<\/p>\n
(A post in support of the #WAWADIA IGG campaign, which finishes up on December 1. Please support<\/a> if you are so moved.)<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n ____<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T<\/span>\nhe injury stories alone have provided all the motivation I need for taking on this stupidly ambitious job.<\/p>\n Like:<\/p>\n Somebody is encouraged to \u201clengthen\u201d their hamstrings through passive stretching. They are told that this will cure<\/em> their lower back pain.<\/p>\n Somebody is taught tripod handstand without the disclaimer that any weight placed on the cervical spine is discouraged by many medical professionals.<\/p>\n On the general advice of their practice culture and colleagues, somebody holds plow pose for yin-lengths of time to soothe their neck pain.<\/p>\n Somebody\u2019s told that their shoulder pain is karmic, related to some past misdeed, and that it\u2019s good that it\u2019s \u201ccoming out now\u201d rather than causing a crappier birth next time around.<\/p>\n Somebody\u2019s told that practicing the same 90-minute sequence six days per week can\u2019t lead to repetitive stress injuries, because the sequence itself is \u201ctherapeutic\u201d \u2013 and you can\u2019t overdo therapy, right?<\/p>\n Somebody latches onto a studio\u2019s \u201cunlimited\u201d introductory month and isn\u2019t discouraged from coming to three elite-level classes per day, or from signing up for the studio\u2019s popular green juice cleanse, even though she looks very slender and somewhat wan.<\/p>\n Somebody is shown how to do a posture that demands torsional stress on the knee. They injure their knee attempting it, and then are told they can avoid injury in the future by working on their \u201cego\u201d.<\/p>\n A teacher asks whether there are any students in the class who\u2019d rather not be adjusted. Somebody with PTSD puts up their hand. In front of everyone, the teacher asks them what their problem is.<\/p>\n Somebody\u2019s encouraged to keep practicing while injured, to \u201ckeep the prana moving\u201d, but isn\u2019t given any corrective or therapeutic movements, because the instructors are certified in yogacheering, but not physiotherapy.<\/p>\n Somebody is told to stop crosstraining because it will stiffen them up and because \u201casanas are all you need to be healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n Somebody has their hamstring attachment torn by an instructor who decides it\u2019s a good idea to lay their full body weight across the student\u2019s back while they are in Supta Kurmasana, because, you know, \u2018openness\u2019.<\/p>\n Oh, and then somebody gets slapped in the head by an abusive instructor. It goes on and on.<\/p>\n In each of the above, you might as well replace the word \u201csomebody\u201d with \u201cmany people.\u201d Because I\u2019m pretty sure the stories I\u2019m collecting aren\u2019t isolated. So yeah: I have a lot of motivation. But every once in a while I come across a piece of yoga culture that gives me that little extra kick.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n C<\/span>\nonsider this anonymous, borderline-abusive post<\/a> from the Ashtanga Picture Project on Friday, entitled \u201cThe Yoga Is Not The Problem\u2026 You Are.\u201d On one hand, it chapped my ass hard on behalf of those who tell the stories above, plus myself, plus countless others who injure themselves or are injured by teachers in the strange shadow of yoga\u2019s therapeutic marketing. On the other hand, seeing the megalomaniac victim-blaming hubris of modern postural yoga parade in full monty makes my job a lot easier, if a lot less pleasant.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve laid into<\/a> the Ashtanga Picture Project before, back when its Admin suggested<\/a> that attaining \u201cimpossible\u201d postures is a simple matter of believing in yourself and working hard, and ergo has nothing to do with particular physical traits, dubious functional movement goals, and lots of leisure time. I really don\u2019t mean to hound this blog, because its heart is probably in the right place and all that, but when this particular post gets over two thousand Faceblot hits\u2026 come on. It\u2019s a drum corps march of every tone-deaf, dangerous, pious, evading-serious-issues, \u201cyou\u2019re on your own\u201d platitude you\u2019ll ever hear in Yogaland. I won\u2019t quote much of it, because this is how it starts<\/em>:<\/p>\n Whatever pain you are feeling from yoga, it is caused by you. It is caused by your attitude. It is caused by your actions. It is caused by your interpretation of the shape. It is caused by your thoughts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words: yoga practice happens in a psychic bubble of me-ness that attempts physical shapes and gets injured in the process because of \u2026 character flaws? Also \u2013 practice has no interpersonal context. In this slice of Admin\u2019s world, there are no teachers, techniques or instructions, and no communal goals. No people advising other people on what to do or how. No differing levels of training in biomechanics. There is no learning from each other, or from groups, or from temple friezes in Karnataka, or from Lilias on PBS, or Richard Hittleman\u2019s 70s classic, or Kino\u2019s YouTube channel. In short, Admin seems to claim that yoga operates pristinely, outside of culture<\/em>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not true. People learn asanas from other people, just like babies learn any type of movement at all: through imitation, instruction, hands-on manipulation. The most antisocial yogi in the loneliest cabin in the most remote forest is practicing under the influence of a culture. Today, in a fractal-explosion of the photoplates of Light on Yoga<\/em>, some people even learn about asana through the yoga-selfies of people they\u2019ve never met. That\u2019s what APP<\/a> is all about, no? APP is fostering a culture<\/em> of yoga, while saying, in this post at least: there is no culture. The Yoga and Body Image Coalition<\/a> is also fostering culture. If you click through you\u2019ll see that it\u2019s just a little bit different.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n W<\/span>\nhere could this \u201cyou are the problem\u201d argument be coming from? I reached out to the APP Admin to try to understand this better, but they didn\u2019t respond, so I\u2019ll take a crack at a few possible answers.<\/p>\n Superficially, APP\u2019s post tops off a messy layer-cake of recent Ashtanga aversion-and-attachment manifestoes. In layer one, Annina Luzie Schmid baked up a searing defection notice<\/a>, which was quickly smeared with enough commentary-custard to be reposted by Yogadork. Layer two<\/a> popped out of the springform pan of Jessie Horness, whose unfazed devotion to practice seems to mean that she doesn\u2019t care enough about any of the cultural issues that Annina raised to actually address them. Next, APP drizzled a coulis of refutations<\/a>, and then added the post in question as icing. So in a way, it\u2019s all just an old-fashioned yogasphere confection: bitter, tart and sweet.<\/p>\n