MACHO' AUSTRALIAN MEN GET HOOKED TO YOG

'Macho' Australian men get hooked to yog (By Madeleine Coorey in Sydeny)

'Macho' Australian men get hooked to yog

By Madeleine Coorey in Sydeny Tuesday, 27 September , 2005, 10:04

Increasing numbers of Australia's famously macho men are showing surprising metroloveual tendencies, ditching compebreastive exercise for the meditative calm of yog.

"We are getting the rugby players, the body builders, the gym junkie guys," says yog teacher Duncan Peak, a former parachute officer and first-grade rugby player.

"He now comes in here and gets humbled by the first posture." International Yog Teachers' buttociation president Moina Bower agrees men are now far more likely to be seen attempting 'downward dog' poses on yog mats than a few years ago.

"Australian men generally perhaps in the past have looked at yog as a bit sissy," she says. The popularity of yog among men and women has been growing steadily, in part due to the influence of celebrity pracbreastioners such as Madonna and Sting and partly because it is now more widely recommended by doctors, she says.

Bower also believes the increase in men attending clbuttes is part of a wider acceptance of the practice here, which has stretched as far as the Australian cricket team being accompanied by a yog instructor during their 2004 tour of India.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, yog does not make it into the top four forms of exercise in this country -- walking, swimming, aerobic and fitness workouts, and tennis.

But a 2002 survey found that about 3.6 per cent of those who exercised regularly did some yog. While women make up about 85 per cent of yog pracbreastioners in Australia, Bower says more men are becoming involved as a way of handling the stress of their lives.

"Usually they come along, I think, because it releases stress for them and they don't have to compete," she says. Peak, who runs clbuttes at a gym close to Sydney's famous Harbour Bridge, says about 30 to 40 per cent of his students are male, drawn to the 'power yog', or vinyasa, brand his school uses.

Power yog is practised as a flowing stream of poses done in a heated room to further loosen tight muscles and allow for deeper stretches. Peak believes that power yog is more accessible to men than more meditative versions because it allows them to practice poses without losing their masculinity.

Even so, some postures are specifically adapted to suit muscle-bound men. "With big guys who have played rugby their whole lives, you don't want him to crank himself into a lotus pose, we would get him to do a modified version of the posture and let him open up slowly," Peak explains.

Patrick Davis previously swam, worked out at a gym and raced yachts for exercise but says he became "absolutely hooked" on yog after attending one of Peak's clbuttes six weeks ago.

project manager now comes to one of Peak's clbuttes every second day.

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