Oh, Fer Crying Out Loud
News flash: yoga poses can hurt you! So says the NY Times.
Well frigging duh.
Listen up, peeps. Yoga has always been about power. Always.
Yoga is not just about yoga poses. It is a technology designed for revelation: revelation of your true face, your true name, your true nature. For most people, unflinchingly and lovingly knowing yourself requires a great deal of power. Although we tend to mistrust power as corruptive, I learned from my teacher years ago that, if I want to do something good in this world, I damn well better be powerful.
Asanas (yoga poses) are powerful. The very word Hatha, as in Hatha Yoga–which describes every kind of yoga which requires a yoga mat–means “to strike”. Asanas are like scalpels. The strike of a scalpel can heal or harm. It is the application that determines whether the strike of a scalpel is salubrious or injurious. The same applies to asana.
To claim that yoga is so dangerous that all people should give it up is, in my opinion, sensationalist and irresponsible. Yes, yoga can injure. That’s why you should practice it with a really well trained teacher. That’s not NY Times newsworthy. It’s just common sense to be filed under duh.
Yoga can also heal. It’s a lot like medicine. Medicine should be prescribed by someone who knows how–a doctor with years of training and practice under her belt. Medicine can cause harm–even death–when taken incorrectly. Should my dad stop taking his heart medicine because it is just too dangerous?
People, please don’t chuck out all your prescriptions because if taken incorrectly they might kill you.
Anything taken to its unchecked extreme is probably going to be a bad idea. What I want to know is–why was that kid in the article sitting in Vajrasana for hours upon hours every day? Who told him to do that? It was dumb. If he were practicing with a seasoned teacher he wouldn’t have been doing that. He wouldn’t have been sitting in Vajrasana for more than about a minute.
Do I sound flip? If so, I apologize. You probably can’t imagine how much I care about the safety of the people in my classroom. Over the last decade three people have been injured in my class. All three injuries occurred when yogis spontaneously did something I didn’t instruct. I have developed eyes in the back of my head a result. I have gotten good at anticipating when people might be tempted to go off the ranch and do something erratic and irresponsible.
I am very stern with students who do not follow my instructions to back off. I have to be. Safety hangs in the balance. In all the years I’ve been teaching, I have invited only one student to never return to my class, and that was because she refused to follow my safety instructions.
As far as people having strokes from hyperextending their necks, we don’t do that in Anusara Yoga. We have something called Skull Loop to prevent unbalanced backbending of the neck. We also have levels of initiation. With a good teacher, a practitioner will have demonstrated strength and ability before being allowed to move on to more powerful intermediate and advanced poses–Headstand and Shoulderstand, for example.
All that said, I will share something that I have believed to be true for some time. There are different reasons to practice the physical form of yoga. If you are practicing to heal your body, or simply to keep it strong and limber, there is a tipping point. You do not need to do advanced asana for that. You do not need to do Power Yoga. Maybe you shouldn’t.
I practice asana for a constellation of reasons. Strength and agility factor in, definitely. Healing my body has factored in too, as well as healing for my heart, mind and spirit.
I also like to do advanced asana sometimes. It’s joyful. It’s challenging. It’s fun. I don’t do it to stay strong and limber. I do it simply because I want to, for the love of it. Advanced asana practicioners are–among other things–elite athletes. Elite athletes sometimes get injured.
When I do advanced asana I do it with all the skill I have acquired to keep myself safe. Alignment yoga is smart yoga. Not only can lining up in a specific way generate a huge shift of consciousness–it’s like looking both ways before crossing the street. It prevents most injury.
But even with good awareness of alignment, injury is possible. There is nothing that I know of that prevents 100% of injuries 100% of the time. The world is far less certain than that. Over the years, I’ve been injured a few times doing asana but I have also been healed. The healing has by far outweighed the injury.
Okay, I have to shower and teach. End of rant.
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this response is nothing short of brilliant. this is exactly what i wanted to write, but with greater skill, clarity and wit. above all deep truth.
you should be in the new york times, bb. how can we make that happen?
Fabulous! Couldn’t agree more. As with any physical, emotional & spiritual endeavor yoga needs to be approached wisely and well, building upon knowledge & ability one step at a time, with guidance and curiosity. Individual voyages will be exactly that … individual.
