{"id":5324,"date":"2015-07-12T19:10:34","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T00:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/?p=5324"},"modified":"2015-07-12T19:10:34","modified_gmt":"2015-07-13T00:10:34","slug":"kinos-hip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/kinos-hip\/","title":{"rendered":"Kino’s Hip: Reflections on Extreme Practice and Injury in Asana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heyam dukham anagatam.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Pain that is yet to come can be avoided.)<\/p>\n

Yoga Sutra II:16<\/em><\/p>\n

On June 14th<\/sup>, Kino MacGregor posted a photo<\/a> to her 782K Instagram and 264K Facebook followers. She\u2019s in hero pose, her hands in prayer, eyes closed, on a beach. Fans would find it an uncharacteristic shot. There\u2019s no floating movement implied, and her body is small against the wide-angled azure sky and placid sea. Her caption gives insight into the image, and why it seems to chafe her feed like an internal tear:<\/p>\n

Yesterday while I was helping a student in Bakasana I heard a series of pops around my right hip. Then I couldn’t bear weight, walk or straighten my leg. After a visit to the doctor I still don’t have a complete diagnosis but it’s most likely a sprain of either the hamstring or the hip or both. Now the real yoga begins. I always say that pain and injury are the true teachers of the spiritual path and now it’s time for me to walk my own talk. There is a lesson is [sic] everything, especially the hard and difficult stuff. If this is a hip sprain and not a hamstring sprain then it will change my whole paradigm on what it takes to forward bend. If it’s the hamstring I’ll gain valuable knowledge on how to heal and rehab a hamstring sprain. Today’s #YogiAssignment is Wisdom. What is the wisdom that the biggest pain or obstacle in your life has to teach you? What wisdom have you gained from going through a difficult or challenging period in your life? Remaining equanimous with faith and patience through pain, injury and suffering is hard, but it is where the real inner work of yoga begins. Being strong in yoga isn’t about how long you can hold a handstand. It’s about how much grace you can contain when facing adversity.<\/p>\n

MacGregor\u2019s followers on Snapchat saw more of the backstory flash across their mobile screens that Saturday, and then disappear as if it had never happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put it all on Snapchat, because Snapchat doesn\u2019t save anything,\u201d she tells me via phone. Her enthusiasm is infectious. \u201cI told everyone: \u2018I\u2019m at the Emergency Room. I feel like a drama queen!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I knew I had to get it checked out. I had to teach the next day. I was really concerned about potential damage to the hip joint.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Emergency doctor in West Hartford, Connecticut, surmised a hamstring sprain and inflammation of the hip bursa, and suggested patience before proceeding to imaging. MacGregor went for acupuncture that evening at the studio she\u2019d been teaching in for the weekend, did only restorative postures the following morning, taught another class while keeping her knee bent in forward folds, and then flew back to Miami on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

On Monday, MacGregor saw a sports medicine doctor who took an x-ray that ruled out any hairline fracture, and suggested physiotherapy. On a walk that afternoon on Miami\u2019s South Beach, she paused to take a photo of herself in Scorpion<\/a> pose.<\/p>\n

MacGregor\u2019s physio is on staff at the Miami City Ballet. \u201cShe\u2019s excellent,\u201d MacGregor says. \u201cShe confirmed that my hamstring was pulled, but she didn\u2019t think it was a serious tear. She said that my glutes were pulled. She checked my obturator and as much of the deep-six as she could, and she felt that they were all a little pulled.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then she checked my sacroiliac joint and found that the whole right plate of the sacrum had shifted and my right hip was raised, and there was a lot of compression. I thought, \u2018That\u2019s what all the popping was.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

MacGregor has suffered yoga-related sacroiliac pain and injury in the past. It\u2019s a common problem in the yoga world, and is widely believed to be exacerbated by seated and standing twisting postures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe therapist also said that there was probably inflammation around the joint capsule, and that maybe because of the impact, the head of the femur had jammed against the socket. She gave me a list of movements I should avoid, and a whole 20-minute therapeutic routine that I did with her that day. I\u2019ve been doing it every day, before my practice. But I didn\u2019t practice on Monday or Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, MacGregor saw her favourite massage therapist \u2013 \u201can energy healer who also does chiropractic adjustments\u201d \u2013 who manipulated her sacrum back into what felt like alignment. \u201cThere were a whole series of clicks and pops around the sacroiliac joint, and these were really loud. Twenty-four hours later, there was a dramatic improvement in my whole hip area. The inflammation was down by 50%.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Thursday afternoon, MacGregor was back out on South Beach, having a photo taken of herself in Vasisthasana<\/a>. Neither that post nor the Scorpion post make mention of the injury.<\/p>\n

