Yoga meets Zen for a new 20-minute warm-up

Zen yoga founder says adapting ancient practices to modern lives does not erase their deeper spiritual meaning

TOKYO: Imagine Indian yoga, Japanese zen, Chinese tai chi and qigong, wrapped into a 20-minute warm-up to be completed before you’ve even had your first cup of coffee of the day.

It may sound like the takeaway menu of an over-ambitious Asian fusion restaurant, but Aaron Hoopes, the founder of Zen Yoga, says adapting ancient exercises and meditation practices to modern lives does not erase their deeper spiritual meaning.

“All these disciplines have been around for thousands of years,” Hoopes said in Tokyo, where he was teaching workshops and promoting his book, Zen Yoga.

“I didn’t make them up. I put them in a form people are able to access in a comprehensive and clear way.”

Accessibility is a central theme in Hoopes’ teachings. While Hoopes also works with athletes, he wants his package of stretching, moving and breathing exercises to appeal to people who would not dare to venture inside a conventional yoga studio.

Hoopes’ book, published by Kodansha in 2007, outlines a series of exercises ranging from yoga stretches to the Chinese practice of tai chi. The author, who used to live in Japan and now lives in the United States, finds the two complement each other since yoga focuses on flexibility, while tai chi opens the joints.

“If you combine this concept of movement and circulation through the joints with the lengthening and strengthening of the muscles in yoga, then you get what Zen Yoga is trying to accomplish in getting the whole body working and flowing with energy,” he said.

The Zen part of Zen Yoga is a little harder to define. Zen is a school of Buddhism, and one of its central teachings is to improve awareness through meditation. One way to achieve such mindful awareness is through breathing exercises.

Hoopes is, of course, not the first person to merge yoga with other spiritual practices and even Western forms of exercise.

Walk into an average yoga studio and you will find courses ranging from hot yoga to power yoga to slimming yoga. Many of the newer variations of the ancient practice are viewed with suspicion by traditionalists, but as stressed-out urban dwellers flock to yoga studios around the world, the diversity of styles is only likely to increase.

His hope is that the short Zen Yoga routine will encourage people to build the practice into their daily lives, making a habit out of simple exercises such as shoulder-shrugging or wrist rotation to loosen the body and calm the mind.