A 5,000-year-old tradition rooted in meditation might not seem the obvious leisure activity for Hong Kong's high-octane big-spending population, but in the past five years yoga has taken the city by storm. Local company Pure Yoga last year opened what it believes is the world's biggest yoga studio, and the city has just hosted Asia's largest yoga conference, a four-day extravaganza with classes on everything from Thai massage to Sanskrit and a huge array of yoga equipment on sale. Just a few years ago yoga in Hong Kong was the preserve of a handful of small independent studios owned and run by instructors with little business acumen.
Now it is part of the mainstream, dominated by chains such as Pure Yoga and Yoga Planet, run by the flamboyant Indian yogi Master Kamal whose media appearances have turned him into something of a local celebrity. For American yoga instructor Desiree Rumbaugh, a guest teacher at the weekend's Evolution Asia conference, it is the fast pace of life in Hong Kong that has made yoga such a hit. It's amazing, it's like 10 times the stress of New York, she says.
The city has such a buzz to it. And people here are really committed, they are going to classes three or four times a week. Colin Grant, founder of Pure Yoga and the man behind Evolution Asia, estimates around two per cent of Hong Kong's six million people now practise yoga regularly, which he attributes to the new style of studio.
When we first opened I didn't have a yogi head, I had a business head, so I applied what I thought would be good business sense to a yoga studio, he says. We offered complimentary towels, we supplied mats and we had lockers. So someone working in a regular office could rock up and do a class and not have to drag a big bag into work.
We made a million-dollar investment in our first studio and everyone thought we were mad. But it changed the model and within a month we had 450 people a day coming to classes, most of whom had never done a class in their lives. For Hong Kong's image-conscious residents, yoga's new-found popularity also goes hand-in-hand with the availability of fashionable gear.
High-profile devotees such as Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sting have helped make the practice trendy, and even Louis Vuitton has its own yoga line. Yoga mats, bags and clothes are also big business for major brands such as Adidas and Nike. Yoga is now estimated to generate about US$18 billion annually worldwide.
The increasing involvement of mainstream brands keen to cash in on yoga's popularity, combined with the growing perception of it as a way of keeping fit, has led to concern that the true meaning behind the ancient discipline is being lost. Elke Shuettler, a Hong Kong resident who began learning yoga in her native Germany, says there is a danger people learning now could miss out on the spiritual and mental benefits. Yoga is much more than gymnastics.
It is very important that there is more to it than the physical side. Grant concedes there are concerns, particularly over a new breed of classes claiming to combine the discipline with such un-yogic activities as kick-boxing. But he says commercialisation would not necessarily harm yoga.
Were not going to be offering fusion-combat-yoga, I can tell you that. But if people like it no problem, he says. It's what you make it.
If I want to do a power class and have a good workout or do a deep meditation class, neither is more yogic or less yogic. Conference director Paveena Atipatha believes that while yoga's popularity has probably peaked in the United States, Asia offers considerable growth opportunities. In the US yoga is now a US$3.
5 billion industry. But Asia is where the US was five or even 10 years ago, she says. Yoga is already popular in Japan and growing rapidly in Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines and Korea.
Studio operators are now looking to China's growing middle class as the next major opportunity. Hong Kong is probably one of the more mature markets, says Grant. Quite a lot of our students have gone to China and set up studios there.
It's at the very early stages in China but we're looking at opportunities there. A 5,000-year-old tradition rooted in meditation might not seem the obvious leisure activity for Hong Kong's high-octane big-spending population, but in the past five years yoga has taken the city by storm.
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