IMHO

I used to have a small column in our local newspaper in which I could write pretty much anything I liked. I tried to keep it positive or, at least, reasonable. I've never written for the national press, but if I were to, I hope I'd maintain the same values.

I'm not a regular reader of the Mail on Sunday, but I gather from people who are that the stock in trade of Ms Liz Jones is to be nasty. On 26 April, she wrote a very snide piece about yoga, entitled: 'Yoga won't make you slim, dahling - just deeply boring.' Well! (Cue rolling up of sleeves and formation of some very unyogic responses to this.)

She is, of course, deliberately trying to rile folk, and won't give a hoot what I or any other yoga people think. In any case, we can rise above it with our 'sheen of smug self-satisfaction'. The whole thing made me splutter with indignation, but it also made me laugh because her writing is absurd. Three things in particular are worth a mention:

1. Her statement that Pilates is the thinking person's yoga - way to offend two groups at once;
2. Her conclusion that yoga is exercise for lazy people - words fail me;
3. Most breathtaking of all, her assertion that we all have orgasms when we are in the Downward-facing Dog posture.

I can only conclude that either I'm not teaching it right or that whatever class Ms Jones has been to it certainly wasn't yoga!

Om shanti, shanti, shanti.