Should yoga be an Olympic sport?

Super-flexible yogis raise eyebrows by arguing that their meditative, spiritual, and relaxing practice is the perfect vehicle for cutthroat global competition

In a proposed Olympic yoga competition, each yogi would have three minutes to do seven poses, and would be graded by a panel of judges on strength, flexibility, timing, and breathing.
(Image credit: CC BY: Robert Bejil Photography)

Rajashree Choudhury would like to convince you that yoga and hyper-competitive athletic contests go together. Her organization, USA Yoga, is holding the National Yoga Asana Championship in New York this weekend, and is actively lobbying to get competitive yoga accepted as an event in the 2016 Olympic Games. Yoga is physically strenuous and requires balance and grace, not so different from some types of gymnastics. But it's also geared toward spiritual self-awareness and relaxation. Is Olympic yoga a plausible proposal, or is the whole idea of cutthroat downward-dog posing "comically beside the point"? Here's what you should know:

How would Olympic yoga work?

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