[QUESTION] What’s Harder to Get Through: “Beginners Yoga Dance” or QWOP?

First: If you missed Aghori’s recorded interview with Where is My Guru?, you can go and listen to it here (skip to about the 66:00 min mark if you wanna go right to the goods). Listen in awe as he discusses fermented fruits, money as non-neutral signifier, yoga bleaching, and the concept of the “yogilebrity.”

Second: Were you planning on starting your day off with eternal frustration and deep-rooted psychological trauma? You were? Great! Than you’re ready to take our Monday morning challenge.

We challenge you to first sit through this entire “Beginner’s Yoga Dance” YouTube video:

Then, when your brain has been thoroughly converted into an insignificant stew, we challenge you to play the insanely mind-f’ing “game,” “QWOP,” without your nervous system rebelling against itself:

The question is: Which of the two challenges is more difficult?

22 comments

  1. Babs is definitely the Banksy of yoga.

    • amphibi1yogini

      Certainly he will have cross-pollination of his own and even yoga instructors (?!) joining him, as more readers of blogs become aware and as the “backlash to commercialized yoga” continues. Just like a graffiti artist who was a lot like Banksy had in the documentary, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” by his photographer and chronicler …

      • Banksy isn’t crazy about Mr. Brainwash these days, judging from that documentary.
        Babs, who do you think would be the yoga equivalent of Mr. Brainwash?

        • If Mr. Brainwash is even a real person. My guess is he’s a product of Banksy, himself. That would be much more in line with B’s ability to widen the lens so far that it eventually includes even the audience itself.

          Nevertheless, it’s a great question, EER. Hmmm… Who could be yoga’s Mr. Brainwash? It’d have to be someone who poses as radical…. Could Aghori B be both Banksy AND Mr. B?!

  2. Yogachip

    CANNOT UNSEE.
    re: this video – I made it to :46

  3. The video for sure. I only made it to 1:54.
    QWOP, while agonizing, is addictive and rather entertaining.
    Good one Babs.
    I have a feeling I might just lose Thad for the next hour or two though. He just got to 2.8metres and he’s such a persistent little bulldog that there’s no stopping him now…..

  4. Thaddeus

    Made it to 1:27 in the video and 3.3 meters with QWOP, which incidentally took way longer than 1:27 of video watching.
    The problem is that I could easily spend the rest of the day with QWOP and I just might.

    • @lilablog & Thad: I am sorry for what I have done to your relationship. I honestly should have known that putting QWOP within T’s sights might have adverse effects on your coming union!

  5. Thaddeus

    Damn you Babs!

  6. Thaddeus

    5.2 meters and counting.

  7. Itstrue

    I made it to 46 seconds of video, while my face retreated into my pillow from embarrassment. QWOP! That game is doooooooooooope!!!!!!

  8. Yoga Whelp

    I was waving my $20 bill but neither of them noticed? Do you tip at the end? I really hate it when they take the big pole out, though. It really adds something.

  9. Chai Fan

    This is what happened with my first attempt at QWOP:
    I managed to get the guy to fall down backwards and then received this message:
    Participant:
    Showing Real Courage, you ran:
    -.1.1 meters (yes, that is negative 1.1)
    Everyone is a winner.

  10. Yoga Whelp

    By the way, for the record, the final resting pose in the yoga dance is not, in fact, “frog pose,” as the leader suggests. Frog pose would have the practitioners’ splay their knees and legs out a bit. It’s not a resting pose. Here what see we see is a version of “Child’s Pose.” Though under the circumstances, I might call it “Baby Girl” or “Sub” pose.

    • Riiiiight … that’s the pose the subs use in your vinyasa class when they can’t think or anything better to put in the Level I sequence they give you … um, well – the fact that I ventured to class, at least, I burned a couple more calories; plus I can’t really eat in the studio, AAANDD, I didn’t have to count breaths or set my timer … Yup! I appreciate all my subs …

      Unless, did you mean short for “submarine”?

  11. Be Scofield

    But without Yoga Dance videos how will we be prepared for the Yoga Rave? 🙂 http://vimeo.com/39659461#

    http://www.yogarave.org/us/

    • Greenpoint

      there is that yoga as “stress reduction” idea again, personally think that is gaining/has a large amount of “marketing panache” and is fairly bogus, similar to the yoga as “weight loss” scam….think it would be a nice topic for a “yoga bleaching” article(s)…

      • Restorative Yoga as yoga-readiness profiling: Especially if it is a catch-all category to ghettoize any newbie who looks like they are wandering into a New York City area studio while wearing a double-digit size (if female) and while being anywhere north of 50 years old …

        No … that studio does not get my business anymore, and Yes, I picked their brains with impunity in their so-called “All Levels” class … NOT like in the article, linked to above–but for my own, at home, longer than class length practices and for use in a nearby competitor’s studio … [so, to the first studio, “EAT IT!”]

        • amphibi1yogini

          I meant to say, not like in the NYT article linked to in a comment I made in the Yogilebrity Attack post … the writer was snarky, but she expected to actually practice yoga via her being in a yoga class … I no longer “practice” yoga by going to yoga classes …

          If I were young, energetic and a little more naturally athletic, I’d be the one showing up at class only when I needed to learn a new pose …

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