I want to read The Science of Yoga: The Myths and the Rewards (which doesn't happen nearly enough with the books I write about). There was a whole lot of internet-chatter about William J. Broad's recent "adapted from" article in the NYTimes, exactly as planned by whoever titled it How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body. My favorite response:
But one thing I do want to say is that, OF COURSE, you can hurt yourself doing yoga. You can injure yourself tying your shoes, for God’s sake. If you’re in a body (and all but a few of us are), then ANYTHING you do – or don’t do, for that matter – can have insidious effects.
Another favorite:
Oh, NYT. Just when I thought I could respect the old gray lady again. You have to go and resort to some fear-mongering reporting. What’s the matter? FOX News getting the better of you? Did Jill Abramson have a bad yoga class?
As a teacher for the last 8 years and a yogi for the last 10, I can say – no, stake my life upon this – that the problem is NEVER the yoga. Any issues of injuries that come up stem entirely from one of two places: the student or the teacher.
Being a living breathing human causes injuries...
I ignored the obvious linkbait thing, because regardless of the bad reasoning and iffy scientific thinking demonstrated in the NYTimes fragment, it looked like he was making some good points (with which most of the serious yoga-types I've come across agree). And it does look like the book is more reasoned. Here's the Publisher's Weekly review:
As he did with the ancient Oracle in Delphi, Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter Broad attempts to elucidate another subject shrouded in myth and mystery. Positioning yoga at a turning point in its centuries-old history, he points to pioneers in the 19th and 20th centuries who applied scientific rigor to claims of miraculous powers and cures and discovered some of the physical, mental, and emotional mechanisms by which yoga produced tangible, and sometimes paradoxical, benefits. With dramatic writing and a flair for provocation—e.g., he states that hatha yoga began as a sex cult and that yoga has many “dirty little secrets”—Broad takes readers through a whirlwind tour of yoga’s high and low points, declaring with examples of recent research its ability to calm the nerves, tone the body, revitalize sex, spark creativity, and heal injuries, as well as cause strokes and maim A longtime student of yoga, Broad is also a skeptic wary of tantric showmen of ages past and contemporary yoga entrepreneurs like Bikram Choudhury and advertisers hawking everything from clothing and jewelry to beverages and peace of mind in the pages of Yoga Journal. But he is also quick to credit instructors like Amy Weintraub, who created from personal experience an effective yoga program to fight depression. While Broad’s report is an unusual and valuable addition to typical yoga books on the market, some readers will feel the loss of the spiritual, which is a basic root in the yoga mix.
And here's Kirkus:
A fair, well-reasoned assessment of the many extraordinary claims made for yoga.
Based on ancient ideas about the effect of body positions and breath control on mind and spirit, yoga first flowered in India as the centerpiece of Tantric cults that searched for enlightenment in sexual ecstasy. Its mostly male practitioners claimed the art endowed them with not only sexual prowess but also magical powers. One famous 19th-century yogi astonished his noble patron by seeming to come alive after being sealed for 40 days in a tomb with no food or water. Early-20th-century Indian rationalists proved many of those feats to be nothing more than magic tricks, but the art had a second flourishing in the West in the form of mostly low-impact exercise and meditation. Modern yogis and yoginis (their female counterparts) have continued to claim extraordinary powers for the new varieties of yoga, calling them miracle exercises that are completely safe and more aerobic and slimming than even running or swimming. New York Times senior writer Broad (The Oracle: The Lost Secrets and Hidden Messages of Ancient Delphi, 2006, etc.), who has practiced yoga since 1970, carefully pulls apart these claims, citing decades of scientific research and medical practice. Even the most energetic poses, such as the Salutation to the Sun, writes the author, are barely more aerobic and trimming than sitting and watching those poses performed on TV. The author also shows that yoga, far from being “completely safe,” can often result in serious injuries, including stroke, brain and nerve injury and even death. However, Broad makes a convincing argument, firmly rooted in science, for yoga’s powers to heighten concentration, inspire creativity, improve moods—even to cure some physical conditions like torn rotator cuffs.
A fascinating, persuasive case for demythologizing yoga and recognizing its true value to mind and body.
A bit from the NYTimes review:
...Broad’s objective is simple enough: to evaluate in scientific terms the claims made for yoga. But this turns out to be more complicated than it seems. For one thing, there are the sheer number and variety of those claims: yoga, it is said, can prevent heart disease, reverse aging, eliminate pain, and bestow serenity and peace. Broad patiently and exhaustively examines the evidence for each of these assertions, revealing surprises along the way. Yes, yoga can reduce anxiety and improve mood. No, it won’t help the overweight shed pounds. Yes, it may actually slow the body’s biological clock. Broad doesn’t just discuss the results of the scientific literature; he weighs the relative prestige of the journal in which the studies were published and scrutinizes each experiment’s design and methodology. This is more information than some readers may want, but Broad leaves no doubt that he’s done his homework...