Donna Freeman
http://yogainmyschool.com
You are so right! In the wrong hands and with the concept of “more is always better” people can hurt themselves with lunges and aspirin alike. A huge part of it is listening to your body’s signals and letting go of expectations for the practice. Thanks for writing!
I read that article. I am a teacher (obviously with a ego that needs to be watched carefully and mindfully). I’m just now returning to a soft practice as I injured myself over 2 months ago. After three weeks of worsening pain that started with my neck and settled into my left ribs, I gave in and visited my doctor. YEP!!! serious injury, torn anterior serratus. I’ve never experienced pain like that. I couldn’t make it through the entire day. Standing and sitting straight was so painful for me. Typical healing time 6-8 weeks.
I can’t fully blame the teacher, although this person did an adjustment that downright killed me from the moment he shoved, twisted and supposedly aligned my body even though I said no several times. I have to take ownership because I was more concerned with the 70+ year old woman next to me and the 300 lb man next to her not having problems with the practice. Shame on me for not practicing ahimsa and santosha. I was def caught up in my “Teacher” ego.
But speaking on the topic of teachers, there are so many new teachers that do not have experience to teach what the asanas they do or to adjust. It irritates the crap out of me. I can not control any actions of another but I can make the smart decision to not practice with a teacher who is reckless.
At 48 years old, I have come to the conclusion that some asanas just aren’t right energetically (or physically for that matter) for my body. And after this last injury, it’s ok if I can’t do a perfect handstand, peacock or bind. Yoga is not just asana. Yoga is a lifestyle, an attitude, a philosophy, a way of living your entire life with more love in everything you do, including your practice.
I love reading your blog. One of the few I truly enjoy. Thank you so much for sharing your experience and thoughts.
Metta la
Mishy
Thanks for a well written and strong dose of what we used to call “common sense” (far too rare now to be calles common). I am a recent yoga practitioner and read that article thinking how hyperbolic it was, but you said it all perfectly!
I second that!
Brilliant! Sharing.
I knew you would have something to say to the NYT article about this. But of course you go the next step and manage to teach us something even more important. The other day when I was leading a workshop on leadership for aspiring yoga teachers, we began by discussing the difference between Hanuman and Ravana, both of whom had the immense power that yoga had given them. I love how you have woven the deep teaching that yoga is about the beneficial use of power into your reflections on the superficial news story about injury. Thanks once again for being unflinchingly you!
THANK YOU! This article got circulated up here in Beantown and I had the same thought / response as you. Thanks for venting for me! I’ve shared your blog post in response to those circulating it.
Hi Bernadette,
I pretty much agree with everything you say here, but I also thought the NYT article was useful in highlighting the fact that with the meteoric rise in yoga’s popularity recently, caution needs to be taken.
I have taught at studios where the teacher (well-trained, by her credentials anyway) regularly had students wildly and ballistically kicking up to headstand even when their Down Dogs looked tight, rounded and cramped in the shoulders. I’ve seen too many teachers get caught up in teaching and demoing the “gee-whiz” poses at the expense of simply offering a well-rounded class of the basic asanas, which for most of the population is plenty challenging. I’m all for more advanced asana, like inversions and arm balances, but I think those things need to be taught in a more intimate, controlled workshop environment, and not so much a part of a general class.
As a teacher who, like you, emphasizes safety over all else, I appreciated the article mainly as a cautionary reminder that we need to stay grounded in the basics with most of our students. No, I don’t think everyone needs to stop practicing yoga…that is ridiculous…but we DO need to be great models of what a safe, strong and powerful yoga practice looks like.
hi Love, I am loving your new website. really wonderful! Congratulations! This is a great post and so are the others. Loved your articles on Elephant Journal. love, love, love. I am gushing but so what. You live in Weston? I live in Weston. We could be best friends! xo
yes, yes, yes. thanks for the rant!
Exactly why I abandoned my first teaching style and stepped onto the Anusara path. Well said Bernadette! Namaste
I just fell in blog love with you. And, it’s not just because of your use of the term, “salubrious”
Your blog is awesome and I agree with to a certain point. But truth is I’ve felt like that article a lot….I want people to know they have to take it seriously and it can be dangerous if not done properly and with great reverence and respect. Personally I find public classes rather problematic because people push themselves that is why I just don’t teach the advanced poses in public classes you want to do the splits? wheel? headstand? come to a private session and let’s make sure it’s right for you!!
Love you BB you are awesome keep rocking it!!
Bravo!
