Was chatting about Yoga on a couple of occasions, because - I admit - I do Yoga and I value it. What is interesting is how non-Indian people regard it. I mean I am used to being taught by people who are Western Buddhists, so I'm used to the enthusiasm of a convert, but these conversations are with people who just do Yoga and haven't signed up for the whole kit and caboodle. One person told me that she thought that Indian men have different bodies so they have to do different Yoga from us. Other has been taught by her white woman teacher how Indian men's bodies are different, so they do the postures differently, from our white bodies.
This essentialist view of bodies and what they can do strikes me as a bit odd and against my own empirical evidence. Nearly all of us in any of the classes I have been to are white and all of us find different postures easier or harder. Flexibility ranges completely and clearly has a lot to do with how you use your body on a day to day basis and how you have used your body in the past. Though it is true that men seem to be a little less flexible than women, the male teachers are all as flexible as the women... so nothing inherent there. Also when there has been Asian, Black or other non-white people in classes, the only clear difference between them is also along gender lines and nothing else.