By Ed Staskus

“Looking up at paradise, all souls bound just contrariwise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.” Dead Man’s Chest, a traditional sea shanty

When yoga got on its feet in the 1960s and started rolling in the 1970s, many Americans thought it was a fad. It was part and parcel of the culture of California, after all. It was for hippies and health nuts and religious fanatics, said working stiffs and wise guys, wondering where the success in it was.

In the 60s and 70s, however, it was anything but a fad. It was the real deal. It had its feet grounded in a 5000-year-old tradition. If it was a fad it was a fad that had never gone away, the kind that had staying power. When Satchidananda led the opening chant at Woodstock, it wasn’t that week’s Top 10 smash hit. It had a legacy going back centuries. It had been a smash hit in year zero.

The practice stayed solid for thirty years, but by the 2000s it was flipping over onto its head. Celebrity jet-setting yoga teachers crisscrossed the country, burning up the carbon, peddling their brand of sermon. John Friend got high and got sexy. Yoga franchises with their instant oatmeal wisdom and Groupon specials popped up from Miami to Joplin, Missouri.

Yoga used to be the hub of the wheel. Then it became the spokes of the wheel. Anusara, Baptiste, Forrest, Integral, Iyengar, Jivamukti, Kripalu, Kundalini, Moksha, Sivananda, Viniyoga, Vinyasa, and Yin.

It’s a baker’s dozen.

Soon afterwards the spokes started to splinter. Nowadays there is Karaoke Yoga and Laughing Yoga, Tots and Tykes Yoga, Aerial Yoga, and AcroYoga, Glow-in-the-Dark Yoga, Naked Yoga, Trampoline Yoga, Trampoline Yoga While Naked, Primal Screaming Yoga, and Paddleboard Yoga.

No staying grounded there, just don’t drift off by mistake and get captured by pirates. What did the shipwrecked blindfolded friendly SUP yogi with the outstretched arms ask his newfound friends swigging mugs of suds while he walked the plank?

“Am I getting warmer?”

Picking yourself up off the ground is the premise of Rage Yoga. “I was going through a lot of pain,” said Canadian teacher and founder Lindsay Istace. She had recently gone through a break-up. She was a bittergirl. “It started to come out during my practice. Suddenly there was a lot more yelling, swearing, and emotional release on my mat.”

Down on the farm there is Goat Yoga, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s doing yoga with small cute goats, at least until their grumpy elders head butt you. Old Billy and his horns ain’t anything you want to partner yoga with.

“It might sound silly, but the way these classes are working, it’s becoming deeper and bigger than I thought, “ said Lainey Morse, who started the craze. The business has expanded to the point that she has quit her day job and is trademarking “Goat Yoga”.

Maa! Maa! Maa!

All of this is to not mention Bikram Choudhury, of eponymous Bikram Yoga-fame, whose crazy-like-a-fox marketing is legendary. “There’s a sucker born every day,” said P. T. Barnum, Bikram’s spiritual guru.

In more recent times yoga has gone from Jennifer Aniston’s six-pack abs, otherwise known as Jennifer’s Yoga Moves for Flat Abs, straight to six-packs.

Brewskis and poses was a practice born at the Burning Man fun festival. Who doesn’t need liquid refreshment in the middle of the summer in the middle of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert? Bend an elbow, help a brother out, bottoms up. A year later Germany’s BierYoga foamed to life, the marriage of beer and yogimeister Jhula’s brainstorm.

Jhula and her business partner Emily go by the names of Jhula and Emily. No surnames, please.

”It’s fun, but it’s no joke,” said Jhula. “We take the philosophy of yoga and pair it with the pleasure of beer-drinking to reach your highest level of consciousness.”

Or your highest level of semi-consciousness, as the case may be.

Yoga is meant to make you feel the way you want to feel without yoga. On the other hand, drink beer think beer.

The history of beer is the history of humanity. 6000 years ago the Sumerians, the oldest known civilization, were the first brewmeisters. They believed beer was the true blue drink of the gods. By the 14^th century Germany was a country of world famous beer cities. Strong beer in imperial 20 fluid ounce pint portions isn’t a joke in Germany.

Miller Lite is strictly forbidden.

BierYoga Classes are conducted in a techno club in the heart of Berlin’s trendy Neukolln neighborhood. They are booked up solid weeks in advance. Disco balls hang from the ceiling. Everybody’s shuffling, everybody’s jump styling, everybody’s posing. The vibe is intoxicating.

“Has anyone not finished their first bottle? If not, bottoms up!” said Jhula during a full-house class.

Chug a lug in tree pose. You don’t want to nurse the beer, though. Your nipples will get soggy.