I remarked that in the Vasisthasana photo, she\u2019s loading her injured hip.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but that\u2019s a strengthening action,\u201d MacGregor replied. \u201cThere was no strain on the hamstring. It felt good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve interviewed more than a hundred yoga practitioners about pain and injury. The acute injuries are dramatic: a hamstring tears in the moment of a harsh adjustment, or a rotator cuff rips upon the impact of leaping into an arm-balance that uses the upper arm as a brace. But there are usually pre-existing weaknesses or stresses that forecast these events, which means that sports medicine doctors and orthopedic surgeons are typically conservative when it comes to pinpointing exact moments and causes.<\/p>\n

Even harder to definitively source are the repetitive stress injuries that creep in below the radar. I\u2019ve interviewed several women who have sustained labral tears, for example, which first present as niggling pinches in the groin and either slowly or quickly progress to shattering pain. Many of these subjects continued to practice as their pain increased, unaware that they may be deepening a tear. Some practiced with modification, some without, but most continued with a firm belief that whatever the pain was, practice would heal it.<\/p>\n

Then there are injuries like MacGregor\u2019s, which are yoga-related, but don\u2019t literally occur on the mat. MacGregor was initially firm via email. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a yoga injury that came from my practice. It came from the impact of a student falling into me while I was assisting her.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when a Facebook fan asked her during an online Q&A session<\/a>: \u201cWhat are your thoughts on how the intensity of the practice may have contributed to your injury?\u201d MacGregor didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n

As we spoke, however, she opened up about borderline doubts, starting with her practice habits, and by the end, winding around to the value and impact of her YouTube channel.<\/p>\n

I asked her about the public reaction to an Instagram<\/a> she posted of herself in an \u201coversplits\u201d position, with her front calf and bottom shin planted on opposing chairs, and her hips dipping into the space between them. The caption reads:<\/p>\n

Got a new assignment today from Eugene: oversplits. He says that my hips have to eventually touch the floor. What do you think? How many month with [sic] that take? @beachyogagirl and I are snapping today–are you following our snap chat stories? Kerri caught more of the crazy things we did today. Snapchat: kinoyoga Leggings @aloyoga.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople re-posted that picture and said, \u2018That\u2019s the reason for your hip injury.\u2019 And I thought about it, and I thought gosh, well, I don\u2019t know\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to think about whether I was pushing myself too hard in my practice, and whether that had created instability in my hip joint.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when I started my practice, I was really unstable. I\u2019m not a naturally strong person. Or naturally flexible. It\u2019s more like \u2018floppy\u2019 is my natural state. And a little clumsy. So my main emphasis in practice is the avenue of strength. Even in a flexibility posture like oversplits, I\u2019m approaching it from strength. So I\u2019m training with this Russian circus guy \u2013 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that \u2018Eugene\u2019?\u201d I interject.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s Eugene! I wanted technique for advanced stretches and arm-balances. And in the yoga world, there isn\u2019t a lot of technique around. It\u2019s more like, \u2018Don\u2019t do it\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I know I\u2019m gonna have to do it if I\u2019m gonna keep practicing Ashtanga. I\u2019m working on Kroukachasana<\/a>, in the Fifth Series. So let me get some technique, the way to safely support my joints. So with that oversplits, Eugene had me engaging really intensely to support my body while I was there. He didn\u2019t let me sit there and hang. He was focusing on how to build more strength around the joint.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt MacGregor is strong. She floats between arm balances and planking variations with a post-human grace that seems aided by CGI. She seems \u2013 on film at least \u2013 to have achieved the perfect physical balance of firmness and ease described in the Yoga Sutras<\/em>. But no one, including MacGregor, can know whether that alchemy is stable, and for how long.<\/p>\n

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Almost exactly a year ago, I reported on the right-hip-implosion<\/a> of one of Canada\u2019s first Ashtanga teachers, Diane Bruni. In 2008, Bruni tore the deep rotators off her bone in a seemingly-harmless wide-angled pose following a five-year-long regime of hip-opening, which was paradoxically recommended by her yoga mentors to treat her ongoing knee pain.<\/p>\n

