Category: Yoga

On February 10, 2012, William Broad was interviewed on NPR  regarding his new book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards. Broad is a somewhat controversial figure in the yoga community, as discussed in my earlier entry “Can Yoga Wreck Your Body?” in response to his January 2012 article in The New York Times Magazine. He has upset a lot of people by saying that yoga can, in fact, be dangerous – like any tool when used improperly.

Broad uses the term “yoga industrial complex” to describe a mindset within the yoga community that includes a reluctance to acknowledge the risks of practicing yoga. He has received a great deal of negative feedback from teachers and practitioners. Now, there’s something ironic about hate mail coming from yogis, but spiritual growth is a process. Some of us are still in our adolescence, and most of us aren’t yet enlightened (or we wouldn’t still be here).

Yoga is a practice which has slowly found more social acceptance over the past few decades, but isn’t necessarily mainstream. One of the reasons it’s finding acceptance is because people are learning it can do great things for the body. If the culture at large starts to perceive yoga as potentially dangerous, what does that do to yoga’s popularity? The popularity of yoga of course means that there is more money to be made in this field. To that end, there are more and more yoga classes, and more and more teachers. While this can be a good thing, it’s also problematic for a couple of reasons.

First, yoga teaching is an unregulated profession. While training program are available (basic certifications start at 200 hours), completion of such a program is not required to teach yoga. This means that it’s important to ask questions when you sign up to take a yoga class, to find out what type of training and experience the instructor has, and what style of yoga will be practiced in the class (as well as what level of physical activity to expect). The Yoga Alliance works to maintain standards within the profession by requiring that Registered Yoga Teachers complete a minimum of 200 hours of training from a certified program. But it’s unwise to assume that every yoga class is taught by a yoga teacher who has completed this training – it’s simply not the case.

Second, the popularity of yoga means increased class sizes. Even a highly qualified instructor has difficulty maintaining a safe practice environment when there are more than 20-30 students in the room. The other thing that happens, as yoga becomes more popular and classes get larger, is that yoga becomes competitive. Now competition is the antithesis of everything the practice truly stands for, but believe me when I tell you I have observed this phenomenon in a number of venues. People are looking around, seeing what everyone else is doing, who can more “fully” go into certain postures, or stay in them longer, etc. Any competitive aspect in the practice carries with it an increased risk because an outward focus, rather than an inward focus, in yoga, means that you are less likely to pay attention to signals within the body that may indicate a threshold. In other words, if you’re focused on trying to keep up with everyone else, you are more likely to injure yourself.

One of the areas of focus in the interview was the claims that practitioners and teachers make about yoga, and that included discussion of research conducted on the matter of the science of yoga. It’s funny to me the focus on science. Maybe it shouldn’t be. We are a culture of reason. People don’t want to just hear that something works, they want the evidence trotted out, compiled, and annotated. They want to know that science can demonstrate – can quantify – what practitioners of yoga already know: Yoga makes you feel good. It also improves your sex life.

Yes, you read that right. One of the lesser known benefits of yoga (and one that will probably have people signing up for classes in droves) is that it improves your sex life. In our hyper-sexual culture, there’s a lot of talk about the mechanics of sex, about the physical aspects of sexual function, but not a lot of discussion of sexual satisfaction. Yoga practice can not only boost your sex drive, but can give you “increased arousal, better orgasm, [and] more overall satisfaction.” In other words, not only more sex, but better sex. How’s that for incentive?

More on this topic in my next post.

Now that I’m in my mid-30s, I notice many of my friends, co-workers, and acquaintances worrying about getting older. Or more specifically, worrying about what it means to get older. And about the fact that they are no longer part of the age category that is considered young and sexy (this goes for women especially). I think ultimately this preoccupation with aging comes from a fear of being old (often equated with being useless, unwanted or unloved). Or even the fear of dying – this in a culture which seems to virtually worship at the fountain of youth.

Much of the concern about getting older stems from people’s beliefs about aging. And in my line of work, I hear many people make statements about being in pain or having trouble moving around. And then they add, “Well that’s part of getting older, isn’t it?” And I’m not talking about people who are older. I’m talking about people my age, and younger. It surprises me that so many people I encounter fully believe that aging is a completely uncontrollable, external process, involving the increase of pain, the decrease of mobility, and the appearance of wrinkles and age spots.

While I’m not foolish enough to believe we can magically all remain forever young, part of the work that I do involves educating people about how much of the aging process is under their control. In other words, how old you feel, and even how old you look, has everything to do with how you take care of yourself, and very little to do with numbers. Now of course, I won’t deny that genetics play a role. We all know someone who smokes and lives to 100. Or someone who lays out in the sun all summer, yet still looks 20 years younger than his/her chronological age. But by and large, much of how you age is in your hands.

