We know, more debate over yoga injuries? Yep! Believe it or not, we still have bodies and brains and vulnerabilities, which could lead to possible injury (or not). Though the subject may seem to border on beating a dead-horse-asana it’s actually a still very relevant discussion in today’s growing yoga world. And we’re thankful for the continued conversation by some pretty smart yoga peeps.
Yoga U Online is hosting another free online telesummit this week April 10-14th called ‘Yoga Injuries: Facts & Fiction‘ with the likes of Judith Hanson Lasater, Roger Cole, Tias Little, Dr. Timothy McCall, Leslie Kaminoff, Jason Crandell, Dr. Loren Fishman, Ellen Saltonstall, Dr. Baxter Bell, Julie Gudmestad, and Peggy Cappy.
A bit of the description:
The media debate about yoga injuries, spurred by the New York Times article “Can Yoga Wreck Your Body?”, has left a lot of confusion in its wake. Some students are reporting that relatives are cautioning them against practicing yoga, because they’ve heard that yoga is “dangerous.” Indeed, if you’re new to yoga, you may be concerned yourself—who wouldn’t be when reading the words “yoga’”and “stroke” in the same sentence?
What’s not being mentioned, however, is that there are more than 400 studies documenting the health benefits of the practice: Yoga is being used to help veterans with PTSD or brain injuries, people suffering from depression and anxiety, kids with ADHD, those with back pain or other chronic conditions, recovering addicts, and others. And most of us turn to yoga because we like the way it makes us feel, physically, mentally and emotionally.
You can sign up here.
Extra credit: We recommend reading
- Dr. Timothy McCall’s revised article “Man Bites Down Dog” in which he gave it a “radical snarkectomy.”
- Also, deeper analysis: Does Yoga Kill? Yoga, Truthiness and the New York Times.
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Earlier…
- Dr. Timothy McCall Responds to Yoga Dangers Controversy, William J. Broad’s ‘Numerous mistakes and Exaggerations’
- In Response to Dangers of Doing Yoga and the Great Yoga Scare
- Go With Your Flow: Yoga On Your Period – To Invert or Not to Invert?
- Relief! Science Finds Yoga to Greatly Improve Fibromyalgia Symptoms
All physical activities can lead to injury even walking. There are far less injuries and deaths in yoga than bicycle riding or skateboarding yet everyone lets their children take part in those activities. This is all about being seeing and heard more than it is news worthy.
I think the difference is that people appreciate and acknowledge the inherent risks of injury in the activities you listed. Many people do not appreciate and acknowledge the risks of injury in yoga. Moreover, repetitive motion injuries like those that can happen in yoga take a long time to manifest, sometimes years. They are not acute like injuries received in skateboarding and biking.
Not true about biking or skateboarding, especially depending on the type of seat or the way your handle bars are set up with biking. Skateboarding as well could have very detrimental effects from repetitive motion on both knees and ankles.
I am not saying that there are not repetitive motion injuries in biking and skateboarding, just that people perceive a risk with those activities whereas many people do not perceive a risk with yoga.
Of course we can get injuries if we are not careful and push beyond our limits or don’t do the pose the way it should be done. Yoga is a subtle art and one should know one’s limitations, how to approach a pose and observe what is happening to the body, breath and mind while doing the pose. I suggest reading Iyengar’s book Tree of Yoga where he explains these things in great detail. Why is Broad’s article receiving such publicity? He is not telling anything that we don’t know already or that wasn’t said before by other poeple. People just push into a practice without knowing what they are doing and get injured. This happens in a lot of different activities. If you don’t know what you are doing even eating or drinking can be dangerous.
Why is Kaminoff in this “summit”?? He doesn’t even have a college degree. Way off the mark on his fabrications about how the body actually works (no surprise–he never actually studied it). Don’t know about the rest of this crew, but Kaminoff discredits the whole exercise!
Kaminoff don’t need no education! He’s a freakin’ “breath educator”. He’s here to help us all breath better. And his facebook page sez he went to “Leslie univoisity”…LMFO!
Kaminoff is a hack
No question. Kaminoff is a complete fraud.