WAWADIA Update #5 /// “First Do No Harm”: an M.D. on Asana-Related Injuries

Doctors and yoga teachers have the same first principle: Do No Harm. If we do things blindly, and if we don’t mine data, we won’t fulfill that principle. — Dr. Raza Awan

 

What I love about listening to Dr. Awan talk about yoga injuries is that he has all the relaxation of someone with no conflict of interest. He’s the medical director for Synergy Sports Medicine in Toronto, so he can show up for an intense yoga injuries discussion forum on a Thursday night, drop some data-bombs, and go back to work on Friday morning like nothing happened. Meanwhile, the rest of us yoga teachers wake up wondering what we should do next.

I can say this: he inspires to me move forward as if I have nothing personally at stake in this difficult discussion. But I do. 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? Continue reading “WAWADIA Update #5 /// “First Do No Harm”: an M.D. on Asana-Related Injuries”