It took Bruni several years for her to come clean to herself and others about how she felt that a programme of extreme flexibility and spiritualized pain had dominated her practice and teaching ideology \u2013 and destabilized her hips by weakening her ligaments. \u201cMy livelihood depended on it\u201d, she told me. \u201cMy studio was based on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore my injury, I used to say many of the things Kino says in the injury post and on YouTube,\u201d Bruni writes. To illustrate, she sends me a link to \u201cYoga for Open Hips: Full Practice with Kino<\/a>\u201d. It\u2019s on the Kinoyoga channel, which has 271K followers and almost 70 million views.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say: \u2018Notice the sensations. Notice if it hurts, it\u2019s burning, or of it’s tight. Tell yourself it’s okay, practice surrender. Accept the pain, breathe into it. This will help you accept who you are.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Now I wonder \u2013 what does that even mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

At time cue 9:25 of the video, MacGregor sinks forward over her thighs in a deep butterfly posture, and pauses in a passive stretch. \u201cFeel that burning sensation in the hip joints,\u201d she intones. \u201cNice deep inhale. Nice deep exhale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruni sighs over email. \u201cI said all the same things.\u201d She\u2019s since left Ashtanga behind to learn and teach<\/a> what she feels to be more functional and sustainable movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI practiced and taught all these poses, which are totally inaccessible to most people. I learned the hard way. I hope I can help save at least one person the agony of my injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s unclear whether this setback will shift MacGregor\u2019s practice in a permanent way, or be absorbed into her brand narrative, or both. Early indications suggest that the media juggernaut that projects her yoga may make it difficult for anything but business-as-usual.<\/p>\n

Since the injury announcement, Kinoyoga instagram<\/a> has been updated with over 50 photos and videos of MacGregor in advanced postures. The hip-opening clip that Bruni sent me was published on June 29th<\/sup>. Some critics have speculated that all of these visuals must have been shot before the injury, and have continued auto-uploading without disclaimer or warning \u2013 perhaps to fulfill endorsement contracts \u2013 as if from a virtual studio where injury is impossible.<\/p>\n

But MacGregor says that only some photos date from prior to the injury, while most were shot on the day of posting. For instance, on July 1st<\/sup>, several Kinoyoga platforms unrolled a \u201cBack to Backbends\u201d public challenge as part of a beta-stage collaboration<\/a> with @beachyogagirl Kerri Verna. Fans are encouraged to post yoga-selfies that mimic a pre-set sequence, and to click into sponsorship sites.<\/p>\n

MacGregor tells me that all of the challenge\u2019s backbending photos and films were shot prior to the campaign\u2019s start \u2013 within the two-week window following the injury. \u201cAs long as I stayed away from hip rotations, I was fine,\u201d MacGregor says. \u201cBackbending felt really good. Arm balances were fine. Straight-line handstands \u2013 good.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacGregor says that she didn\u2019t want her media platform to reflect upon her injury while she was unsure about its status. Therefore, the regular posts continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really just wanted to figure it out, to go through it, and wait until I was on the other side of it,\u201d she says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t feel comfortable saying \u2018This is the physical therapy I\u2019m using to heal\u2019, because I wouldn\u2019t be sure of it. Maybe after it heals I could talk about my experience and the step-by-step postures and be able to say \u2018This worked\u2019. I\u2019d want empirical evidence that it worked, rather than just sharing it and having a whole bunch of people mimic my process.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I couldn\u2019t share the physical part of the journey, but the #YogiAssignments I gave with every post that week took the flavour of exactly where I was emotionally, spiritually, and mentally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Iain Grysak is an advanced Ashtanga practitioner and teacher stationed in Bali who I interviewed about a year ago for my project, because he emphasizes safety and moderation in practice. He seems to be one of those exceedingly rare advanced practitioners who reports no significant injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have respect for Kino and what she does,\u201d Grysak writes. \u201cShe gets a bad rap from part of the Ashtanga community because of her massive marketing and commercialization process. I have always respected the fact that she does it with integrity, by attempting to live the truth of what the practice means to her, as well as remaining in line with the current \u2018tradition\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as to the physical toll of MacGregor\u2019s stated job<\/a> of providing \u201ca link between the pop culture of yoga and the more traditional lineage based spiritual practice,\u201d Grysak expresses concern.<\/p>\n

