Okay.

This NY Times article is furiously making its Facebook rounds, and I’ve now been emailed this article enough times that I compelled to say something about it. There’s been quite a bit of a yoga buzz in the news of late. Perhaps this is par for the course, being that it’s the season of New Year’s resolutions and all.

Part of the reason this one article is spreading like wildfire is that the headline borders on fear-mongering, basically shouting from the mountaintops about how dangerous yoga can be.

Well, duh.

Just like anything else, yoga has its risks. Many factors can amplify these risks, including taking class from teachers who are inexperienced and therefore lack the knowledge and wisdom to give proper instruction or advice. You can also take class from teachers who teach for more dubious, less-than-honorable reasons, and there isn’t really a positive way to enumerate those reasons so I’ll just leave it at that.**

In my training to become a teacher (and mind you, we’re talking a 7-month-long immersion, not your weekend-warrior-presto-change-o-now-you’re-suddenly-a-yoga-teacher kind of “training”…not to toot my horn here, but it’s true), we were told over and over that yoga isn’t about the poses, matter of fact they are just a small part of the journey.

But, it’s not just about the teacher. Yes, a yoga teacher’s number one responsibility is to provide a safe space, as awesome and insightful yogi Alison Hinks points out. If you read between the lines in the NY Times article, it becomes clear that the real “danger” lies within both teachers and students: ego. Yep, that means you and me both, yogi.

Again, I’m not saying that yoga isn’t without its risks. Glenn Black, one of the veteran yoga teachers featured in the NYT article, contends that “the vast majority of people” should give up yoga altogether because “It’s simply too likely to cause harm.” I happen to think that’s a bit extreme. It might be closer to the truth to say that folks shouldn’t practice for the wrong reasons.

It is never a bad idea to consider why we are “doing yoga”, before, during, and after we practice. “Doing yoga” to get “yoga butt” (and I can’t even believe there’s actually a wikipedia article on that)…not a good reason.  ”Doing yoga” to be able to “do _____ ” (fill in the pose name)…also probably not the best reason.

Yoga isn’t just exercise. Yoga isn’t just deriving life-appropriate truisms from teachers waxing philosophic while you happen to be getting a workout. Yoga is largely — in fact one might say exclusively —  about developing awareness. Awareness of the self at all levels. One of my teachers here in Seattle, Troy Lucero – for whom I have the utmost respect for his no-frills style, deep insight, and way with words — teaches that yoga is about accessing our entire “neural net”; it’s about spreading the awareness throughout the body, so it doesn’t just sit “in that vague area behind the face.”

For this yogi, that’s reason enough to practice AND to teach. That, and this lady:

Mrs. Calman, Amazing Australian "Yoga Grandma"

**Not to mention that the original title of this blog post was “The Case for Regulation (i.e., Not Yoga Alliance)”

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