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BKS Iyengar, who helped bring yoga to the West, has died

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Re: BKS Iyengar, who helped bring yoga to the West, has died

#31

Post by discardorama »

andrewl wrote: post #15
dheer01 wrote: post #8

Every software engineer at some time in their working life will experience lower back pain. Before, you waste time/money going to your favourite medical practitioner, who will most likely advise you with a chemical cocktail - please visit your local yoga practitioner and ask him for a one minute session on Salamba Bhujangasana. This will 'cure' your backpain completely and irrevocably. If you havent yet crossed over,…

Some forms of yoga can be good for some people. And some of them can be quite bad, which isn't often acknowledged. There's a lot of dogma in the yoga community. See the New York Times article How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body [1] and the followup discussion The Healing Power of Yoga Controversy [2]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wrec... [2] http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/the-hea…

I think part of the blame lies (IMHO) in, what I'd consider the American desire to "be number 1!!11!!" and the adrenaline rush. Just doing yoga is not enough; there have to be _competitions_ and challenges and so on. Why, regular yoga not giving you the adrenaline rush? Try "Acro Yoga" ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMMlzQsQPk4

What the heck. Yoga is not about being competitive; it's just about you, and you alone. Do the same yoga that you do when you're alone, as when you're in front of 1000 people. Listen to your body.

An analogy is: yoga is like tango. The 'woman' is your body, and you are the lead.

Re: BKS Iyengar, who helped bring yoga to the West, has died

#32

Post by peterwwillis »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #30
peterwwillis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my $0.02 on the subject. Every modern western yoga teacher (if they've passed teacher training) will tell you several things when you're starting out: 1. If it hurts, don't do it. 2. Listen to your body. 3. You can not 'win' yoga. 4. If you have an injury, use a modified pose. 5. It's your practice, do it your way, at your own pace. 6. Rest if you feel like it. 7. Don't do everything everyone else does. etc I'…

Yeah but injury while skiing or wrestling makes some kind of sense. Injury while sitting on a mat - something is not right there. Something intrinsic to the activity, if "there's always going to be a risk of injury".

When you're skiing or wrestling, you naturally engage a significant number of muscles and position your body to engage in said activity. When your whole body is in motion you instinctively flex your muscles to do things like balance, twist, bend, jump, etc. A body in motion is essentially in a more healthy alignment and supports your passive body parts (bones, blood, nerves, organs, etc).

When we are still and calm, our muscles relax (in general). This is basically a bad thing for our bodies because it stops the support that a lot of our body needs. For example, letting your neck sag forward or hunching over your desk over a long period of time can damage parts of the neck and spine, overdevelop your deltoids/chest and hurt your lower back.

When you're doing yoga asanas, this is all exacerbated as you intentionally put your body into positions that we don't naturally move into without lots of practice. So in effect, it's significantly more dangerous to sit on a mat if you're not engaging your muscles or positioning your body in the correct way to support everything.

Yoga is dangerous in the way that every physical activity that requires skill to perform is dangerous, with one caveat: yoga asanas are dependent on the way you personally move your body and the state it's in. So really, it's only dangerous for people who naturally move their bodies in a way that might promote injury. This is why learning from a teacher how exactly to get into a pose, and practicing that regularly, is so important: it removes ambiguity and improves the entire physical act to not only be safe, but also be superior to how you might naturally do something.

But as a practitioner, I don't personally see how yoga is any more dangerous than skiing or wrestling. You can break an arm in wrestling, and a collarbone in skiing, if you're not careful. Just because sitting on a mat looks easy doesn't mean it is.

Re: BKS Iyengar, who helped bring yoga to the West, has died

#33

Post by JoeAltmaier »

peterwwillis wrote: post #32
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but injury while skiing or wrestling makes some kind of sense. Injury while sitting on a mat - something is not right there. Something intrinsic to the activity, if "there's always going to be a risk of injury".

When you're skiing or wrestling, you naturally engage a significant number of muscles and position your body to engage in said activity. When your whole body is in motion you instinctively flex your muscles to do things like balance, twist, bend, jump, etc. A body in motion is essentially in a more healthy alignment and supports your passive body parts (bones, blood, nerves, organs, etc). When we are still and calm,…

I think it has something to do with hurling your body at 50mph down a mountain slope, that makes injury seem more normal.

