Can Yoga Wreck Your Body? Responses to NYT Article: Part 2

Here are a couple other links to well-written responses to the NYT article, How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body.

One is by Eddie Stern (I think) of Ashtanga Yoga New York, How the NYT Can Wreck Yoga .
He does think that the increasing incidence of yoga-related injuries shouldn't be ignored, but he also agrees that the article is unbalanced and sensationalistic.

Eddie writes, "One reason that injury can occur in yoga is due to overzealousness, or even just plain enthusiasm, on the part of the student – I have of course experienced this myself – it is a natural response for a particular type of person when it comes to any activity that has physicality associated with it – no matter what a teacher may caution."

Injuries can occur anytime we do physical activities.  They are more apt to happen in the practice of yoga asanas when the practitioner isn't paying attention to warning signs in his/her body (s/he may not know the warning signs yet, or perhaps is ignoring them to show how well they can do difficult poses without proper preparation).   They are also more apt to happen under the instruction of unskilled yoga teachers.

What I especially like out of his response is the following:
"[Yoga] has been reduced from a practice that traditionally demanded dedication, discipline, sacrifice, humility, surrender, love, devotion, and self-investigation – and yes, suffering through rigorous practice – to something that one can now learn to teach in a weekend. Or, more popularly, in a mere 200 hours you can become a bonafide, registered yoga instructor. 200 hours is spit. It is a joke."

Those of us in the Iyengar Yoga tradition who've gone through the strenuous teacher certification process whole-heartedly agree!

Eddie also includes responses from a couple other people that point out the errors within the "Wreck Your Body" article.   

Another response is by Senior Iyengar Yoga teacher John Schumacher of Unity Woods Yoga Center:
A Response to "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body".
As he calmly points out, "we should remind ourselves that the Times is in the business of selling newspapers",  and what better way to grab attention than to say that what millions of us are doing with our bodies in our efforts to become physically and mentally healthier could actually severely damage us.

Schumacher also points out (as did one of my students last week), that the author of this article has a book coming out (The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards), and what better way to advertise his book than with this attention grabbing article. 

It will be interesting to see if the book is more even-handed than the article, or if it will contain some of the same errors that are in the article.

Can Yoga Wreck Your Body? Responses to NYT Article: Part 1

There's been a lot of discussion about the recent New York Times article How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body, published January 5, 2012.

The article is negative and alarmist in nature, citing anecdotal evidence of yoga students and teachers who have badly injured themselves, and stating that many yoga poses are inherently dangerous for most people.

Well, sure, if you take the average person off the street who has no yoga experience and have him do a headstand or a backbend, of course there'll be problems.  
 
Of course people can hurt themselves doing yoga poses, just as people will get hurt doing any kind of physical activity.  I've hurt myself practicing yoga poses -- I didn't know there was a problem with how I was doing those particular poses until it was too late (I certainly learned from those injuries!). But there is nothing inherently wrong with doing any of the yoga poses with the right instructions and preparation.  Some people will never do many of the more difficult poses, and they shouldn't try, for various reasons.  Others can practice these poses after they develop the strength, control, and awareness to bring their body into the alignment necessary to keep them safe.  Accidents / injuries can occur, but they can also be reduced. 

It depends on how skillful the teacher is, and how capable the student is, mentally and physically.

The good that has come out of this article is that there is this discussion about what it means to practice yoga, and how to practice the asanas in a safe, intelligent manor.

The bad is that some readers will take this article at face value and be afraid to try a yoga class that could be helpful and appropriate for their own bodies, thinking they'll have to do dangerous poses and risk suffering from severe injuries or stroke.

Luckily there have been many well-reasoned responses to this article from skillful, highly-trained yoga teachers and very experienced yoga students from different lineages pointing out errors and misconceptions in this article.

Read the response from Intermediate Junior III Iyengar Yoga teacher Roger Cole on Facebook --

Roger points out that the article seems to imply that B.K.S. Iyengar teaches  Salamba Sarvangasana (shoulder stand) in an unsafe way, having people over-stretch their neck which could lead to damaging the vertebral arteries.   The NYT article also says that Roger Cole was the innovator of the safer way to do shoulder stand, using a blanket platform under the shoulders so the neck wouldn't over-stretch.

Roger sets the issue straight, correctly stating that B.K.S. Iyengar is the one who developed this blanket platform system, and that Iyengar insists students practice Sarvangasana with this support.

Read Roger Cole's article on YogaJournal.com,  Keep the Neck Healthy in Shoulderstand to learn how this way of practicing shoulderstand protects the neck.

Happy Holidays! Now go do a yoga practice for yourself!

Namaste Holiday Yoga Ornament

Happy Holidays from Harmony Yoga of Ann Arbor!   I hope you are all enjoying this special time of the year.

We've been enjoying family and friends coming over to our house, including our two sons and daughter-in-law, and our 3 month old grandson (our first grandchild!).  It's been wonderful to see everyone.

Because of my own busy-ness in getting everything ready for guests, I've neglected my yoga practice, and I'm feeling it.  So today, the day after Christmas, I'll be devoting a good couple hours to my own practice, starting out rather gently, including sirsasana (head stand) and sarvangasana (shoulder stand), and seeing where it goes.  I'm so looking forward to it!

I know many of you who attend classes at Harmony Yoga of Ann Arbor are disappointed that there are no classes offered this week.   I suggest to you that you also find time today, or sometime this week, to devote to your own yoga practice.   No, not two hours (unless you are so moved!), but I bet you can find 20 - 30 minutes for a practice at least once this week.   Yes, I know it's easier to come to class and follow along with what I'm teaching, but if you've been taking yoga classes regularly for a few months or more, you have a good idea of what poses you can practice at home.

