Yoga has taken off in a big way in China, with mega-studios such as Y+ boasting a host of glossy facilities, aimed at Shanghai's top earners. Libby Green reports from Shanghai.
In the changing rooms of Y+, in Shanghai's downtown Xintiandi district, teachers Irina and Doris are applying lip gloss in front of a large mirror that spans the length of the room.
Along with fellow teachers Moon, Lillian, Angela and Michelle, the two have recently graduated from the Yoga Alliance approved 500 hour teaching programme.
Y+, perhaps Shanghai's most prominent yoga studio, is holding an event called ‘Transformation & Devotion'; an hour long seminar on the progress of the teachers and what training has meant to them.
In the studio where the event is due to take place, Bernadette, the programme manager, is busy with a powerpoint presentation and brochures for the guests: a mixture of journalists and yoga students.
Rock music is blaring out from the speakers, and the screen shows a photograph of the six girls. It's a shot that wouldn't look out of place in a promo for an all-girl pop group.
As the room fills up, Michelle, who cuts a Beyonce-like figure with her caramel coloured hair and thick lashes, flashes a smile and makes a V sign for the photographer. There are Lululemon logos everywhere you look. Some of the students carry Chanel bags.
High end yoga
This is the high end of yoga. Annual membership at 10,000 yuan is just over £1000 at the exchange rate as of March. A ninety-minute lesson of hot yoga, yoga flow, or Yoga 101, costs £30.
By comparison, the government-set minimum wage in Shanghai, which most factory workers can hope to earn is 730 yuan per month, or around £75.00.
Despite the gap between the two figures, the studio is jam-packed, and I'm advised to book ahead if I want to attend classes.
This is Shanghai after all - the centre of commerce and finance for the world's fastest growing economy, and the birthplace of modern China, where skyscrapers and luxury brands such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton shoulder up against ancient Buddhist temples and restaurants serving traditional fried noodles. High end prices for yoga classes demand a high end studio.
Bernadette takes me for a tour. The studio is designed by architect Lyndon Neri and has won awards and accolades within the design community.
In one practice room, behind a heavy door, a curtain of sea-green ropes are suspended from the ceiling to form a curtain around the circular room. Soft lights are set into the walls, and it feels like an underwater world.
It's very calming, and unlike anything I've seen before, and I feel a yearn to roll out my mat and practice there.
In another, the Shanti Room, the theme is repeated with white ropes hanging like stalactites from the ceiling, bringing a softness to the stark white walls.
Lifestyle
In contrast to many of the UK's space-strapped yoga studios, practice rooms only form forty percent of the total space at Y+.
The rest of the studio is given over to relaxation spaces and communal areas. Students lounge on the cushioned window seats that look over the lake and park outside. There is a cafe, and library, power-showers and plush changing rooms.
By far my most favourite feature is the series of recessed meditation alcoves in the walls, screened by white sheer curtains to afford privacy.
In these alcoves, secret spy-holes allow you to look through into the yoga classes taking place in the adjacent rooms.
I place my eye to one and watch, mesmerised, the students in the hot yoga class next door moving slowly and carefully through the sequence, the quiet voice of the teacher giving instruction in Chinese and English.
Hot yoga is one of the more popular styles at the centre. 'It's about paidu, or detoxing', explains Bernadette. '
Chinese people love to detox, and relax their muscles, but they are concerned about overheating, so its a slower practice than Western style hot yoga. It's not about sweating it out or weight loss'.
Looking around, most of the students appear to slim, twenty-something year olds, and not in much need of weight loss. I ask whether yoga has any appeal to the older, perhaps more traditional Chinese person.
Yoga's rising popularity
Bill Arce, a vetern teacher of 35 years from the United States, who has been in Shanghai for the past four years, tells me that even the average man in the street, who would traditionally practice Tai Chi, or go dancing, now knows about yoga, and what a yujia laoshi, or yoga teacher,is.
Bernadette agrees with him, and tells me that they have students of all ages, adding though that when the older generation first came to yoga classes, they would insist on wearing their pyjamas. She says:'We would say, ‘Aunty, please, wear something other than your pyjamas', and we would have to coax them into trying a lycra cotton t-shirt'.
Browsing the internet later in my hotel room, I find that Bernadette and Y+ are not alone in discouraging the use of nightwear for uses other than sleeping.
Several newspaper articles cite attempts by local officials to stop the citizens of Shanghai from the traditional habit of wearing their pyjamas out in public or when going for a stroll. "We're telling people not to wear pyjamas in the street because it looks very uncivilised," one local official is quoted as saying.
I ask how yoga is perceived in China, and whether its spiritual values are played down in a society where the ruling communist party favoured atheism and where temples and pagodas were at one time closed down and turned into secular buildings.
Bernadette nods. 'Some of our students tell us that they don't want to chant, or recite the opening prayer for example that's done at the beginning of the Ashtanga sequence'.
Spirituality
The studio, however, does offer meditation classes for those that want to explore the more spiritual side of practice, and Bernadette adds that regardless of how chanting is interpreted or defined, most of the students would understand that sounds have a natural resonance.
Bill sees the spiritual values of yoga eventually coming more to the forefront. 'People see yoga as a form of attaining good health and creating a sense of harmony, which is very important in Chinese society.
'But the thought of yoga isn't just as exercise anymore. They are bringing more consciousness into their lives, and internal harmony reflects on their external selves, and to be on the ground floor, to see people changing their lives, is very rewarding'.
Facts:
Y+ runs three studios in the Shanghai area, offering a range of yoga styles and classes. See http://www.yplus.com.cn The studio is currently recruiting for experienced yoga teachers. Please contact Bernadette Wu, Programme Manager: wu.bernadette@gmail.com
A word about the author:
Libby Green is a dedicated yogi, having first taken to the mat when she was 19 years old. Her current practice is a mix of astanga, kundalini, and dynamic, and she plans to study to be a yoga teacher in the US next year. She now juggles a life as an full-time ethical consultant with a home in the New Forest. In her former life, she was a journalist in Indonesia, and has written for the Independent on Sunday, and the London Evening Standard. She can be contacted at wedoyoga@gmail.com
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