http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wreck-your-body.html?pagewanted=all

Many of you have seen and brought to my attention a recent article in the New York Times Magazine entitled, “All Bent Out of Shape, the Problem With Yoga.” Rather than respond to each of you individually, I thought I would make my thoughts on it available to everyone here on the website. The article is alarmist, and utilizes typical journalistic hyperbole, but despite this I think raises some important issues and has considerable merit.

Yoga is thoroughly commercialized in this country, which has pros and cons. The upside is that millions of Americans are getting some sort of introduction to yoga who otherwise would not, and yoga is not considered weird or fringe as it was in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. The downside is that those who have marketed it successfully, and have made the yoga brand names you have all heard of prominent, did so by marketing it to the most ready market, which was intense and fitness oriented people. Yoga has become for the most part something only accessible to very fit people. Another issue is that asana, the practice of physical postures, has become nearly the sole focus of popular yoga, and it is what most people identify with yoga.

Regardless of how we got here, most yoga out there now is very physically demanding, and there are many teachers who push students to go beyond their capacity. We also have a culture in which students push themselves to go beyond their capacity. It is no surprise to me that yoga injuries are on the rise and becoming an issue for the media. All the injuries mentioned in the article would not happen at Raja Yoga, not with the safety first approach that I take and that I try to help foster in the other teachers. For example, although I may refer to it as shoulder stand, the inversion I am actually teaching people is called inverted action pose. In this pose the body is held at a much safer angle than if one is attempting to bring the back perpendicular to the floor as in a true shoulder stand. One should not attempt a true shoulder stand without a blanket prop under the shoulders to create more room for the neck, yet this also has a problem which is why I don’t routinely teach it. The problem is that balance can be tricky, especially when first learning this supported variation, and one can fall to either side or over the top and severely injure the neck. Those of you who take my classes know that even in the safer inverted action pose, I am like a broken record in class, “monitor the tension in your neck, make sure your neck is comfortable, come down if you feel any tightness at all, feel free to substitute a basic legs up the wall or legs up in the air.” This type of attention to safety is not offered in the majority of yoga classes.

I also, only with a rare exception, will teach headstand. Headstand is a wonderful pose which can give many people a great sense of accomplishment, conquering of fear, and mastering of the body, but unless done with great precision can also be the cause of an acute or chronic injury. In my training, I was taught that shoulder stand gives you 90% of the benefit of headstand while sidestepping most of the risk, and inverted action pose minimizes the risks even further. Why take risks with the only body one gets in this lifetime? The key to headstand is not just getting up on your head, but in balancing the weight with an even distribution in the shoulders via the elbows and forearms, so that there is in fact very little pressure on the cervical spine.

Another injury referred to occurred while attempting a wheel pose without having the strength or flexibility to straighten the elbows and get the head off of the floor. The student rested considerable weight directly on the head in that upside down position and at that treacherous angle. Only once have I seen a student at Raja attempt this and I immediately ran to them to ease them out of the pose.

Yoga teacher training is only a 200 hour certification, and that is the training level held by I would guess 99% of teachers. I have had training in anatomy, physiology, and pathology on the masters degree level as a result of my study of Oriental medicine. What passes for training in these subjects in a typical yoga teacher training program is to condense what would be an entire semester of anatomy, for example, into a 2 or 3 hour class. Yoga teachers should, in my opinion, unless or even if supplemented with other training, have great humility about their lack of knowledge in these subjects and adopt a truly defensive and injury prevention orientation to their classes. Typically the opposite is true. Being in charge of a group of people who look up to you can easily go to the head and many yoga teachers have huge egos. The quote at the end of the article is in my opinion spot on, “Asana is not a panacea or a cure-all. In fact, if you do it with ego or obsession, you’ll end up causing problems.” That could probably be applied to just about anything, which is why all Eastern philosophies deal in some way with reducing or purifying the ego.

I know many people greatly enjoy the sweating and endorphin rush of a 104 degree Bikram class, but note from the article, “the penetrating heat of Bikram yoga, for example, could raise the risk of overstretching, muscle damage, and torn cartilage. One specialist noted that ligaments failed to regain their shape once stretched out, raising the risk of strains, sprains, and dislocations.”

The traditional Hatha style, taught by myself at Raja Yoga, carries considerably fewer risks than most other popular styles of yoga. In holding the poses longer, there is more time for individual attention and alignment corrections. There is also more time for breath awareness and to introduce a meditative element to each pose. In my opinion, the flowing Vinyasa style should not be practiced by beginners, only those who have had a solid training in all the individual poses which make up the flowing sequences, because especially in a large class the teacher has no time to get around to all the students in need of help. Yoga means “union of mind, body, and spirit” or it can imply “the union of the individual soul, Atman, with the collective soul or God, Brahman.” This union is achieved in advanced states of meditation, and asana is only one training step along the road to this expansion of consciousness. Asana practice with balanced and focused attention on mind, body, and breath is a great preparation for meditation and can greatly improve physical health. Asana practice without this attention has no advantages over a trip to the gym or a good run. Note the quote from Glenn Back in the article, he asks his class, “Is this yoga? ….. It is if you are paying attention.”

In conclusion, I think the public should take a more cautious approach to yoga, but not a fearful one. Learn to discern between mental, emotional, and physical discomfort. Learn to discern between a stretching sensation, and pain. Find teachers who exhibit humility, an emphasis on safety, and who possibly even have advanced or adjunct training to a basic yoga teacher training. And also, even though I think Raja Yoga is one of the safest places to practice yoga, keep in mind that no teacher knows exactly what it feels like to be in your body, you and you alone are ultimately responsible for it. Follow the Buddha’s advice of taking the “middle road” in regard to all things, but particularly in regard to physical exertion.