<\/p>\n
W<\/span>\nell, I thought that Friday\u2019s post<\/a> would be the last before this IGG campaign<\/a> wraps up, but my partner Alix had a thought over dinner last night that woke me up at\u00a0#@$%^&!<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>3am.<\/p>\n So far, a key focus of this project has been upon how the well-worn language, metaphors, and platitudes of modern postural yoga either conceal an unexamined metaphysics, or actively distort the goals that practitioners say they have. I\u2019ve asked what Ashtanga culture might mean by saying \u201clazy people can\u2019t practice\u201d<\/a>. I\u2019ve asked what the \u201cgeometry of yoga\u201d<\/a> implies about the eccentricities of the human form. I\u2019ve examined the assumptions<\/a> underlying the comparison between Mr. Iyengar and someone who carves religious idols out of stone. I\u2019ve looked at what it means to say \u201cAnyone can do these [elite, advanced] postures.\u201d<\/a> I\u2019ve looked at ways in which the empathy that practitioners claim to develop can be confounded by redirection, blaming, and dismissal through self-referral<\/a>.<\/p>\n Following along these lines, this is a post about a bit of language that we don’t<\/em> use. And how, if we did, things might be a little more clear.<\/p>\n Alix was describing how in the dance world she comes from, saying “S\/he’s a beautiful dancer” expresses a generalized appreciation for a way of moving felt to be unique and\/or authentic. The implicit understanding in dance\u00a0culture is that this beauty comes not only from opportunity and discipline, but also from innate talent.\u00a0“Talent” here carries the common meaning: a pre-existing exceptional quality or ability that exceeds the typical capacities of those\u00a0who engage a particular skill. Without the defining threshold of “talent”, everybody who worked hard in the dance studio would be equally suited to a professional career. Talent is the glass ceiling on\u00a0the\u00a0world of professional dance (or music\/writing\/painting).<\/p>\n It is in Yogaland as well, but we don’t talk about\u00a0it.<\/p>\n I don’t believe I’ve ever heard or seen the word “talent” applied to the top asana yogis of MPY. But I’ve heard this, thousands of times: She has a beautiful practice<\/em>. I’ve heard this said about people I know and about people I don’t know, like Kino MacGregor. Kino has a practice, for sure. And she creates beautiful images while doing it. But by calling her practice “beautiful” we generally imply that it has become that way, through, um, practice. This must be partially true. She has no doubt worked extremely hard to attain the postures she performs so gracefully, and certainly that work has impacted her on many levels. But that hard work is also capitalizing on something. She’s not starting from the same place as the vast majority. She comes with talent. Or\u00a0maybe genes that have programmed\u00a0her hip sockets in a particularly mobile way. Is there a difference between talent and genes?<\/p>\n E<\/span>\nveryone has a beautiful practice when they’re practicing. And everyone can take selfies. But only a few of those selfies can\u00a0go viral. Maybe talent makes the difference.<\/p>\n In Yogaland, the valorization of talent\u00a0happens beneath the surface, because every reason for everything has a hidden\u00a0esoteric default. Kino, Mr. Iyengar, Cameron Shayne — they all have that something special<\/em> that shows up in their practice. We don’t want it to be talent. We want it to be a virtue, accessible to everyone. But if we’re honest, talent is probably all we can really claim to see on the yoga mat. If we think we see more than that, we’re getting into the weird projective territory of guessing at the internal states of others.<\/p>\n Using the\u00a0word “talent” to describe what Kino is working with would come\u00a0with a price. It would confound\u00a0the democratic promise of postural learning that fuels the marketing of contemporary yoga. It sounds deterministic, and yoga’s all about freedom, right? Explanations based upon\u00a0talent or\u00a0genes would seem to rob\u00a0the yogi of agency. “Talent” would also reposition\u00a0the desirability of the skill by obscuring an\u00a0implied therapeutic benefit that everyone should have access to.<\/p>\n Everyone wants to have a beautiful practice. But most people understand that we are not all developing the same talents for the same reasons. Despite our traumatized, what-else-can-we-do?\u00a0belief in neoliberal meritocracy, most of us know that talent itself, much like the accident of happening to express conventional ideals of beauty, is the primary engine of visual renown and influence. Nature bestows differences that can look and even feel like inequalities. Perhaps difference is its own beautiful practice.<\/p>\n Talent is not unlike inherited money. It’s the\u00a0accumulation of beneficial cultural and genetic transactions. Unfortunately, our entire social architecture is set up to believe that it is\u00a0the earned property of the individual.<\/p>\n On the bright side, the acknowledgement of “talent” might\u00a0also demystify the process and charisma of exemplary postural yogis, and perhaps encourage more people to practice within their means — or, according to their difference.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A<\/span>\nt the Kirov ballet, the faculty running the admissions process have no illusions about what that “something special” is. You cannot count the fucks they do not give\u00a0about virtue. They are purely interested in the genetic endowment of joint mobility, with\u00a0a submissive demeanour running a close second. Check out this\u00a02006 documentary called “Ballerina”, which follows five young women from admissions through graduation.<\/p>\n