In a recent article entitled How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body, which would have been more aptly titled, How Practicing Asanas without Self-Awareness Can Wreck Your Body, author, William Broad interviews long-standing yoga teacher, Glenn Black, about the potentially harmful aspects of ignorant asana practice. Aside from perpetuating the common misconception that yoga is merely asana by consistently using the word "yoga" to refer to the popular, yet partial, asana practice within the integral tradition of yoga, the article is an informative, well-written, cautionary tale for current and aspiring asana enthusiasts.
Black, with laudable honesty and integrity, warns that the frequent lack of yogic attentiveness and deeper understanding within the often achievement-oriented culture of current exercise-based yoga practice may be more harmful than beneficial.
"According to Black, a number of factors have converged to heighten the risk of practicing yoga. The biggest is the demographic shift in those who study it. Indian practitioners of yoga typically squatted and sat cross-legged in daily life, and yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures. Now urbanites who sit in chairs all day walk into a studio a couple of times a week and strain to twist themselves into ever-more-difficult postures despite their lack of flexibility and other physical problems. Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga’s exploding popularity — the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury. “Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people,” Black said. “You can’t believe what’s going on — teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling and saying, ‘You should be able to do this by now.’ It has to do with their egos.”"
Yup. I couldn't agree more. Read the entire article for more of Black's perspective, and check out our offerings through Lumina Yoga for a more integral approach.
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