Please do the world a favor and submit this as an editorial response to the NYT article!
You just inspired me to see if that’s an option. Unfortunately–as usual–I am too wordy. I far exceed word limit. Darn!
yes, please submit to the NYTimes. You are so right on!
No way! You MUST submit directly to Mr. Broad who wrote the article. He’d love the challenge I bet, (don’t most Op-ed’rs?).
Before I moved to Brooklyn and started practicing with some of your Anusara colleagues out here, I’d taken a class with you in Darien. I can totally attest to your power and enthusiasm for healing! Keep it going, sista’! You rock!
Great rant. Thank you so much. I’d be honored to have a class with you someday
Well said. Well done. If the media would only encourage common sense rather than sensationalism….
As always I Love Love Love your choice of words. Concise, spot on with a bit of rant. Today I have fielded 3 statements regarding this article.
All three went something like this… I told you yoga was not good for me. Like you I ranted a bit. Love reading you and feeling the love and support!:)
“To claim that yoga is so dangerous that all people should give it up is, in my opinion, sensationalist and irresponsible.”
ALL people? That’s not what Glenn Black said in the article. This is what he actually said:
“Black has come to believe that ‘the vast majority of people’ should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.”
“The vast majority” is not the same as “all.” To claim that someone said something that he didn’t actually say is also irresponsible, don’t you think?
Fair enough. I also think it is sensationalist and irresponsible to make claims that the vast majority of people should give up yoga all together. The dangers of inactivity far outweigh the dangers of yoga. Thanks for commenting.
Thank you So much for composing such an eloquent and beautiful reply. Did you submit it to NYT? You rock Bernadette!
This, by far and away, is the best response I have seen to that article in the NYT. I am sorry that it can’t be submitted to them as a counter. I am not a yogi, by any stretch, but was horrified by that articles sweeping generalizations about the harm that can happen in yoga. Yoga, can do SO much good to try to scare people away from it is just sensationalist and sad.
BRILLIANTLY DONE, Bern!!!
As I am still recovering from my third hip surgery… I am listening to my body first and foremost… thank you for your passion and your wisdom. I say, pare it down, and send to NYT!!! Please!!!! Only love.
Excellent post. Yoga is also about acknowledging that the only person responsible for yourself is yourself, and also about humility: you know what you can do and what you can’t even if the person next to you is balancing on her eye lashes. If done improperly, even going down the stairs or taking a shower can be deadly. The most unfortunate thing about nowadays society is the little judgement we put into the things we are thrown by the media, and I’m afraid that this might hurt a bit as people will become afraid of practicing yoga. A great thing to always remember in class when feeling impaired is “Who cares?”… Who cares if I can go all the way? Who cares if I skip this asana? Who cares if I don’t feel like doing it?
As you stated, yoga is a very powerful practice, and a great deal of responsiblity comes with power. You can light up a huge city with nuclear energy, but you can also blow it up until there’s no stone on another stone.
Great rant! Somebody forwarded me that NY Times article yesterday and I immediately thought that practicing yoga inappropriately can’t be any more dangerous than doing kettlebell swings or running with bad form. DUH is right!
They was a lot of good info in the Times article… but just like all healthcare you need to be responsible. Not just the practitioner, but the patient, client or student too.
We need to be sober to the fact that we have a western body with all the ongoing western stress. Nothing is a quick fix. If a process is to be successful and sustainable it will involve work over a period of time. As Americans we have gotten spoiled.
We need to grow up and take responsibility for our bodies and not just give them to a doctor or a yoga instructor to fix for us.
Yes, please, please, please pare it down and submit it! So well argued! Finding the right words to effectively counter an article that is sweepingly sensationalist takes time. I would like to include some of this in an email to our students or the facebook page of ycyc. Thanks for taking the time to craft this so well.
Bernadette,
Your rant seems excessive. I don’t equate it with power. I equate ranting with ranting.
I have studied and trained pretty extensively with Glenn Black. I know his work.
There is nothing irresponsible about him. And, if you knew him, I believe you would retract your comment about sensationalist.
Glenn Black, the yoga teacher, is also a highly skilled, physical therapist. Over the years, his comments and observations about the quality and quantity of yoga-related injuries he was treating ( and many with very careful, safety-minded teachers like yourself) did not have to do with seeking the limelight. They have to do with the real compassion that arises from suffering, and seeing people suffer.
