Bad karma: When yoga harms instead of heals

[BridgeTheGap]

Inexperienced teachers and overeager students behind rise in injuries

I remember only one pose from my first yoga class seven years ago: a modified seated forward bend known in Sanskrit as Paschimottanasana. I sat on a mat with my legs slightly bent in front of me, my arms wrapped beneath my thighs as my forehead reached toward my toes. It was about an hour into class, and my body felt like a stuck door slowly easing open.

A warm current of something — call it blood, call it chi — coursed from shoulder to shoulder. I felt the muscles unfurling from my spine; then, in the other direction, the vertebrae unsticking from each other — click, click, click. It was a sensation of freedom and release I remember as vividly as the first time my husband touched me. This was how I was supposed to feel.

Years of hunching over my computer had left me stiff, almost breakable. One false move — getting out of bed too quickly, tying my shoe — could lay me flat on a heating pad for days. Friends and family commented that my shoulders were rounding, my back curving, my chin protruding beyond my chest. Sometimes I'd see little old ladies hobbled over canes, their tiny bodies twisted and contorted, and I'd wonder, Will that be me?

Now I knew it wouldn't. After a series of yoga classes, I gradually began to stand up straighter and move through the world more easily without hurting myself. If the hunch in my back was a measure of how hard I was working at my job, my new upright alignment served as testament to how hard I was working on myself. Yoga had become my salvation.

Until it became my damnation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25400799/wid/11915773?GT1=31036

[Avalux]

1. She was stupid. Should have stuck with the beginner class.

Being older and not having done anything for at least a month; it was a bad decision to 'pick up where she left off'.

It's like this with any form of exercise though. Pushing the body too hard will cause injuries.

[burythehatchet]

2. The "Westernization" of Yoga is comical

It was developed for one purpose - to prepare the body for meditation and prayer. How it became an exercise routine is somewhat puzzling. There is nothing that the West cannot co-opt and corrupt.

[Peace Patriot]

5. It has also become corrupted with competitiveness. Can you imagine anything

more anathema to yoga than this athletic competition that many classes have become, which undermine your ability to tune into your own inner self--and how you really feel and what you really need--and instead focuses your attention on what you can DO, and, what is worse, what you can do in comparison to others, or in comparison to what you did yesterday. The teachers get a bit full of themselves, and their "best" students follow right along, pushing people who are not ready, into positions and practices that can cause injury--positions and practices that they don't ever need to do, in order to benefit from yoga.

I would just say: LISTEN TO YOURSELF. Pay NO ATTENTION to what the teacher says, or what the teacher or others can do. Yoga can be so good for you, but it HAS TO BE your thing, not theirs. This takes a really stubborn attitude, and I think it's very hard for Americans to let go of the idea of "a class," in which you are supposed to make "progress," and compete with yourself and others (including the teacher). The best yoga teacher would be a big fat Buddha who just sat there and didn't move and didn't speak. Or maybe moved one toe, or one finger, every hour.

Instead, a lot of yoga students these days are competing with TV ads of who they should look like, and what they should be able to do.

I've had one great yoga teacher, who said, "Yoga is your preparation for your death." Wow. That got my attention on the inner self. She said very little, all in all. She was very kind, and nearly free of competitiveness. (It's hard for any teacher to be entirely free of wanting to see "progress.") Yoga, to her, was relaxation, not sports.

Many people--I think Americans in particular--are discontent with themselves--deem themselves too fat, too skinny, misshapen, addicted to bad things, too stressed out, too lazy, haven't made their million yet and secured their own future in case Bushite society collapses, too unlovable, not muscular enough, not enough stamina, unattractive, not "lean and mean" enough, and on and on, and, really, yoga should be for all of these discontents to go away, so that people can just sit and move gently, as the spirit moves them--in sync with others, or not, obedient to the teacher's instructions, or not--in tune with yourself, and simply enjoying being alive. Cuz--as my wise teacher said--it's gonna end. And you never know when. And where's your head gonna be at that moment? Still into berating yourself? Still measuring your "progress"?

[burythehatchet]

9. wonderful post. Right on the mark.

a bit off topic - I recall an infomercial for a exercise video called "Yoga Booty Ballet". If that wasn't sick enough, the logo was the AUM, the most sacred of Hindu symbols.

I was so offended that it left me sad and speechless to see the the symbol that is so profoundly representative of my philosophical views being used to sell "Yoga Booty Ballet".

[Downtown Hound]

3. It's not like this is really a surprise

Any exercise can cause injury if done incorrectly, even walking.

[Warpy]

4. I discovered Yoga about 5 years after I was finally diagnosed

with the first of an alphabet soup of musculoskeletal problems. Because of my diagnosis, I knew beginner's postures would be it for me, even if I were physically capable of assuming more advanced postures during remission. I just knew pushing it would be a very bad idea and that if anything felt unsafe, it was unsafe.

Yoga is interesting because it affirms the body/mind connection instead of fleeing from it. Slow postures that flow into each other smooth a transition to still meditation at the end.

My own Yoga practice has been mostly solitary, as the few times I've gone to classes have presented me with teachers who are frustrated by my unwillingness to "progress." Being an exercise jock is just not in the cards, and while other people might feel a push to progress to some pinnacle of flexibility and physical perfection, this is not why I do Yoga.

It's no mystery to me why competitive people are being injured by something as gentle and peaceful as Yoga--they've missed the point and use it as just one more way to strive and prove their "edge" over everybody else.

Yoga is one of the things that has kept me out of a wheelchair. Improperly done, it can put people into them.

[Tumbulu]

7. How best to get started?

I farm and am getting stiffer and stiffer doing the daily chores of feeding sheep and chickens and other things like this, just picking up a 5 gal bucket of used oil to bring in for recycling I pulled muscles in my back.

Everyone tells me that I need to take up some sort of practice; yoga or Tai Chi, something that I do everyday.

There is a class in town for folks over 40...but wonder if I would be better off starting by myself with a book or a dvd.

[BridgeTheGap]

8. Start with an experienced teacher...develop a routine and stick with it

Once you have it down, you don't really need to go to classes.

[Warpy]

10. There are great books and DVDs available

but if there's an over 40 class in your area, start there. You might get some feedback on which books and DVDs would be most appropriate for you.

I started with a book that's long since out of print and out of my library. It had "easy" in the title which is why it appealed to me.

[BridgeTheGap]

6. I've done it for years with no problems. The problems arise when I DON"T do it.

I had lower back problems and took a class from a woman I knew. It helped tremendously.
I've also gone to a chiropractor with mixed results. As long as I do Yoga 4- 5 times a week, my back doesn't bother me. It's worth it!
The good Yoga teachers will tell you not to push it too hard, i.e. to the point of pain.