Produced & directed by Kate Clere McIntyre and Saraswati Clere 
Yogawoman is like a breath of, well, fresh pranayama. It begins with a historical view of yoga—traditionally practiced exclusively by men. (Women, it seems, were excluded because they were both a distraction that stood in the way of enlightenment, and comparable to spoiled food.) But the real story Yogawoman tells is how women have changed the face of yoga in the West and around the world.
About 20 million people currently practice yoga in the United States, 85 percent of them women. For that we can thank a lineage of determined yoginis who boldly went where no women had gone before, creating a practice that we now take for granted. These women have not only helped redefine the practice of yoga from a female point of view, but found ways to incorporate it into their lives as a part of their normal daily routine. By expanding the traditional definition, these women have truly taken the practice off the mat.
This evolution has also helped demystify yoga, bringing it into the mainstream. It has become transformative in ways the early sages could never have imagined: psychological and physiological support for women with cancer, opening the door to a practice for women whose weight and the feeling that large women “can’t,” service and humanitarian work, and even scientific research.
Yogawoman is beautifully filmed with a narration by Annette Bening and featuring a full roster of well-known women teachers, practitioners and other yoga experts. It’s an enlightening and entertaining look at the ever-changing and expanding definition of yoga. So sit back, take a deep breath, exhale fully and enjoy.
—Jacquelin Sonderling
❋❋If you liked this story you might also like . . . ❋❋
❁ Crazy Wisdom
❁ My Reincarnation
❁ Breathing into Recovery
❁ Beyond Asanas (Yoga 2.0)
❁ PIYC: Dancer-activist Ana Maria Alvarez
❁ Samadhi and the Single Girl: Two New Books
