<\/p>\n
O<\/span>\nn November 1st<\/sup>, I\u2019ll be releasing a 52-page prospectus for a crowdfunding campaign to support the two years I think it\u2019ll take to produce this book. In preparation for the campaign, I\u2019ve fielded\u00a0a lot of really good questions online, from my interview subjects, and in various public forums where I\u2019ve presented preliminary findings from my research.<\/p>\n (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\u00a0Friday 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.)<\/p>\n The questions I’m getting have a lot of nuance, but here are\u00a0the nuggets:<\/p>\n WTF is your end-game here? <\/em><\/p>\n Or:<\/p>\n Do you really think you can stop people from getting injured in asana classes?<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ll admit that injury-free yoga\u00a0is an occasional fantasy of mine. It comes mainly from my own injury experience, but also from an unchecked countertransference I\u2019ve laid on many of my Ayurveda and yoga therapy clients through the years who have told me their injury stories. Perhaps I want to protect them as a way of ensuring\u00a0my own safety, or at least as proof that I am protecting myself.<\/p>\n Regardless, it\u2019s been hard to contain my outrage at some of the stories of ignorant teaching, invasive adjustments, and cultish studio environments that have torn people\u2019s bodies and minds to shreds. I identify deeply with these stories, and this\u00a0hampers my objectivity for sure. This is all\u00a0understandable: I wouldn\u2019t dedicate so much time\u00a0to a project about injury if I wasn\u2019t also working out my own memories.<\/p>\n But\u00a0a psychic\u00a0rebellion against all<\/em> injury is like a psychic\u00a0rebellion against death.<\/p>\n So I totally acknowledge that a completely injury-free yoga is not a reasonable goal. Nor a desirable one, perhaps. Firstly, it\u2019s impossible: all things\u00a0tend towards entropy. Secondly,\u00a0people who crave growth will\u00a0at times overstep their means and even ignore their wits as they leap in fear and faith towards a fantasized future self.<\/p>\n Moreover, I\u2019ve learned through the interview process something that has been\u00a0hard to accept for\u00a0myself: that pain in practice can be functional, meaningful, and even revelatory<\/em>. Pain, and even the injury that may precede or follow it, is at times\u00a0the most available mechanism that some people have for feeling anything at all.<\/p>\n As we should know by now, \u201clistening to our bodies\u201d is not enough on the yoga mat. Not only can the body crave intense feeling, sometimes it is completely silent as an injury occurs. And just as\u00a0often, we don\u2019t know what to listen for<\/em>.*<\/p>\n This all applies\u00a0in relation to a charismatic teacher, as well. We may be listening very closely to assess how well a guru’s\u00a0presence or message is resonating. We may feel honestly nourished by both, only to discover in time that, like an asana teacher\u00a0validating his power by deeply adjusting a hypermobile student, the guru is deftly\u00a0pushing an already-tender button\u00a0within us.<\/p>\n Sometimes the only difference between pleasure and pain is time.<\/p>\n And what of people who do<\/em> listen to their bodies, feel pain, know<\/em> they\u2019re feeling pain, and do not stop<\/em>? What if they\u2019re coming from a profound experience of bodily distrust or alienation? What if they have internalized the shameful\u00a0social constructions of their\u00a0bodies? Is it really unreasonable that they should further discipline\u00a0the proof\u00a0of their inadequacy? Some people tolerate hurt to the body to be able to affirm:\u00a0I am more than this body that marginalizes me, that hurts<\/em>. Smarter asana practice alone won’t solve this adaptation.<\/p>\n Risk-taking behaviours can be therapeutic. They can signify a reclamation of bodily possession and autonomy, a way of breaking free of social construction. They can be a way of saying I participate in\u00a0the greater sacrifice of life<\/em>, or,\u00a0I want to be changed irrevocably by this moment.<\/em> My interviews with folks\u00a0whose asana practice is intertwined with body modifications (heavy ink and piercings) have helped me understand this.<\/p>\n Risks express desires. Perhaps the lust for risk rises in tandem with the anxiety a desire expresses. It’s always good to remember\u00a0that the\u00a0drive towards enlightenment sought throughout the history of yoga\u00a0emerges\u00a0from the\u00a0recognition of existential horror. The more intolerable the\u00a0recognition, the higher the risk, and the harder the striving.<\/p>\n If we want to limit risk to enhance safety, what shall we provide to those who feel they need risk to experience freedom?<\/p>\n W<\/span>\nhen I present this material in community forums, I usually begin with a few stories gathered from my subject interviews about pain and injury experiences in asana. Many of these stories are also accounts of healing and self-discovery.<\/p>\n The audiences largely\u00a0consist of yoga\u2019s professional class of teachers and trainers, so the discussion quickly shifts into a debate over safety. \u201cWhat Are We Doing in Asana?\u201d turns into: \u201cWhat Should<\/em> We Be Doing in Asana?\u201d It’s an emotional pivot made by people who want to protect their bodies, their students, and their integrity.<\/p>\n The two questions seem to flow together. But while the first poses a rich descriptive challenge, the second is very thorny.\u00a0Concrete answers to the second will take a long time, if they come at all. I am not a biomechanics specialist, nor a clinical psychologist, and so I cannot issue authoritative statements on what should or should not be done on a yoga mat. Thank goodness. I can only offer\u00a0descriptions, and hope that if they are evocative, options\u00a0will become clearer.<\/p>\n My hope\u00a0is to model the skills of self-inquiry I believe will lead to more lucid understandings of practice, the flesh, the studio environment, and the relationships we create while\u00a0learning and teaching.<\/p>\n My hope is that this work may at least help prevent the worst kind of injury: the injury one cannot digest or understand; the injury that leaves one feeling broken and embittered. The injury that is wasteful and useless, in that it fails to prepare us for death.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ______<\/p>\n * This is a point covered eloquently by Jules Mitchell in her excellent Master’s Thesis on the science of stretching, which I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. Jules tells me that her intention is to rewrite her strong academic work in a more accessible\u00a0form over the next little while.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I acknowledge that a completely injury-free yoga is not a reasonable goal. Nor a desirable one, perhaps. Firstly, it\u2019s impossible: all things tend towards entropy. Secondly, people who crave growth will at times overstep their means and even ignore their wits as they leap in fear and faith towards a fantasized future self.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,21,23,24,1,27,19,28],"tags":[52,50,80],"class_list":["post-4503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","category-articles","category-blog","category-featured","category-uncategorized","category-wawadia","category-yoga","category-yoga-philosophy","tag-wawadia","tag-yoga","tag-yoga-injuries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}