Final install­ment of Don­a­van Wilson’s inter­view with Kino Mac­Gre­gor. Pho­tos are pro­vided from Kino MacGregor’s web­site. Con­tact Don­a­van at dwilson95 AT gmail_​com.

The Amer­i­can Yoga Scene

Kino Mac­Gre­gor headshot

“I loved how many peo­ple are doing yoga today,” com­mented Kino as she offered her per­spec­tive on the direc­tion of Amer­i­can yoga. “I think it’s great. What is really inspir­ing is how ded­i­cated peo­ple are, not only in the U.S. but all over the world and how many peo­ple are get­ting turned on to it. The most inspi­ra­tional thing about the Amer­i­can Yoga com­mu­nity is its embrace of yoga as lifestyle,” she said. “Also, what else that is excit­ing is the gen­er­a­tion of chil­dren born into Yoga fam­i­lies and who have the expo­sure to a lifestyle com­mit­ted to inner peace at an early age.”

Kino addressed the con­cerns of the yoga com­mu­nity, that the pub­lic thinks of Hatha yoga as asana only and ignores the phi­los­o­phy of the prac­tice. “Guruji used to say that we do asanas for many years before our minds could be open to the phi­los­o­phy, the asana can be a gate to the phi­los­o­phy. If you get turned on to yoga in the gym, you may say to your­self maybe I will take classes at a yoga cen­ter or meet some­one who will inspire me to go deeper. I think what is amaz­ing about peo­ple who do yoga at a gym is it makes yoga acces­si­ble,” she said. “It brings it to peo­ple who are inter­ested in fit­ness and health. It may open people’s minds to the path of yoga as well. Peo­ple can be inspired to go deeper by going the asanas for a few years. I think that is com­pletely fine.”

The com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the prac­tice is another issue which con­cerns the Amer­i­can yoga com­mu­nity. “In the growth of any­thing, whether it’s paint­ing or dance, there will always be a back­lash,” she said. “There are always peo­ple that think it’s bad for the tra­di­tion, or bad for the heart of some­thing. There will always be purists. The ben­e­fit of com­mer­cial­iza­tion is that things move into the main­stream and can reach many more peo­ple,” she said. “I believe that when we take things to the main­stream and when we take things out there in order to some­how get the word out a mass amount of peo­ple, it’s O.K. to com­mer­cial­ize it a lit­tle bit,” she said.

“If yoga is only done by the super authen­tic purists in the quiet of their own home, how is that going to change the world?” she asked. “So, if you get exposed to a com­mer­cial ver­sion of yoga, say to a lit­tle bit of a less tra­di­tional dumbed-​​down ver­sion, say, in the gym. Maybe you would never walk into really tra­di­tional yoga cen­ter with chant­ing Yoga Sutras and Bha­gavad Gita because you are afraid of that. This might be a chal­lenge to your reli­gion,” she said.

“So, com­mer­cial­iza­tion allows it just to reach a safe zone that hits a tar­get group or a mass of peo­ple, and as long as there are options avail­able for peo­ple who want to delve deeper it can be a fine entry point into the whole spir­i­tual jour­ney of yoga.”

Kino Mac­Gre­gor helps a stu­dent get deeper into a pose

“There are always going to be peo­ple who will be cheer­lead­ers for the move­ment,” said Kino. “The inter­est­ing thing about com­mer­cial­iza­tion when it comes to yoga it seems to be an ‘either/​or’ men­tal­ity. We are going to be tra­di­tional or we will sell out and be com­mer­cial. I do not believe this to be true,” she said.

“Look at Guruji and Iyen­gar. They both kept true to their tra­di­tions and they were not com­pro­mised by their pop­u­lar­ity. They reached mil­lions of peo­ple. Both Miles Davis and John Coltrane were both pop­u­lar musi­cians and at the same time they kept their integrity and stayed true to their form. As long as the teach­ers at the fore­front of the move­ment main­tain their integrity, the mes­sage of yoga can reach mil­lions of people.”

Among her many projects, Kino is purs­ing a PhD in Holis­tic Health at the Clay­ton Col­lege of Nat­ural Health (CCNH, Birm­ing­ham, AL). “I am in a bit of crux,” Kino said. “I have all the classes com­pleted. I have a topic I can write about and at the same time, I have so many projects turn­ing me on much more. So I am feel­ing this tug in both direc­tions,” she said. “Am I going to do some­thing that turns me on so much more? Or pur­sue some­thing that once was really impor­tant? So I have to not really think of what I am going to do with that.”

On the dif­fer­ence between holis­tic health and West­ern med­i­cine, she said the cur­rent model that dom­i­nates West­ern soci­ety treats dis­eases as they arrive. The holis­tic approach works to estab­lish a bal­ance from the begin­ning, which is more pre­ven­tive. The holis­tic approach empha­sizes a bal­ance so an indi­vid­ual will not man­i­fest the type of chronic dis­eases that cur­rently affect our soci­ety. From her per­spec­tive, the best approach to health­care and med­i­cine is an inte­gra­tive approach. This is an inclu­sive model that incor­po­rates the best of the East­ern tra­di­tions and West­ern med­i­cine to save lives. For instance, if some­one has a seri­ous heart prob­lem, they can have access to a doc­tor, a healer, a yoga teacher and a whole panel of experts.

“I am very pas­sion­ate about eco-​​consciousness and vegan fash­ion,” she said in describ­ing another pas­sion which is an out­growth of her yoga prac­tice. “I think that there is not rea­son why we should kill ani­mals to look fash­ion­able. I would like to eat fish, because it’s healthy and they come from a sus­tain­able source, but they’re beings. Besides fishes are so beau­ti­ful; you wouldn’t eat par­rot, you know what I mean?”

“The book I am work­ing on is enti­tled Inner Peace, Irre­sistible Beauty,” she said in describ­ing another project. “The main drive for is that real beauty comes from within. Real Beauty is the out­ward expres­sion of inner peace. The book is focus on the process that led me to this in my own life lessons from the yoga prac­tice and the spir­i­tual path deliv­ered to me.”