Yoga with Adriene - Redo of PMS Video

[ThePawtriarchy]

I’ve just seen the message in my inbox from Yoga with Adriene saying that she’s done a redo of her really popular ‘Yoga for Cramps and PMS for Women’ video to remove the reference to ‘Hey Ladies’ etc and make it all gender neutral, to be inclusive.

I actually just feel really sad now. I feel excluded as a woman, there’s nowhere that’s safe where I don’t have to consider men first.

I went to India to deepen my practice: I stayed 18 months the first time and return for longer or shoretr periods almost every year.

That's amazing - I'm extremely envious.

Practicing genuine Yoga would root out completely any idea of being the opposite sex. It just doesn't compute. It would teach you to feel completely at home in the body you have been given, completely at one with it, body and mind harmonized.

Very, very well said.

I got this email this morning. And felt very disappointed.

I trust with Adrienne that this comes from a place of kindness - a genuine desire to do the right thing.

I just wish people would realise kindness isn't just an easy thing. Sometimes you have to think long and hard about what is kind, and sometimes it's the hard thing to do, the thing that doesn't get you the slaps on the back in the moment, the thing that doesn't always feel immediately gratifying, the thing which isn't simple but after real intellectual grappling you've decided is the right course.

Adriene is trying to be kind. But really she's avoiding the hard work behind that drive.

It's disappointing, but I still love her.
As I feel her attempt to be kind is genuine.

QuaterMiss

Your post reads like you are blaming this on transwomen?

If it's anything like the issue with Always it is transmen who are campaigning for this. It's them for whom being referred to as women because they have periods is the problem.

Transwomen and men can't be blamed for everything.

Interesting Lamahaha. I've never got on with Yoga (only stopped by on here because I'm nosey) but when I did try it, the stuff that resonated the most was always to do with being aware of your body and being in tune with it.

As for the video being neutral or for everyone. Eh? If it's to do with periods then it's for women and about women.

Of course you may decide to let it go because you like her. I get that - done it myself on other occasions. But it's still a nonsense.

If it's to do with periods then it's for women and about women.

Well, it's now for women and transmen, who also have periods.

I also can't really see how yoga exercises can be specifically for periods - you don't do it with your uterus.

So, I have Crohn's disease which gives me a lot of abdominal pain and I find this helps me with that pain too so I think it is good to open it up to more people to help with all sorts of health conditions.

As it's done in your own home it's not an issue if a man is doing it at the same time.

'Women' has become an offensive, dirty word when used by …. female people. (Male people using it about themselves, stand up and clap and cheer, obvs.)

You may now only refer to, talk about and provide for the experience of the half of the human race born female if (and God help you if you don't) you rush immediately to say that no, those experiences are absolutely inclusive of everybody and nothing whatever to do with being female. Really. Honest. No, I'm really really not being offensive honest.

Erasing, excluding, silencing people born female. For what? To 'include' less than 1% of the population, and who see 'inclusion' not as 'add to' and 'everyone', but 'remove from them and give to me'. Punishing and erasing women is what inclusion now means.

Stand by to see women as a class get more and more obviously, loudly pissed off and start creating strong boundaries they wouldn't have had to create if a very small number of people hadn't treated them so contemptuously and so very rudely.

The world has gone mad

I also can't really see how yoga exercises can be specifically for periods - you don't do it with your uterus.

Wins the internet for stupidest thing I've read on Mumsnet ever.

Yeah maybe she should have rebranded it as a video for all types of abdominal pain. But from what I can gather, she hasn't. If she says it's for periods then it's for women. Because, irrespective of how you identify, it's women who have periods. Biology. This really should not be contentious.

Anyway I have no intention of spending the next 40 pages repeating myself to you. Good day.

I also can't really see how yoga exercises can be specifically for periods - you don't do it with your uterus.
🤣😂🤣

I've just done an Adriene yoga session this morning. I guess I'm not that surprised to hear this - she does seem like the kind of person who'd be pretty woke.

Lamahaha - I live pretty much in the sticks, and I'd never find a truly authentic traditional yoga teacher round here. I'm wondering if there is such a thing as a YouTube one who isn't so westernised and new-agey...

zebrasdontwearbras
So what is yoga specifically for periods then? As opposed to yoga that eases abdominal muscles, releases endorphins etc?

#nationalperiodday is such a dispiriting read.
twitter.com/A_Silent_Child/status/1185731888968654848?s=19

I've never done Yoga for specific female problems, because I've never had specific female problems.

