Category: WAWADIA
WAWADIA: Indiegogo Pitch Video
WAWADIA Update #17 /// Question: Is Injury-Free Yoga Possible?
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n November 1st, I’ll be releasing a 52-page prospectus for a crowdfunding campaign to support the two years I think it’ll take to produce this book. In preparation for the campaign, I’ve fielded a lot of really good questions online, from my interview subjects, and in various public forums where I’ve presented preliminary findings from my research.
(I was at Yoga Morristown two weeks ago, hosted by Omni Kitts Ferrara. Then I gave a brief presentation to the entire faculty of Octopus Garden in Toronto last Wednesday. And the second WAWADIA night at 80 Gladstone, hosted by Diane Bruni, was on Friday night. Everywhere, the conversation is searching, lively, and runs late. I’ll be at Evolution Yoga in Cleveland this Saturday, hosted by Sandy Gross, and at Portland Union Yoga on Nov. 8th, hosted by Todd Vogt and Annie Adamson.)
The questions I’m getting have a lot of nuance, but here are the nuggets:
WTF is your end-game here?
Or:
Do you really think you can stop people from getting injured in asana classes? Continue reading “WAWADIA Update #17 /// Question: Is Injury-Free Yoga Possible?”
WAWADIA Update #16: Two Ways of Blocking the Yoga Injury Conversation
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here’s no doubt that the focus I’ve chosen for this project, the data generated by the interviews, and the analysis I’ve applied to that data so far is triggering for many yoga people.
I can totally relate: the whole subject was triggering me for years before I began more formal research. I was too professionally invested in asana culture as a teacher, yoga therapist, and community organizer to let myself really hear and absorb the stories of injury and harm coming from colleagues. More intimately, I was also heavily identified with yoga asana as a key plot point in the story of my personal awakening. That hasn’t changed, but the story has certainly become more twisty. Continue reading “WAWADIA Update #16: Two Ways of Blocking the Yoga Injury Conversation”
WAWADIA update #15: Yoking the Injured Body and the NonInjured body
So the response to Update #14 has come fast and rich. You can read that piece in full here, or just roll with this nut graf, woven from Winnicott and Orbach:
Some people might be getting hurt in yoga because they are practicing in the bodies they fantasize about, instead of the bodies they actually have. Bodies they fantasize expressing a happiness that is not truly there. Bodies they fantasize as expansive when they actually feel like retreating, or expressive when they feel choked. What happens to the tissues when the mind presses them into the performance of a fictional suppleness and strength? Can the fantasized body push the real body, the inner body, too far, too fast?
Continue reading “WAWADIA update #15: Yoking the Injured Body and the NonInjured body”
WAWADIA Update #14: Practicing Yoga in the “False Body”
On November 1st I’ll be releasing a prospectus for the book slowly emerging from this project, in conjunction with a crowdfunding campaign. I’d like to preview a bit of that document here, and ask for responses to a strange question:
Do you sometimes have the feeling that there are two bodies on the mat: the body you have, and the body you fantasize about? Continue reading “WAWADIA Update #14: Practicing Yoga in the “False Body””
WAWADIA update 13 /// Learning With Iyengar, Learning Against Iyengar
The Lion of Pune is dead. So many accolades have flooded the web. I’ll review some of these sentiments and their tensions, and then finish with a tribute of my own, which will be somewhat different. Continue reading “WAWADIA update 13 /// Learning With Iyengar, Learning Against Iyengar”
WAWADIA update #12: How Many of Us Are Injured By Chasing a Fading Pleasure?
Another short update, and a request:
In research for the WAWADIA project so far, a key distinction has emerged.
On one hand, there are acute injuries that occur in the early days of practice, correlated with (if not caused by) a combination of inappropriate instruction, disorganized studio protocols, and lack of previous exercise/embodiment experience on the part of the student. These injuries might be relatively easy to mitigate, if we get clearer on regulatory standards. But this is a thorny issue.
On the other hand, I’ve collected a lot of stories on more chronic injuries that emerge within 3-5 years of the typical practice career. Healing from these injuries can be complicated by the fact that the practitioner is often strongly emotionally invested in practice at this point, and they struggle to imagine themselves changing or altering paths. Their injuries reflect their practice in a strange way: both record repetition, and stress. Continue reading “WAWADIA update #12: How Many of Us Are Injured By Chasing a Fading Pleasure?”
WAWADIA UPDATE #11 /// Methods to Reduce Injury: An Interview Subject Speaks Out
I’ve been asking a lot of questions in the course of conducting this project. The one question I’m most frequently asked in turn is: “What should we do as a culture to reduce incidence of injury?”
This is thorny. It immediately provokes a conversation about the pros and cons of tighter regulations for studios and training standards for teachers. In the seeming absence of any concrete external pressure to regulate from governmental agencies, it’s a conversation that quickly reveals the basically libertarian bias of yoga culture. For the most part, yoga’s primary stakeholders — senior teachers and prominent studio owners — are strongly resistant to the idea that an art form for personal growth should be subject to collective oversight. Perhaps North American yoga is so rooted in 1960s countercultural ideal of self-expression that talk of self-regulation will always be distasteful. And where’s the money in it, really? Continue reading “WAWADIA UPDATE #11 /// Methods to Reduce Injury: An Interview Subject Speaks Out”
WAWADIA Update #10 /// “Lazy people can’t practice”: Thoughts On a Yoga Meme
[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]ou’ve probably seen this quote floating around.
Anyone can practice. Young man can practice. Old man can practice. Very old man can practice. Man who is sick, he can practice. Man who doesn’t have strength can practice. Except lazy people; lazy people can’t practice Ashtanga yoga. – Sri K. Pattabhi Jois
It sounds a lot like Jois might be citing Pancham Sinh’s 1914 translation of the Haṭhapradīpikā, 1.64:
Whether young, old or too old, sick or lean, one who discards laziness, gets success if he practises Yoga.
Continue reading “WAWADIA Update #10 /// “Lazy people can’t practice”: Thoughts On a Yoga Meme”
WAWADIA update #9 /// Pain and Performance in Dance (and Asana): a conversation
One of the unexpected pleasures of the research I’ve been doing into yoga injuries is that I’ve been drawn into conversations with many types of movement and bodywork folks. I’ve spoken to contact improv people, movement trainers, Rolfers, osteopaths, and dancers. They often have marginal relationships to asana, and I’ve found that their lack of investment in the practice often gives them some startling insight.
I recently spoke with Andréa de Keijzer, a 28 year-old dancer and visual artist living in Montreal. In November 2013, after 4 years of hip pain, she underwent debridement surgery for a labral tear in her left hip. (Photo above by Jeannette Ulate.) She expects to be diagnosed with the same injury on the right side, where she has been feeling an identical pain over the past few months. What I find really valuable about her thoughts on asana is that she approached the practice through this awakened lens of injury, and immediately saw that she was being asked to do similar movements — perhaps embodying similar ideals — to those that had been asked to do in dance, which mixed in with anatomical factors such as FAI (femoroacetabular impingement), probably contributed to the development of her condition. Continue reading “WAWADIA update #9 /// Pain and Performance in Dance (and Asana): a conversation”