If you need ideas to get you going, I suggest standing poses be your base practice, and also include adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog pose) and any inversions you feel safe in practicing on your own (legs up the wall, headstand, shoulderstand).

 Also refer to these Sequences for Practice for more ideas.

For those of you who are taking the Gentle Yoga classes, you might do the supine leg stretch pose (lie on your back and take a belt, strap, or bathrobe sash over your foot and stretch that leg up and hold for 10 -- 30 seconds, then take it to the side and hold for the same amount of time), followed by simple seated poses, including twists.   Then a downward facing dog pose with hands to a chair (against a wall!), or hands to your kitchen counter.   A standing pose or two will be good for you also, if you remember how to do them, and if you feel you have the stamina for them.

Don't worry if you don't get the pose exactly right!     Move mindfully, and observe how your body is reacting to the poses you're doing.

Enjoy!

Lightness and Ease with Strength and Flexibility

Some texts say that with enough yoga practice, we can learn to levitate. Well, I have my doubts about that. But this video shows a young man who is a close to levitation as anyone could get. He combines strength and flexibility to create this astounding routine that looks light and effortless, as if he's almost floating. This takes an incredible amount of perseverance and body awareness.

Yoga and Healing Trauma | Matthew Sanford

Matthew Sanford is a wise man! Well worth watching this video.

Click on the image to start video. COMMENT It took awhile for the video to load -- be patient.

You can also go to the Yoga Journal page with the video:
Yoga and Healing Trauma.

Yoga Breathing Exercises (Pranayama) Reduce Anxiety and Stress

In my previous post, Breathing Through the Circle of Life, I mentioned how paying attention to my breath has helped me to get through the worry and anxiety about my mother's serious illness and the premature birth of my first grandchild.

That prompted me to write another on-line article, Reduce Anxiety With a Calming Yoga Breath.  

Image: nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As I pointed out, it's not the formal pranayama (yoga breathing exercise) techniques per se that are absolutely necessary here, because we all breathe, and we can all benefit from focusing on better breathing techniques whether or not we practice any aspect of yoga.

But my background is in yoga -- including pranayama (yoga breathing exercises), so I do use the Sanskrit names of the pranayamas that  have been most useful to me in reducing anxiety. 

In this article, I discuss how anxiety leads to tight, tense upper chest breathing, and how that can trigger other anxiety-related symptoms including dizziness, racing pulse, digestive complaints, and headaches, to list just a few.  These stress and anxiety related symptoms can be eased with the easy breathing techniques that I mention.   

As an extra benefit, I've noticed that paying attention to my breath in this way has also been easing my night-time hot flashes.  

By the way, my mother continues to progress, although slowly, and my grandson is home from the hospital, and thriving with the loving attention from his two parents.

Breathing Through the Circle of Life / Bhramari Breath

Those of you who've been coming to yoga classes recently at Harmony Yoga of Ann Arbor know that there've been a couple of life-changing events in my extended family during the last month or so.

My mother, who has always been a strong, active, vibrant woman had a recurrence of an old health problem that triggered some other serious health issues this past year.  It came to a head early this fall when she was hospitalized with pneumonia.   She was released too early, and re-admitted, much sicker than the first time.    When I went to visit her, she looked old and frail, and wasn't as mentally sharp as she's always been before.   We weren't positive that she'd pull through this event.

At the same time.....while I was visiting my mother, my first grandchild (and her first great-grandchild) was born a little over 6 weeks prematurely.   Wow!!   A number of you mentioned the "yin yang" aspect of this, and the fact that our family is experiencing the circle of life up close and personal.

How the heck do we keep our composure and our sense of balance and equanimity throughout all of this?  It's not easy for many of us.

What has helped me most through my worries, anxieties, and sadness about my mother's illness is to pay attention to my breath.   I find that when I am worried and sad, my breath becomes shallower, and my chest closes and my diaphragm is tense.   This is ironic, in a way, because the breath has played a part in both my mother's and my grandson's health.   Both were hooked up to oxygen (my mother still is, and will probably be for a long time) because they weren't getting enough of this life-necessary component.

I found that focusing on easy, somewhat deeper breaths with attention to softening my diaphragm helps me to return to a calmer, more focused state of mind.   I can think more clearly and I can sleep better if I remember to do this.   I'm more useful to others when I can breathe well! 

I'm not doing a "pranayama" exercise here in the strict sense, but my regular practice of pranayama, or "yogic breath control" has made it possible for me to observe when my breath is stifled and ineffective in my everyday life.  

A variation of one of the pranayamas, Brahmari (Bee Breath), has been most helpful to me.   Basically, during Brahmari, we make a humming, buzzing sound as we exhale.   A Yoga Journal article on Brahmari says that anxiety is often associated with "short, tight upper chest breathing".   Lengthening the exhalation helps to soothe and relax us.   With Brahmari pranayama, the sound helps to soothe the mind, and allow longer exhalations without strain.     I adapted this to my own needs -- while I was driving or walking and started to experience anxiety,  I'd take a slightly deeper, but easy, inhalation, and exhale as a humming, or buzzing sound.   It works very well!

My mother is stabilized, but most likely will never return to her "old" life.  She'll need a lot of care for a long time.   My grandson is getting stronger, and will be released soon from the hospital.  Thank you to all who've sent good wishes and prayers for their well-being!  One of my hopes is that my mother and my grandson can sometime meet each other :-)

Namaste!