Just as a point of information, Glenn never went “Hollywood”. He is not a glory seeker. In fact, he is one of the quietest, most humble and respectful people I have ever met. As a senior teacher, he is an outlier who has been preaching what he has been teaching for decades. He’s not sparkly or bubbly. He’s not cute, nor does he try to be. Most of what he has been saying and teaching over the past many years runs against the grain of popular thought and marketing and branding strategies, too.
A conversation has opened up that needed opening and exploring.
Questions will be asked.
Adjustments will be contemplated.
But isn’t that very process of exploration, in all its many forms, that the practice of yoga demands? An invitation, a tool and a method for self-investigation?
Glenn Black raises questions and provides commentary on his observations. He always has.
You can agree or disagree.
You can like or dislike.
You can have an alternative, complimentary or opposing point of view.
You can also, as the poet suggests, Love the Questions.
In every event, I look forward to the discussions that will be raised and have been going on within the yoga community for longer than any of us have been alive.
The only difference is that they are now public.
Wishing you and your students the best
“People, please don’t chuck out all your prescriptions because if taken incorrectly they might kill you.” Love it!!!!
BUT also– people please don’t go to anyone who wears a white coat and assume they’re a great doctor ! I have been in love with yoga for years, and have tried to recruit just about everyone I know, but I have to say that I have been in some classes where some questionable things were taught. A “beginners” class at a community center with a lot of out of shape people where shoulder stand and plow were taught in the first class??? With a promise of headstand in the next class? While I don’t agree that “the vast majority of people” shouldn’t do yoga, I do think that a significant number of teachers shouldn’t be teaching.
The best yoga teachers, even in a community setting, gently and gradually amp up the stretches, mindfully observing the fitness and flexibility of their students.
I have been waiting to read an article like this. When I share this information with people, most don’t seem to understand. We are a competitive people and harder is not always better. Bottom line – Teachers are Students too. Stop. Learn.
So right!
As an Exercise Physiologist/
Massage Therapist//Yoga Teacher I spend my days in gyms. Every time the New York Times prints an article regarding exercise I hear about it!
While I wish the Times would be more responsible to present both side, multiple side of a story they don’t. It is left up to me and you and all of us, of course, to educate. The article is sensational and irresponsible not GlenBlack. It is up to us to educate our students, prospective students and anyone who will listen. The New YorK Times does a disservice when they only print one side. Through the years I have come to accept this and do my best to fill in the blanks.
Thanks for writing this! I couldn’t agree more!
My sentiments exactly! As an Anusara-inspired teacher and long-time Anusara practitioner, alignment and safety are of the utmost importance to me. Alignment goes beyond the physical though, as you point out, we need to align our practice with what is appropriate for us on any given day. It’s when immoutnof alignment that I’ve often learned the most. From my many injuries (as well as from my patient chiropractor) I have learned that as an advanced practitoner I am an athlete and need to practice asteya and ahimsa with my body if I’m going to do advanced asana. I get incredible joy from doing the crazy-shizzle asana in syllabus 2 and 3, and it means I need to be more aware, more clear, and more aligned – all of which serves to deepen my awareness, intelligence, and compassion off the mat. I know our bodies are vehicles of Grace, and we have the incredible blessing of exploring Grace through these vehicles.
Great article. You are right; caution needs to be taken because there are many new teachers who simply do not have enough experience to be teaching. I have never injured myself in a yoga class but I have had teachers attempt to push me to go beyond what I was comfortable doing. Many teachers and students bring ego to class and make it about accomplishing the poses perfectly or competing.
I think its true that you can be injured doing anything. Just because I have sprained my ankle a half dozen times walking doesn’t mean I should get a scooter. The ny times article also plays on similar fears that drug companies do. But so does your response. It reeks of the same ego and lack of compassion for students. Many teachers are so jaded they assume people are competing instead of pushing themselves and tell you not to take an advanced option even if you are doing because the regular option irritates something (I do headstand instead of shoulderstand because it bothers my neck less I am super flexible in hips too). Sure the irresponsible people exist, but treating all people as if they are this way lacks compassion of a yogis personal journey. An injury could be the thing that sets a person down the right path of listening to their body and knowing they know more about their own body than the teacher. That self trust is something I got from good teachers who have enough compassion to treat me as the individual I am. This trust in yourself is what leads you to a better life and following your dreams. If you can’t do this In your public classes maybe your class size is the problem.
