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A Response to the New York Times article

by Francois Raoult, Open Sky Yoga, Rochester, NY

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Dear Friends in Yoga,

A recent New York Times article (“How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” January 5, 2012, by William J. Broad), although flawed by numerous inaccuracies, is stirring healthy debate in the yoga community. I offer the following observations in hope of shedding some light on the topic of yoga injuries. 

As yoga in the West becomes part of the fitness industry, yoga pathologies can be expected to rise. Yoga divorced from mindfulness creates vulnerability to injury like any sport. Same day that Broad’s article appeared, The New York Times ran a tennis-related article under the headline “Australian Courts Fill With Walking Wounded.”  The article began: “Serena Williams has a badly sprained left ankle, Roger Federer an aching back and Kim Clijsters a sore left hip. Add in a limping but “I’ll be O.K.”, Andy Murray and a sore left-shouldered Rafael Nadal, and the warm-up tournaments for the Australian Open are beginning to look like a star-studded sports injury clinic.”

So in sports, injury is the norm. It is even validated, like war heroes going back into battle. In fact, army and sports training in early days were in the same loop.

If, in that sports article, you change the names to those of some popular yoga stars, it could be true as well. There is denial in the yoga world. Some yoga rock stars get back surgeries and hide it. (You would be surprised who!) And, I have taught at yoga conferences where practitioners can look stunning on stage but in quite bad shape at the dinner table. Some perform advanced yoga poses in Yoga Journal evening shows wearing bandages here and there (like tennis or running pros!) and the audience claps at the end for the performance. Is that inspiring? No. If you see beyond the pseudo-spiritual overtones, it makes you sick.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the vinyasa flow/ hot flow / whatever flow is repetitive and does not allow time for dialogue, check in, observation. This can stress the same spots over and over, like the wrist (from arm balances and chaturanga, for example). Thus, we have repetitive yoga injuries—a paradox or contradiction. (This tends not to be true for Mysore-style practice where you are coached individually.)

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Yoga and injury are not meant to be associated (ahimsa?!). Repetitive injury is inconsistent with mindful practice, the ability to anticipate one’s needs, and the use of yoga to prevent future pain.

Some students with a history of trauma or abuse or addictions (more than the eye can see, I see it every year in teacher training) cannot say no early enough. Or, they don’t feel the full range of sensations and therefore miss clues of over- or wrong- doing. Even if the teacher says to do what is possible—modify if you need to, practice what feels comfortable, listen to your body—that assumes the student mind is receptive and clear. It can be the blind leading the blind with cool words, formulas and Gandhi or Mother Theresa quotes!

Those safest are those with an alignment based asana practice and meditation background, like Richard Freeman for example. That being said, yes I have seen injuries in Iyengar [and Anusara] yoga as well, because they can be too aggressive if students are adjusted in questionable ways. How do you learn as a teacher or partner to touch mindfully in a receptive way with clear boundaries?

Each style of yoga has its own pathology. In fact, every asana can have its own specific pathology if you overdo or don’t pay attention or don’t respect what I call the cosmic law of the joints.  The pose can be too passive, too aggressive, too yin or too yang. It depends on the context! That is a psychotherapy issue; you have to work on yourself in other ways than downward dog or sun-salutation-until-you-drop. There is only so much you can sweat out of yourself before you deplete your other systems. And there is only so much fluid you can drink to make up for the loss before the fluids flood your cells!

When I was teaching a workshop at Kripalu a few years ago, a pregnant woman lost consciousness in the hot Bikram class next door. She later switched to my afternoon of restorative poses. And actually the Bikram teacher asked to assist my workshop as a form a seva the following year. Now, do you think Kripalu or the teacher should have seen or said something before the student passed out? Where went the common sense? And this is not an isolated incident. Heat is good for cold vata and high kapha types, but not for pitta types. This is Ayurveda 101. Bhastrika is okay in the winter for pitta but not in the summer, etc...

Adapt, modify, stop and observe (Thich Nhat Hanh’s mantra). Don’t run and escape or go to such a level of endorphin kick that pain and injuries are not registered in the mind. Meditation mindfulness is needed not just in the spoken word or printed brochure.  Adding “bodymind,” “spirit” or the word “yoga” before everything sells. Posting yamas and niyamas on the wall is one thing, but truly it’s the real-time live interaction during the class that problems can occur or be prevented/avoided. We need to SEE. "See then act", said Doisneau, the great photographer. "Action follows being", wrote Saint Augustine! Advanced poses are overrated anyway in terms of life changing experiences. Quality of presence and clinical experience is what makes a good yoga teacher.

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A basic, simple practice on your own terms and timing, with high awareness and feedback, is the way. Classes are provided to coach, guide, inspire, give clues and feedback like a music or painting class. Then it is true teaching . (Some yoga schools say it is not competitive, but really look deeper, if not with others then with yourself!)

Fitness and health benefits are side effects of a practice, not its goals. Don’t take the byproducts for the final goal, said Mr. Iyengar way back!

