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They put the ‘bro’ in yoga

Broga enthusiasts hope to make yoga more accessible for men

At a recent Saturday Broga class, there were no chest bumps, no crude talk of the opposite sex, no loutish stereotypes that could be culled from a Vince Vaughn film. In a yoga class dubbed Broga (a blend of the words “bro’’ and “yoga’’) such behavior would seem to come with the territory, but surprisingly it does not. Just two days earlier, Broga co-founder Adam O’Neill was downing beer at Legal Harborside and throwing around the phrase “getting into the bro-zone’’ to describe the yoga program that he and Robert Sidoti devised to attract hesitant men to the world of yoga. Sidoti sends out dude-friendly tweets like: “Get with the Bro-gram’’ and “Stop bro-crastinating.’’ Doesn’t that bro-cabulary merit a fist bump? “That’s actually one of the battles that we have,’’ says Sidoti, the 41-year-old “Brogi’’ who teaches Broga classes in Somerville and Martha’s Vineyard. “This is not a dumbed down version of yoga. There’s a lot of movement linking the postures, but adding push-ups and variations of squats. People see the name ‘Broga’ and they think it’s just a bunch of idiots. But there’s integrity.’’

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