Bern,
As a friend and colleague of yours, I applaud your conviction for investigating the broader picture. I thought your article was a much needed retort for all of us yoga teachers and students who are seeking balance in body, mind and energetic balancing.
Stepping on the mat immediately brings the student into the larger entanglement of what lies beneath the skin and bones, the outter shell, the facade of appearances. The gift of the practice is that we slowly and steadily are invited to work towards reconciling the separation between who we are inside of these bodies and how the forces and impulses at play on subtle levels can be carefully and consciously brought into light and understood.
As I remind my students daily, sharing your view of upholding stability over flexibility, illuminate the pose from the inside-out and not the other way around.
Great work Bernadette!
Basil Jones
Thank you for this response. Well put.
Nicely said!
I HAVE been hurt doing yoga, when I was young and inexperienced and so was my teacher. Oh, and more recently when I chose not to create a scene in a class where a teacher was trying to mould me into his version of trikonasana.
But you know? I do my yoga every day. I need to, I love to, and yes, I sometimes do ‘advanced’ stuff too. I love how you put your view on that: I’m going to quote you on it
Well said! I am also a certified yoga instructor who starts with safety and is strict about students following my instructions about alignment and playing with the edge. And I love your comments about power. Namaste.
Hey, Bern!
Many thanks for taking the time to remind all of us of the blessings we share through yoga.
I remember starting on this journey under your guidance and support. You have inspired me to continue on this path – opening my heart to include members of our Kula who are less fortunate than us. I continue to be humbled by the compassion and humility that surround me.
All My Love, Dorothy
Bernadette,
I am a fan. You are articulate, clear and a brilliant, funny writer. I agree with ALMOST everything you wrote about regarding the New York Times article. However, individuals who do Anusara yoga DO get strokes as well. I am an Anusara teacher that has been practicing for 18 years. I started in the Iyengar method. And I had a stroke a year ago (my doctors said it was from yoga). My experience was that the Principles were so imprinted in my body that my brain recovered very quickly. Anusara gave me the right attitude, the power and the determination to recover. A year later, I am doing all the inversions again. The medical community is shocked and several neurologists said it must have been from the strong neurological connections in my brain created by yoga. Given the amount of damage that was done to my brain, I should be paralyzed or have a severe loss of movement. I only suffered a minor weakness on my left side and I am extremely grateful for yoga, despite the risk of injury.
Oh Bern, so good, so good.
“I practice asana for a constellation of reasons. Strength and agility factor in, definitely. Healing my body has factored in too, as well as healing for my heart, mind and spirit.”
Amen.
Hi Bernadette! I felt immediately defensive after hearing about the nyt article and you said everything I felt so eloquently and clearly. Your blog has been entertaining, enlightening, validating, inspiring me for about a year now and after reading your post, I let go of my defensiveness over the nyt article and was able to reflect more openly about my own experience with yoga. As someone who has been practicing yoga for a little over two years I have finally found my way around to committing to anusara yoga. Not only because of all the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits and opportunities that the alignment and philosophy affords me, but because as I began to grow as a student and craved a deeper experience with my practice, I started looking outside the basic beginner classes in a wide variety of studios and styles and I noticed that the classes not only didn’t bring me closer to myself and a deeper practice, but pulled me farther away from it. They abandoned the simple safety and mindfulness of most of the beginner classes I had taken and the attitude of awareness and acceptance of what your body is telling you. Instead they were full of students pushing themselves to do poses simply for the pride of the exterior outcome, hurriedly twisting and muscling themselves into poses they did not know how to do safely or mindfully. It seemed so beside the point, almost the opposite of the point. I lost the sense of closeness to myself and my own truth, and the sense of peace that it afforded me. Rediscovering the anusara practice has been like rediscovering yoga. The smallest adjustment, alignment, or even awareness, brings my whole body, mind, spirit into union and I feel free and fully within myself. It was so refreshing to hear you speak about these principles with such passion and grounded-ness. For me it’s these principles that make true yoga possible, a yoga that I’d really felt like I lost for a while there. I have yet to take an immersion, but it seems like a great system to bring you into a deeper practice. Thanks for your passion, strength, commitment, and humour! It IS powerful. Namaste.
Well said Bernadette, Beautiful. Writing/journalism is like that, In addition to being entertaining, It provoked a big response from the 20 million yoga community. And your response like wise was entertaining, heartfelt to the point and poignant. Thanks