I have never had PMS. Never had period pains, not once. My two births were straighforward and manageable -- painful, but uncomplicated, vaginal births without painkillers, and breastfed children without complications.

For the first birth, I did have a problem, a loose cervix, which could have been managed naturally if my then gynecologist had not orderd a cerclage and then pumper me full of medication.

I had virtually no symptoms going through menopause -- no hot flushes or any of the other typical symptoms. My periods simply stopped, and life continued as before.

I say this not to boast, but to simply relate the facts, as I believe this is all down to Yoga, which really does bring all aspects of our being miraculously into harmony, if practiced with diligence. The idea being that good health, physical and mental, is our natural state, and can be regained with a little effort.

I do fear that the woke young women will try to press their woke agenda into Yoga, and this might be just the beginning. After all, most people doing Yoga are young women with a very hip outlook... yep, I'm very wary.

Lamahaha - I live pretty much in the sticks, and I'd never find a truly authentic traditional yoga teacher round here. I'm wondering if there is such a thing as a YouTube one who isn't so westernised and new-agey...

I'm not up to date with Yoga YouTube videos, though my daughter, a qualified Yoga teacher, has contemplated doing one. She got her training at a Sivananda centre in India -- they are excellent; I did a refresher course in India at one of their centres two years ago. It's worth it, if at all possible, too take one of their courses; they are not expensive and very good.

In the beginning I had an Indian teacher and as well I taught myself with a book called Yoga and Health, by Selvarajan Yesudian. So that was my original method.

And, just having googled him, I see there are a number of YouTubes with his teaching ---- he was practically the very first Yoga teacher who ever came to the West, in 1934, I think. I haven't checked the videos, but they should be good.

@Lamahaha I know you said you go to India to learn yoga techniques but do you know of any online tutorials that are worth following? I've never been able to get yoga to work for me, maybe I've just not found the right teachers.

(sorry to be off topic everyone)

A link to the excellent book, Yoga and Health. mentioned in my lasy post. It was out of print for a long time, and I see now it has been reprinted in paperback.

www.amazon.com/product-reviews/0060802499/ref=acr_dp_hist_5?filterByStar=five_star&reviewerType=all_reviews&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8#reviews-filter-bar

@uponmytiptoes This seems good. This is where my daughter did her Yoga teacher training course. She now teaches in Northern Irelend.

@Lamahaha Ah brilliant! I'll give it a go once the baby is asleep. Thank you 😊

Oh no! Adriene if you're reading this I'm unsubcribing from your service and finding a new online yogi. You're the last person I ever wanted to boycott btw but this is the world we're living in.

I absolutely don't doubt that yoga is wonderful for health and mind, and can help cramps etc, but I've never had period pains and only started yoga at around age 33.

Some women just don't get them.

Didn't really get much chance to experience labour; I personally didn't find it painful to 4cm; more very strong pressure. I do think yoga helped cope as far as I got, if I could have got into various positions it would have helped more but Ds was poorly so monitoring lying in one position and then emcs then Elcs with number 2.

Haven't done any Adrienne but many have recommended it. Not great for hyper mobility though so I don't do it regularly anymore.

But yes it's a snake that woman is a dirty word.

I know women who run red tents are feeling increasing pressure to change their language.

*Shame.

I've just seen this email too and came here to see if there was a thread about it. I think I feel sad that this ideology is so pervasive and confused that it's seen as progressive.

I just read it too. I'm so disappointed.

Why just give women away, why not say, this is for women, because it is.

And here's the thing, women are literally going to search on YT for women's yoga for cramping or PMS, it's just virtue signalling, and deleting 50% of the people for less than 1%.

Women have worked so hard for years to be able to talk openly about women's issues, and just like that, we're now not even allowed to say they are women's issues any more.

I went to a meeting for Endometriosis, and it was so refreshing, it was continually said how it's a women's problem and disease, and it was so totally about women, and we were all women in the hall. However, it won't be long before they silence them from saying it's about women.

And it's seen as progressive to remove women from the conversation. It's so saddening. I always liked Adriene, she helped so much as I've been so ill, her video's helped me regain activity.
Why?

I imagine she's under pressure from advertisers. Why else would she suddenly do this 3 years after mosts sane women reached Peaktrans? Lots of her early videos are a bit dodgy one way or another but she leaves those up for all to see