Weak links in the body exist where only fascia and bones reside. In Thomas Myers’s Anatomy Trains those are white areas, red being muscle tissues. The white areas should not be overstretched. Nor should muscle attachments like upper hamstrings, Hence, the use of props to facilitate the pose and avoid injury. Again, the spirit of the practice is more important than the asana. How you enter, project into, and touch the practice is key to any pose In Ayurvedic terms, the dosha is affected by the guna. So, a forward bend can be heating if done aggressively, clenching your teeth trying to nail the pose. And a head balance can be cooling if done in a sattvic, energy-saving, effortless way.

So the 'IT DEPENDS' factor is big. Stay vigilant when everything is well and do not be overconfident (especially with things like padmasana).

I have been teaching for more than 35 years and had maybe four or five minor incidents in class—and not with beginners. Usually it’s with high-vata types. That is a pretty good track record. Also, I've had a few incidents myself (two of them while demonstrating what not to do, duh!).

Asana is over-emphasized and pranayama under-emphasized. That is also a problem.

I agree with the comments of my dear friends and colleagues Roger Cole and Richard Rosen (see below) regarding inaccuracies in the New York Times article. Let’s hope the resulting discussion brings light.

In Yoga we yoke!

Francois

From: Roger Cole Yoga

The New York Times Magazine published January 5 contains a story by William Broad entitled "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body." Although yoga injuries do occur, the article contains a lot of misinformation. Certain parts seem to imply that B.K.S. Iyengar teaches shoulder stand in a harmful way and that I am a "reformer" who introduced a better method. I wrote the following letter to the editor to set the record straight: 'The article incorrectly states that yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar “insisted” that students practice shoulder stand in a manner that dangerously hyperflexes the neck. In fact, he insists on exactly the opposite. Mr. Broad cites a Yoga Journal column I wrote describing a method of “reducing neck bending in a shoulder stand by lifting the shoulders on a stack of folded blankets...” This safer method was invented by B.K.S. Iyengar and he has long been adamant that all of his certified teachers must teach the pose this way. Mr. Iyengar, who recently celebrated his 93rd birthday, still maintains a vigorous yoga practice that includes long holds in headstand (without support) and shoulder stand with his shoulders lifted on a prop. The column describing Mr. Iyengar’s safer shoulder stand technique, entitled “Keep the Neck Healthy in Shoulderstand,” is at http://www.yogajournal.com/for_teachers/1091. The original version of Mr. Broad’s article supplied an incorrect link.

Many thanks,

Roger Cole


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From: Richard Rosen

Piedmont Yoga Studio

Greetings!
Dear friends

An article in the New York Times, titled "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body," has been making the rounds lately, written by a Times "senior science writer," a Mr. Broad. Usually I'd wait for the next newsletter to put in my 2 cents, but this piece (which is excerpted from a book, The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards), cries out for immediate response before too many more readers get the wrong impression. I suppose my first question is: though I'm sure Mr. Broad's position at the Times is most prestigious, and that he's well qualified to write on a variety of science-oriented subjects, I have to wonder if he's just as well qualified to write about yoga. Apparently he's taken an unspecified number of yoga classes, but we really don't know much about the breadth and depth of his understanding, and if he can ask the right YOGA questions and come to reasonable YOGA conclusions.

The focus of his article is a discussion with a long time yoga teacher, an Iyengar disciple, who maintains that most people are unfit to tackle yoga at all. At the same time we're told that this teacher is, in my own terminology, a "pusher," who demands from his students, now in the author's words, "superhuman endurance," and who freely admits, "I make it as hard as possible." Given this extreme approach, we might agree with the teacher that most people indeed are unfit to tackle THAT KIND OF PRACTICE. But as the long yoga tradition demonstrates over and over again, practice is ALWAYS tailored to suit the individual and his/her innate capacities. Practices cross a broad spectrum, from our teacher's beat 'em up style to the very gentle restorative practice perfected by Judith Hanson Lasater. We would have to agree that pushing yourself beyond reasonable limits FOR YOU, that not paying attention to warning signs of trouble, would have enormous potential to wreck your body.

The author then goes on to cite several egregious misapplications of the practice to support his claim about the dangers of yoga: a young man who sat for hours in a Hero-like position hurts his knees, or a student who continually (in spite of clear evidence he was injuring himself) performed Shoulder Stand flat on the floor, with no blanket support under his shoulders, hurts his neck. Well, all I can say is, duh. These are of course perfectly good examples of how yoga can wreck your body IF YOU ABUSE THE PRACTICE. It's no different than the abuse of anything, from alcohol to food, it probably will harm you. Performed safely and sanely, as most people in this country who are fortunate enough to have well trained AND adaptable teachers are aware, yoga is the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel.

 

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From: Lou Papa, MD

A yoga teacher from Rochester, NY

The author of the NYT article states that in 2002 there were about 4-5 million people practicing yoga and there were 46 visits to the emergency room for yoga-related injuries. To put that into perspective, here is a sample of some exercise and fitness related emergency visits for last year, 2010:

Baseball: 155,898

Basketball: 512,213

Bicycling: 485,669

Football: 418,260

Golf: 47,360

Soccer: 174,686

Skateboards: 112,544

Trampolines: 108,029

So in relative comparison, yoga is incredibly safe.



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