Beer Yoga is a new rave in London and usually practiced in pubs. The admission charge includes a mat and a beer. After a rough day at work, some hair-of-the-dog, stretching and belching.

“It complements the joy of drinking beer and the mindfulness of yoga,” said Beer Yoga’s Guzel Mursalimova. ”It adds a little more relaxation because a lot of people tend to be very tense when they come in. If this means you have to incorporate beer, I think that’s perfectly fine.”

It begs the question, however, if you had to incorporate horse to relax, would that be perfectly fine, too, or does heroin not complement the mindfulness of yoga in the same way beer does?

There is Beerasana in Washington, DC, and hops and hatha at the Quest Brewing Company in Greensville, SC. Awareness and self-observation are in the eye of the beer holder.

But, getting a buzz on during class may not be the best of ideas. “Not being able to tell your right arm from your left leg is not a healthy practice,” said Jake Panasevich, a wellness and yoga teacher. “Anything that alters your natural state of mind is no longer yoga in my book.”

Others say, lighten up.

“What a fabulous experience!” said James Villaruel about In the Spirit Studio and Wine Lounge in Scarborough, a borough of Toronto, Ontario. “Invigorating, yet relaxing yoga classes followed by first-class wine selections. I’ll definitely be back!”

Rah, rah, rah, that’s the spirit! Alcoholic drinks are sometimes called spirits because alcohol reduces anxiety and induces euphoria. Why are liquor stores not called spirit stores?

“Love this place!” said Sonya Dwyer about Zin Yoga and Wine in North Carolina. “Zin offers a wide variety of yoga classes and the clothing and wine selection is really great.” Getting loose in several different ways at once in brand new stretch pants.

Zinfandel is a black-skinned grape with a bold taste. “Either give me more wine or leave me alone,” said Rumi, whose best-selling poems are a part of yoga lore. He taught a kind of body movement in the 13^th century, known as the Dance of the Whirling Dervishes, or spinning.

The thought of whirling after a couple of glasses of wine is enough to make your head go whee.

“Yoga can be very serious, but why not have it be really fun,” said Angela Gargano, the owner of Bliss Flow Yoga in Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital and a college town. She stage-manages weekend-long yoga and wine retreats. “Yoga is something spiritual to me. I feel we’ve lost the spiritual connection to the land food and wine grows on. That’s what was nice about the retreat, getting people to really connect to wine.”

That’s what yoga is all about, connecting. They don’t exactly tear it up, however, while connecting with Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and fertility. Vineyard tours and genteel five-course meals are fare of the weekend, along with a class on the mat on the side.

Although yoga can be serious, it is in the doing of it much more fun than fun, even without clinking glasses with the god of the grape. Nevertheless, Dionysus is a fun god, especially since the main focus of his cult back in the day was unrestrained consumption. “Prepare yourselves for the roaring voice of the God of Joy,” wrote Euripides in ‘The Bacchae’ way back when, when Athens was Broadway.

In and around New York City these days, Dina Ivas, a 15-year veteran of conducting yoga classes at top-rated fitness establishments, and Liz Howng, a certified wine expert, host Yoga Wine parties, which are private classes and wine tasting in the comfort of wherever you are.

“I finished the class feeling relaxed and a lot more confident about yoga,” said Miriam Gilbert. “Next, the wine tasting. We tasted a great range of wines. I’d certainly attend another party.”

There’s something oxymoronic about getting down for a  yoga wine party, but then again, we all fight for our right to party. There are shortcuts to happiness and drinking is one of them, although you don’t want to spend all day at Happy Hour. It can morph into Unhappy Hour. There’s an old saw that says good friends get drunk with you while best friends hold your hair back when you’ve had too much to drink.

Vino and vinyasa is found from coast to coast. Wine Body and Soul in New York. Downward Dog Then Drink Wine in Boston. Yin Yoga and Wine Night in Austin. Yoga Art and Wine in Redwood City. Vineyards from the Niagara Escarpment to Sonoma Valley are jumping on the bandwagon. No falling off the wagon on the way to class!

There’s nothing wrong with a beer-or-two at a ballgame or a barbeque, wine at dinner, or a scotch neat late on a lonely rainy night. Drinking water is essential to a healthy lifestyle, but does anyone want to drink water all the time? It’s what rusts pipes. After all, like Benjamin Franklin said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

One thing leads to another. Next up, absinthe and ashtanga, mantra and martinis, “cocktails and yoga, the perfect mix,” said Katherine Smith, yoga teacher, life-coach, and self-described “wild warrior yogi.”

“There is no good or bad, everything we feel, experience, think and sense is simply a manifestation of the divine,” she said. “Choose good quality alcohol.”

