others. The powerful effect yoga can have in encouraging a positive self image also becomes a recurrent theme, as the film looks at the benefits of yoga for obese women, incarcerated teenagers and the inhabitants of the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya.

Using yoga to improve women's health is another prominent theme. Yoga research scientist Dr. Shirley Tells' account of how women with cancer benefit from yoga is tied to one of the film's most inspiring stories, that of Tari Prinster, a breast cancer survivor who teaches classes for other cancer patients. Dr. Tells' research in India shows that yoga benefits cancer patients by lifting their mood, boosting their immune systems and improving toleration of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, which is borne out by Prinster's experience. Dr. Sara Gottfried, a Harvard-trained physician, offers a glimpse into how holistic practices, including yoga, can be integrated into the treatment of female patients, particularly by naturally regulating their hormones as they age.

As you can probably tell, this film tries to cover a lot, more than is even touched upon here. Though the pace can be a little frantic and some topics are much more fully explored than others, this viewer came away excited by the many possibilities put forth. As the narratives run through the female life cycle--covering yoga for little girls, for troubled teens, for mothers, for disease and in preparation for death--the film's biggest message is revealed as the potential for improving one's life through yoga, no matter one's age, geography or health. It's a message that comes up again and again.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.