in my last post<\/a> a thorough biomechanical critique of what \u201cWild Thing\u201d forces the supporting shoulder joint to do. The short story is that the safe execution of the pose would demand the protraction of the scapula while it\u2019s increasingly pinned into a retracted position. For the vast majority of practitioners this will pry the humeral head forward and gradually or acutely injure one or many of the muscles that hold this beautiful and vulnerable joint together.<\/p>\nFor those of you who are not life-long vegetarians \u2013 remember what it\u2019s like to separate a chicken leg from the thigh? How that juicy twisting and pulling loosens the meat to the point where the gristle underneath gives way? For the non-elite-athlete, doing Wild Thing can be a lot like doing that to your shoulder, but with no sauce. The problem is that many of us find the pose as tasty as that chicken it\u2019s so fun and slightly gross to rip apart, which is where the paradox comes in. Do we want to do poses that sacrifice our meat because they give a rush? If so, we join a venerable line of hatha yoga mortifiers-of-the-flesh, and that\u2019s fine. But we can\u2019t claim that we\u2019re doing something inherently healthy or therapeutic. Continuing this claim invokes the wishful thinking that distorts yoga\u2019s value as a tool of inquiry. But that\u2019s marketing for you.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019ve done with Wild Thing isn\u2019t all that different from Leslie Kaminoff\u2019s astute commentary on the \u201cLotus Dilemma\u201d in which he explains the borderline-impossible nature of Padmasana. Kaminoff shows that lateral torsion during the placement of the second knee (if you\u2019re helping it along with your hands) is almost unavoidable, and will most likely lead to medial ACL or meniscus damage.<\/p>\n