The New York Times on “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”
Is the New York Times out to get yoga? You might think so, if you read their recent article, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” a scary tale of injuries, strokes, and hip replacements. The article is adapted from the book “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards,” by William J. Broad, to be published next month by Simon & Schuster.
I’m sure the article upset a lot of yogis, and it was definitely one-sided – the therapeutic aspects of yoga were completely ignored. But I would definitely recommend reading it, because it showcases a darker side of yoga that we don’t hear a lot about in the yoga community. I touched upon some of my concerns about extreme, strenuous yoga in a blog post about the potential dangers of Ashtanga, but it’s not Ashtanga alone that might be the issue. Any yoga that is more about pushing the body beyond its limits could be problematic. I wonder if workout yoga styles like vinyasa flow have taken yoga down a path that might end up becoming more extreme as time goes on – will the yoga of the 2020s be more like frenetic, gymnastic kickboxing workouts than yoga?
At any rate, I’d recommend reading the article, and especially the comments, which are interesting. Here’s a comment I found particularly pertinent:
Laura Maria Censabella of Brooklyn, NY wrote:
Years ago I studied Sivananda yoga in Manhattan after years of studying ballet. I loved the practice for its sanity: no looking in mirrors; few competitive glances around the room; hour and a half long classes with ample warm-up and cool-down time; and 12 or so basic postures repeated from class to class. These 12 postures served as foundation poses so that meditation could occur. Individual yoga teachers added variations that grew out of these basic poses, and one could choose to do them or not. Last year, after years of doing yoga on my own, I decided to return to yoga classes. Imagine my surprise when they turned out to be what felt like yoga calisthenics classes to a soft rock accompaniment. From class to class, even with the same teacher, there was little continuity of poses, increasing the risk of injury since you never mastered anything before you moved on. Who knew yoga had thousands of poses and why was it important that we do all of them in a macho quest to master them all? Surely there are a smaller number of basic poses that are beneficial to the body, and by slowly holding them one can go deeper mentally and physically. I fear that yoga has become Americanized to its detriment, and perhaps this new brand of yoga has become like New York: fast-paced, competitive, and a little mean.
Hmm. Has yoga become a little mean? Maybe it has.