Re: BKS Iyengar, who helped bring yoga to the West, has died

#34

Post by andrewl »

peterwwillis wrote: post #29
andrewl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some forms of yoga can be good for some people. And some of them can be quite bad, which isn't often acknowledged. There's a lot of dogma in the yoga community. See the New York Times article How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body [1] and the followup discussion The Healing Power of Yoga Controversy [2]. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wrec... [2] http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/the-hea…

Here's my $0.02 on the subject. Every modern western yoga teacher (if they've passed teacher training) will tell you several things when you're starting out: 1. If it hurts, don't do it. 2. Listen to your body. 3. You can not 'win' yoga. 4. If you have an injury, use a modified pose. 5. It's your practice, do it your way, at your own pace. 6. Rest if you feel like it. 7. Don't do everything everyone else does. etc I'…

"I don't know who you think isn't acknowledging this as every yoga instructor has probably also hurt themselves at one point or another."

Many yoga practitioners do acknowledge the risks, but many do not. I should probably change which isn't often acknowledged to isn't acknowledged often enough or which many in the community do not acknowledge.

If you read the articles I linked, and the article comments, you'll see a lot of anger and denial. (But not from everybody.)

Re: BKS Iyengar, who helped bring yoga to the West, has died

#36

Post by hosh »

igravious wrote: post #21
wallflower wrote: post #19

What I find interesting about yoga practices in America is that there is so much emphasis/focus on just the 1st level (Physical). Physical - Annamaya kosha Energy - Pranamaya kosha Mental - Manamaya kosha Wisdom - Vijnanamaya kosha Bliss - Anandamaya kosha Self - Atman Even the grueling 200-hr Yoga training which some of my friends have endured is about doing all the poses (which can be quite difficult, especially if…

Perhaps because the "model" we have in the West of ourselves is more-or-less a dualistic model: mind/body. I guess that people in the West consider yoga involving poses to target the body and practices like meditation to target the mind. That would then cover "everything" as far as we'd see. There is the notion embedded in Western culture that the seat of consciousness (which many equate with the self) is contained w…

These differences are superficial and skin-deep. The mystics of both East and West are more in agreement than the the scribblers of scripture. One of the common threads, East or West, is that "self" is not Self (Atman).

Bliss is not what the Buddhists mean by Enlightenment, though it is in the same general "area". The most obvious Western equivalent in that same area is the term, "Gnosis".

Re: BKS Iyengar, who helped bring yoga to the West, has died

#37

Post by IvyMike »

wallflower wrote: post #19

What I find interesting about yoga practices in America is that there is so much emphasis/focus on just the 1st level (Physical). Physical - Annamaya kosha Energy - Pranamaya kosha Mental - Manamaya kosha Wisdom - Vijnanamaya kosha Bliss - Anandamaya kosha Self - Atman Even the grueling 200-hr Yoga training which some of my friends have endured is about doing all the poses (which can be quite difficult, especially if…

The other four levels are increasingly in conflict with various religions.

Re: BKS Iyengar, who helped bring yoga to the West, has died

#38

Post by nzp »

igravious wrote: post #21
wallflower wrote: post #19

What I find interesting about yoga practices in America is that there is so much emphasis/focus on just the 1st level (Physical). Physical - Annamaya kosha Energy - Pranamaya kosha Mental - Manamaya kosha Wisdom - Vijnanamaya kosha Bliss - Anandamaya kosha Self - Atman Even the grueling 200-hr Yoga training which some of my friends have endured is about doing all the poses (which can be quite difficult, especially if…

Perhaps because the "model" we have in the West of ourselves is more-or-less a dualistic model: mind/body. I guess that people in the West consider yoga involving poses to target the body and practices like meditation to target the mind. That would then cover "everything" as far as we'd see. There is the notion embedded in Western culture that the seat of consciousness (which many equate with the self) is contained w…

> I guess what you mean by Bliss is what the Buddhists mean by Elightenment?

Although in Buddhism there is at some point the attainment of bliss (as a factor in the first jhana[0]) the goal is to let go of that bliss and go beyond. The next step in yoga is the realisation of atman, while in Buddhism the goal, Enlightenment (which is much better translated as "Awakening") it is the very opposite--the realisation of anatman (non-self). So they're not really compatible. In fact Buddhism is doctrinally sharply opposed to all strands of Vedic thought and practice.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jhana

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