His basic contention is that this fiery method can be healthy and even therapeutic when practiced with supervision in conservative amounts. But he warns that even the most robust practitioners will hurt themselves if practice turns into a full-time profession demanding endless jet-setting, teaching, and demonstration \u2013 whether for digital consumption or \u201cweekend intensive\u201d formats.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not what the practice is designed for. It\u2019s not sustainable. The striving \u2013 for deeper opening in Bruni’s case, or to give “inspiration” in MacGregor\u2019s case \u2013 might lead people to take the practice to a place that it is just not meant to be taken if it is to remain a healthy technique.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grysak also says that the same teacher to whom MacGregor dedicated her recent book \u2013 Sharath Jois, grandson of Ashtanga founder Pattabhi Jois \u2013 actively discourages both the professional zeal and the mega-posture workshop-culture now par-for-the-course in the yoga world.<\/p>\n

\u201cSharath is very opposed to overworking and speaks out against it regularly in Mysore. He admonishes people who go home after practice and continue to work on tough postures. He says asana practice should be done once a day, in the morning. I agree with him: get on with your life and wait until the next morning to do more asana!\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked MacGregor for a response.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would definitely agree. When I\u2019m in Mysore, I do my practice, and then I go home and go back to bed. My body has been through a spiritual, emotional, and physical battle on levels I\u2019m not even aware of. I\u2019m like a soldier, no joke. I try to avoid talking to other people afterwards, because I\u2019m in this sensitive, other world.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in Mysore there\u2019s really nothing else to do. So after I sleep, the rest of the day is like \u2018Do you wanna drink coconuts, or do you wanna go get lunch?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to admit\u201d \u2013 I can hear a sly grin over the phone \u2013 \u201cwhen I leave Mysore, I\u2019m a bad Ashtangi. It\u2019s not possible for me to keep up that kind of intense discipline. I practice six days a week, but I do not kill myself. I practice in a calm manner that gives space to my body and how I\u2019m feeling that day. I\u2019ll do the practice my teacher has given me, but I will not force. I\u2019ll give myself little outs. That\u2019s taken me a long time to get to that chilled-out place.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I totally agree. I wouldn\u2019t be able to sustain traveling and teaching and making a few videos in the afternoon if I was practicing like in Mysore.\u201d<\/p>\n

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MacGregor has periodically faced<\/a> doctrinal and pragmatic critique from within her subculture head-on. But she also faces scientific pushback from the wider movement-studies field. Opposition to the assumed benefits of flexibility-focused and repetitive-motion exercise is growing \u2013 most loudly against the passive stretching that might not be part of the Ashtanga method per se<\/em>, but which MacGregor and others promote as preparatory for the deeply contortionistic postures of its advanced series.<\/p>\n

Most of the biomechanics specialists, kinesiologists, neurologists and orthopedic surgeons I\u2019ve consulted in my research<\/a> are deeply skeptical of the borderline-mystical theories of stretching handed down through pre-modern yoga therapeutics. This new consensus is overturning popular notions of bodily alchemy that echo through sources ranging from medieval to New-Age to high-end-spa-speak.<\/p>\n

Pattabhi Jois was fond of the adage, \u201cWith enough heat, even iron will bend\u201d. But this new rationalist yoga discourse imposes clearer limits upon the aspirational body, insisting that muscles do not get \u201clonger\u201d, and pain is not an \u201copening\u201d \u2013 except in a pathological sense. The primal dream of bodily transformation through \u201cbeing worked into a noodle\u201d, as Jois student Annie Pace described it, is being eclipsed by the simpler goal of enhancing a natural range of motion for functional movement.<\/p>\n

Jules Mitchell<\/a>, who works to incorporate the most recent data on the science of stretching into yoga studies, is unequivocal: \u201cThe yoga community has been dangerously obsessed with tissue distention,\u201d she writes via email.<\/p>\n

