Editor's blog: so yoga's coming to the builders' yard?

For any doubters out there still sceptical about yoga's mass market appeal, this one's for you. A certain cockney geezer going by the name of Trev The Yogic Builder is carving a niche as a self-appointed figurehead for blokes inclined to chuck a can of beer over anyone sporting the lotus position.

Apparently, Trevor Feet - head of South London's only Plasterers and Decorator's yoga society (so there are more elsewhere??! - ed) - is an expert in not only sanding and partitioning, but also in yogic chanting.

His website assures us he's “the only bloke down his pub who knows what a lotus pose is” and he's making a living for himself away from the builders' yard by teaching yoga workshops nationwide. He's also launched a DVD, the nattily named Yoga for Fellas.

Trev was introduced to yoga by his physiotherapist, who recommended it as treatment for a slipped disk in his back, brought on by 27 years in the building trade.

“I'm just a normal bloke who loves football and I might have a couple of fags every now and again”, he said in an article earlier this year in the Manchester Evening News.

Evidently, Trev has gained a fair amount of notoriety at his local boozer and beyond, probably from his builder colleagues for whom striking a yoga pose is still akin to pulling out a septic tooth.

There's more. Trev appears to belong to a bizarre group of comedy gurus (see their aptly named website, www.comedy-gurus.com), of which Reiki Ron is also a member.

According to the website, Ron is “a former nightclub bouncer and psychopathic east end gangster turned spiritual 'eeler.” He's also, allegedly, “an incongruous fusion of hate, violence and divine love”. Erm.....

Yet still it seems there's a fair way to go before downward facing dog becomes part of an accepted lunchtime routine on the building site, fitted in after a swift bacon buttie: “I hate to sound like a New Age nutter”, Trev frets.

I'd bet several tonnes of cement mix that there's not much chance of that.

See www.comedy-gurus.com if you dare

You can also visit Trev at the Yoga Show www.theyogashow.co.uk

Lucia Cockcroft, editor, www.yoga-abode.com