...one grows to appreciate Broad’s conscientiousness upon arriving at his chapter on yoga injuries — a real risk, he argues persuasively, that has been largely overlooked. The notion that a person can be hurt while engaging in yoga, Broad writes, “runs counter to yoga’s reputation for healing and its promotion of superior levels of fitness and well-being”; many current practitioners turned to yoga after being injured by more high-impact activities. Nevertheless, he makes a strong case that without careful precautions, yoga can produce painful or incapacitating impairments in the form of torn Achilles tendons, nerve damage, back injuries and even stroke.
But Broad isn’t done yet. His chapter on injuries is followed by discussions of yoga’s power — real or not — to heal disease, enhance sexuality and uplift the spirit. His conclusion? “The discipline on balance does more good than harm.” It can relieve stress and decrease pain, but along with the possibility of serious injury, it can also lead to disappointment for those expecting a miraculous change to their bodies or psyches.
In other words, yoga is a decidedly mixed bag...
...Broad details the recent growth of the “yoga industrial complex,” the big business of selling books, magazines, DVDs, clothes and the mats that seem to inhabit every tote bag carried in brownstone Brooklyn and on the Upper West Side. And he brings us up to date on current trends in yoga practice, documenting the popularity of routines that combine yoga poses with vigorous aerobic exercise. These very un-serene styles include Ashtanga yoga, Bikram yoga and YogaFit, whose “YogaButt” program promises “a bottom that is ‘sleek and sexy.’ ”
Appropriately, yoga seems to have come full circle: flush with cash and focused on perfecting the body, modern yoga has returned to its earthy origins in money and sex...
That "mixed bag" line set my eyes rolling, but I suppose she's just writing for that same NYTimes audience...
And here's an excerpt from the prologue, via Amazon:
...Yoga is one of the world’s fastest-growing health and fitness activities. The Yoga Health Foundation, based in California, puts the current number of practitioners in the United States at twenty million and around the globe at more than two hundred and fifty million. Many more people, it says, are interested in trying yoga. To spread the word, the foundation organizes Yoga Month—a celebration every September that blankets the United States with free yoga classes, activities, and health fairs...
Yoga may be in the air culturally. But it is also quite visibly a big business. Merchants sell mats, clothes, magazines, books, videos, travel junkets, creams, healing potions, shoes, soy snacks, and many accessories deemed vital to practice—as well as classes. Purists call it the yoga industrial complex. Increasingly, the big financial stakes have upended the traditional ethos. Bikram Choudhury, the founder of Bikram Yoga, a hot style, copyrighted his sequence of yoga poses and had his lawyers send out hundreds of threatening notices that charged small studios with violations. He is not alone. In the United States, yoga entrepreneurs have sought to enhance their exclusivity by registering thousands of patents, trademarks, and copyrights...
One factor that distinguishes modern yoga from its predecessors is its transformation from a calling into a premium lifestyle...
...it is important to remember that yoga has no governing body. There’s no hierarchy of officials or organizations meant to ensure purity and adherence to agreed-upon sets of facts and poses, rules and procedures, outcomes and benefits. It’s not like a religion or modern medicine, where rigorous schooling, licensing, and boards seek to produce a high degree of conformity. And forget about government oversight. There’s no body such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission or the Food and Drug Administration to ensure that yoga lives up to its promises. Instead, it’s a free-for-all—and always has been. Over the ages, that freedom has resulted in a din of conflicting claims...
...Billions of dollars are now at stake in public representations of what yoga can do, and the temptations are plentiful to lace declarations with everything from self-deception and happy imprecision to willful misrepresentations and shadings of the truth. Another temptation is to avoid any mention of damage or adverse consequences—a silence often rooted in economic rationalizations. Why tell the whole story if full disclosure might drive away customers? Why limit the sales appeal? Why not let the discipline be all things to all people?
Anyone who has done yoga for a while can rattle off a list of benefits. It calms and relaxes, eases and renews, energizes and strengthens. It somehow makes us feel better.
But beyond such basics lies a frothy hodgepodge of public claims and assurances, sales pitches and New Age promises. The topics include some of life’s most central aspirations—health, attractiveness, fitness, healing, sleep, safety, longevity, peace, willpower, control of body weight, happiness, love, knowledge, sexual satisfaction, personal growth, fulfillment, and the far boundaries of what it means to be human, not to mention enlightenment.
This book cuts through the confusion that surrounds modern yoga and describes what science tells us...
Too bad the NYTimes book-promo adaptation led so many to believe otherwise. Though I suppose some of those complaining must be of the magical-mystical-mucho-money sort... |