Type of site Blog Website www.recoveringyogi.com | Available in English Registration Optional | |
Owner Joslyn Hamilton, Vanessa Fiola, Leslie Munday Alexa rank 1,346,004 (January 2013) | ||
Recovering Yogi, “a refuge for the spiritually disenfranchised,” is a web site created in 2010 for those disillusioned with Western yoga culture and its various branches and ideologies. This web site often takes an irreverent approach to discussing some of the weightier topics surrounding yoga and the culture it has engendered in the West. In spite of that irreverence, Recovering Yogi has also sought to start a more meaningful dialog about how yoga is used, misused and misunderstood, while also being a medium for creative expression.
Recovering Yogi is a contributor-based forum, and has posted articles from people around the world. Topics range from various yoga culture faux pas, elitism in the healing arts, misguided sex, guru-worship, the commoditization of spirituality, dogmatic diets and more.
Founders
Recovering Yogi was founded by three women who met while working for popular yoga teacher Baron Baptiste. Joslyn Hamilton was deeply involved in the yoga industry for over ten years and once worked as a yoga studio manager and yoga teacher. She is now a freelance writer in Marin County, CA and a regular contributor to Recovering Yogi as well as co-managing editor. Vanessa Fiola, a former yoga teacher, is a Media & Entertainment consultant and illustrates the unique illustrations found on Recovering Yogi and its merchandise. She has also written several articles for Recovering Yogi and acts as co-managing editor. Leslie Munday manages a senior home care agency in Marin County, CA. She has written for Recovering Yogi many times.
In March of 2012, founding member Vanessa Fiola interviewed William J. Broad, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author at the New York Times, whose book The Science of Yoga created a controversy in the yogasphere. The article was very popular and helped Recovering Yogi increase its already viral fame. In the October 2012 issue of Vogue Magazine, Jessica Kerwin Jenkins mentioned Recovering Yogi alongside Broad’s book in an article titled “Breaking With Yoga.”