The postural influence of Hatha yoga, once used for a kind of physical self-destruction to release an immortal, post-human self, remains embedded within a contemporary movement practice that promises opposite goals. Very few of us – at least consciously, and there’s the rub – pursue modern postural yoga in order to break ourselves down. The essence of the therapeutic drive is recuperative and tonic. But do we really know that asana meets this need, given its history?
My therapist once said that a relationship can only really begin after the romance is over. I’m beginning to think that yoga is what occurs when people become disenchanted with yoga.
Ten days ago, Diane Bruni and I hosted a public event called “What Are We Actually Doing in Asana: an exploration of yoga-related injuries.” There were about seventy people in attendance, most of them yoga teachers. When Diane asked who had been injured through asana practice, virtually everyone raised their hands.
How do I report to the yoga world I’m so invested in, to which I owe my livelihood, and that I spent over a decade teaching in, that several basic staples of asana practice might be definitively unsafe?