What about moonshine, bathtub gin, and rotgut? Since it’s all yoga, no good or bad, right or wrong, no heaven or hell in the divine scheme of things, what about rotgut? Live on the wild side!

Some of the new yoga doesn’t suffer in comparison with the old. It suffers all on its own.

Why conflate drink with yoga in the first place? Sure, everything was once new, just like today’s many new styles of yoga. There was once the first unclothed hard-core yogi back in the day when clothes were optional, although his practice probably didn’t include doing raging naked double flips arm in arm with goats. And if it did, he almost certainly wasn’t boozing it up at the same time.

Tomatoes are a fruit and fruit salads are full of fruit, but the wise saladmeister doesn’t mix tomatoes into their fruit salads.

There is nothing inherently demonic about drink, notwithstanding the screed of teetotalers. “Imagine getting up in the morning and knowing that’s as good as you’re going to feel all day,” said Dean Martin. Indeed, there are even benefits to demon rum.

Drinking responsibly lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease, helps prevent against the common cold, lowers the chance of diabetes, decreases the possibility of developing dementia, improves your libido, and can lengthen your life. It also reduces the risk of gallstones by a third, although the study of bile ducts at Great Britain’s University of East Anglia cautioned that “our findings show the benefits of moderate alcohol intake, but stress that excessive alcohol intake can cause health problems.”

The research is galling for anyone who still believes in the late not so great Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. There is no doubt Benjamin Franklin rolled over in his grave on the morning of January 16, 1920, believing God had abandoned the USA.

“Here’s to alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all life’s problems,” said Homer Simpson. In other words, it’s better to drink when you’re happy, not when you’re unhappy, although it took the Great Depression to get Prohibition repealed.

Yoga is a broad practice, from meditation to exercise to ethics. There is no one correct form of it. “It’s such a big multifarious tradition you can find precedence for almost anything,” said James Mallinson, a senior lecturer in Sanskrit and Classical Indian Civilization at SOAS University in London.

“It’s not really about the body, but about the mind,” he added.

Since alcohol goes right to your head, maybe yoga and drinking do have something in common.

However, since under the over-influence of drink the brain goes haywire, a loss of fine motor skills, slowing reaction time, slurred speech, blurred vision, impaired hearing, and a daftness of muscle coordination and balance, it might be fairer to say that yoga and drinking have little in common.

Doing too much yoga, for example, isn’t going to land anyone in a detox center.

The yamas and niyamas are a set of ethical yoga rules, moral imperatives, and goals. They are the backbone of yoga, a kind of code of conduct. None of the social restraints or self-disciplines, as they are called, specifically address sidling up to the neighborhood bar.

“There is no mention of alcohol in the yamas or niyamas,” said James Bennitt, who studied with Rod Stryker and teaches flow-style yoga in Chicago. “A glass of wine or beer once in awhile isn’t the worst thing in the world, but when it becomes a habit, it is depleting to the system, not to mention clouds your judgment. Yoga is very much about building energy as well as clarity, not depleting yourself of them.”

Wine and beer and spirits ultimately have a sedative effect. At the end of the party end of the night, after you’re all done pulling the cork out of dinner and dessert, after you have stopped flooding the control center behind your forehead with liquid fun, your neurotransmitters slow way down low down. The part of your brain called the medulla gets sleepy.

Consciousness and clarity are located in the cerebral cortex. Do enough Beer Yoga and your senses, which process information for your cortex, get clumsy staggering punchy and inhibit thought processes, making it hard to get from point a to point b in a straight line. It devolves from I think therefore I am to I drink therefore I am.

“The ease with which I can now find an event that combines practicing yoga with drinking alcohol is at least unsettling, and at most completely mind-boggling in its depth at missing the point,” wrote Kelly McCormick in “Not-So-Happy Hour: Why Yoga & Alcohol Just Don’t Mix.”

If yoga is about energy and clarity, drinking is about relaxing and socializing. There’s nothing wrong with that, but yoga is something that makes your brain sparkle, while drinking makes your brain go fireworks and then fade away like the grand finale. Promoting the practice of yoga by wedding it to a fermented drug as the new hip thing to do is huckster work.

Nobody needs to mindlessly abstain. Everyone can mindfully enjoy a pint of craft beer or a glass of red wine at their local saloon. Nobody needs to do yoga, but when they do it gets them in a great state of mind. Everybody knows Miller time and yoga time are two different things, hucksters or no hucksters.

Getting a buzz on is living in your senses. Getting on the mat is transcending your senses. It’s all a state of mind.

Ed Staskus posts stories on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com and Cleveland Ohio Daybook http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”