A Timeline Through 40 Years of Yoga Journal
Take a look through 40 years of American yoga and how the practice has transformed our culture.
Take a look back at 40 years of American yoga and how the practice has transformed our culture.
1975
The same year that K. Pattabhi Jois makes his first visit to the United States, the California Yoga Teachers Association founds Yoga Journal.
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1976
A Gallup poll finds that about 3 percent of Americans, or roughly 5 million people, participate in yoga, and an additional 2 million people participate in “Oriental religions.”
1979
Jon Kabat-Zinn founds the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, adapting Buddhist teachings on mindfulness.
1981
Yoga Journal features a football player on the cover for a story called “The Americanization of Yoga.”
1984
The first Iyengar Yoga Convention is held in San Francisco, attracting hundreds of people from 17 countries.
1985
For its 10th-anniversary issue, Yoga Journal debuts a new logo and introduces a new tagline: “The magazine for conscious living.”
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1987
YogaWorks is founded, gathering many styles of yoga under one roof.
1989
Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, a father of modern yoga, dies.
1990
Dean Ornish’s “Program for Reversing Heart Disease” is published in The Lancet, eventually opening the door for yoga therapy.
1992
Yoga Journal goes full color!
1994
U.S. News and World Report declares: “Yoga Goes Mainstream.” The article marvels that “a class in Urban or Power Yoga will really get your heart rate up.”
Fitness gurus Jane Fonda and Kathy Smith both release yoga videos.
1998
Madonna’s album Ray of Light includes several Sanskrit chants and a song called “Shanti/Ashtangi.” It wins three Grammys and sells 4 million copies.
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1999
The Yoga Alliance establishes teacher licensing and standardizes teacher-training programs.
2001
Time magazine features Christy Turlington in Urdhva Kukkutasana (Upward Cock Pose) on the cover, with the headline “The Science of Yoga: Millions of Americans are discovering this ancient exercise. Here’s the skinny on why it makes you feel so good.”
2004
Time magazine names B.K.S. Iyengar as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
2009
K. Pattabhi Jois, founder of the Ashtanga Yoga Institute, dies.
2010
For the second year in a row, the Obama White House includes yoga among the fitness-day activities at the annual Easter Egg Roll.
2013
A San Diego County judge rules that yoga is “a distinctly American cultural phenomenon” in a case leveled against a California public school by parents who claimed that a kid-friendly version of yoga used in the school’s gym classes was “an unconstitutional promotion of Eastern religions.”
2015
In a sign of how yoga has entered the cultural mainstream, a TV commercial shows the Aflac insurance duck “liberating his body,” toppling over in Tree Pose, and, finally, snoring in Savasana. Zzzzzzzz….