On of the ways that yoga and other similar practices can help you feel younger is by maintaining the health and flexibility of your spine. What’s really important is the health of the tissues between the vertebrae. Several key yogic warmups and postures such as spinal flexes (“cat-cow”) and spinal twists stimulate blood flow and circulation to these tissues and help keep your spine healthy. These exercises also stimulate the flow of your cerebral spinal fluid, thereby strengthening your nervous system.

Additionally, yoga can help you retain the range of motion in your joints. Exercises that regularly utilize your range of motion also help lubricate your joints by increasing the synovial fluid. Much the way that oil keeps your car’s engine running smoothly. If your joints are in good working order and you retain range of motion, as you get older you will move like a young person, regardless of your age. This will also mean that you will appear younger, as you will move more easily and fluidly than many other people in your age group.

A further key benefit from yoga is core strength and balance. Core muscles are deep abdominal muscles which run crosswise/horizontally (like a belt). They are located underneath your “six pack muscles” which run lengthwise or vertically. Core muscles help to stabilize you and protect your low back. Having a strong core can mean that you are less likely to strain or injure your low back. Also, strong core muscles, and “moving from your core” (rather than leading with your head in a head-forward or headfirst posture) means you will have a lower center of gravity and also a better sense of balance. This will allow you to more easily right yourself if you slip or trip.

Please look for additional discussion of this topic in my next post. In the meantime, if you want more food for thought, you may enjoy this inspiring article about a 91 year old yoga instructor who has been practicing for decades.

William Broad’s article from the January 5, 2012, New York Times Magazine, entitled “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body” has been met with a variety of responses from the yoga community. What I’ve personally heard is many people criticizing Broad, or more specifically, Glenn Black, the yoga teacher interviewed in the article, for badmouthing yoga.

The problem is not with yoga itself but with the limited understanding and application of this program of study, particularly here in the West. There is a common misconception that yoga is “good for what ails you” and that almost anyone can improve his/her physical health by taking a yoga class at the local gym, 60-90 minutes of sweating through a variety of intense physical postures. But yoga itself is not really a physical exercise program at all.

Yoga is a philosophy or way of living often called the “8 fold path” because of its eight aspects, of which only one involves physical postures, or asana. The vast majority of yoga taught in this country is hyper-focused on this one aspect of what yoga truly is, with a few oms thrown in. Yoga includes other essential elements, such as self-awareness, self-discipline, concentration, breathwork, and meditation. Without these, yoga becomes just another form of physical exercise. In fact, the asana are not the focus of the practice at all, merely a preliminary technique for preparing the body for meditation.

Another cause of the confusion about yoga is that any generic discussion of the practice of yoga often doesn’t take into account that there are dozens of different styles of yoga, many of which bear little resemblance to each other while still sharing the same underlying philosophical basis. In other words, telling someone you “do yoga” is almost meaningless without any explanation of the specifics of what is involved.

At one point in the article, Black tells people who have had major trauma, “Don’t do yoga.” I would say, “If you’re going to practice yoga, you must practice it differently. With a different mindset and a different goal.” Again, the problem is not doing yoga, it’s the HOW and WHY of doing yoga. Change your focus and motivation in the practice, and you will experience the practice differently. This speaks to the point that Black makes regarding the presence of “ego” in yoga. Unfortunately, there is a prevailing attitude and mindset that a “better” or more advanced practice involves more physically challenging postures, when in fact this is not the case.

I’ve been practicing yoga since 2003, and teaching since 2006. During that time, I’ve attended a variety of workshops around the country taught by well-known instructors and had the opportunity to observe hundreds of students during the practice as well. Sadly, I do know where Black is coming from. I have witnessed a number of unsafe practices in classes and workshops, students encouraged to push themselves beyond was they could safely do. I’ve also been encouraged to attempt postures I was uncomfortable with because I knew I didn’t have the particular physical strength or key flexibilities to do them correctly. Sadly, I’ve also been criticized by other practitioners and teachers for choosing not to practice (and not to teach) certain physically risky postures that are common to various asana sequences in popular yoga.

Yoga really is good medicine. But like any other therapeutic treatment, it must be applied skillfully and under the guidance of a professional. You wouldn’t just walk into a pharmacy, take a bottle of pills off the shelf, and assume they must be the right ones to lower your blood pressure. Take the wrong medication, in the wrong dosage, and it likely will cause harm. At the very least, it will not produce the desired results. Yoga is no different. Practicing yoga with a “weekend warrior” mentality after working 80 hours during the week and living off fast food is a risky proposition.

Like any other exercise program, yoga has its risks. If you have knee problems, you wouldn’t start a intense physical training program without first checking with your doctor and the instructor to discuss how the program of study might impact your physical condition. Likewise, you must take the same approach with yoga, if you choose to practice it as a physical form of exercise, as the majority of people in this country do.