Interviewed for her blog by Ashtangi Tracey Mansell, Londoner Osteopath Jamie Andrews adds<\/a>: \u201cProlonged exposure to progressive stretching can eventually lead to ligamentous laxity and joint hypermobility, increasing the risk of muscular injuries, ligamentous injuries, joint dislocation and reduced proprioception.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Pattabhi Jois wasn\u2019t just referring to muscles and ligaments when he used the word \u201ciron\u201d, even though the body was his teaching instrument. For Jois, physical possibility on a gross level provided access to a subtler spiritual possibility. As almost all of his senior students recall<\/a>, he was constantly speaking to the deeply conditioned wounds of the human psyche, clad in the iron of defensive self-concepts.<\/p>\n

\u201cPain is good,\u201d MacGregor quotes Jois as saying of the process that \u201creleases\u201d spiritual rigidity. If Jois\u2019 terrifying postural adjustments<\/a>\u00a0are nauseating to the movement specialists of today, it\u2019s in part because they don\u2019t understand the premise that he was wrestling through stubborn tissues to get at his students\u2019 souls.<\/p>\n

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With regard to the general meaning of the human body, Kino MacGregor is faithful to Jois\u2019 path. In video and print, she speaks of using postures to \u201caccess\u201d the hips, the interior space of the pelvis, the inner body, and the heart (not the cardiac muscle, but the emotional centre). For Jois and MacGregor, the body is a container to be opened and purified, and pain is a necessary sign of progress. \u201cPracticing six days a week,\u201d MacGregor writes, \u201caccelerates the rate at which you experience the pains that purify weakness and stiffness, as well as the rate at which you experience the purified result of more strength and flexibility in the body and mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked MacGregor how she and her students distinguish from the spiritually necessary pain that she seems to be describing in her book, and the pain that indicates injury. She affirmed the difference between acceptable delayed-onset muscular soreness and pain that is to avoided: joint pain, or pain within practice that makes the yogi wince.<\/p>\n

But the longer part of her answer detoured back to the ideal spiritual attitude the yogi should have towards the injury that\u2019s already happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re injured, you have to ask \u2018Am I really going to do Marichyasana C, or am I going to let my hip joint heal?\u2019 In my case, I\u2019m going to let my hip joint heal. Does that annoy me? Sure. But it\u2019s my ego that\u2019s hurting. So then that is the tapas<\/em>. That is the real teacher. That\u2019s more yoga than just going in and hammering out the asanas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The circular argument that MacGregor transparently makes is so hard to understand, it seems to validate the adage\u00a0that yoga cannot be conceptualized. Pain is described as a necessary spiritual tool in a practice that claims to heal the body and ego and free the person from all limitation. But if you have too much pain, or the wrong kind, you\u2019re courting injury. No-one wants that.<\/p>\n

Or do they? If too much pain does injure the yogi, the bright side is that renewed focus upon bodily healing may hurt the ego as it contemplates its new limitations. This is ultimately good news, because, as MacGregor says, \u201cthe real yoga is the burning up of the ego\u201d.<\/p>\n

The more rationalist approach, larded with biomedical jargon and devoid of MacGregor\u2019s poetic paradox, may never capture the hearts of truly devotional practitioners. Kinesiology doesn\u2019t turn the body into a vehicle for spiritual lessons best learned through fire. Jois may have called his Primary Series \u201cYoga Cikitsa<\/em>\u201d or \u201cHealing for the Body\u201d, but his esoteric paradigm for health, quite distinct from contemporary biomedical goals, includes the capacity to commune with pain and to embrace the inevitability of injury as proof of the omnipresent Divine.<\/p>\n

Senior students I\u2019ve interviewed have insisted that the late Jois didn\u2019t invite them into his shala to help them avoid the fear of pain and death, but to encounter it fully, and face it down with the same steady gaze and even breath with which he performed his ritual fire offerings every morning.<\/p>\n

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Neither the Kinoyoga YouTube channel nor The Power of Ashtanga Yoga<\/em> carry disclaimers, warnings, or contraindications for the postures MacGregor teaches. I asked her whether if in the shadow of this injury she might consider changing this, or altering her instructions to offer more protection against the growing trend of joint destabilization. She\u2019s tiptoed<\/a> around the question before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell I\u2019m not feeling that great about my YouTube channel, to be honest,\u201d she replied. \u201cIt seems to have become a place where men come to talk about about my feet or my butt.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m currently renovating it. I\u2019m changing the focus to shorter, more friendly practice routines, and then a weekly video blog about what I think it means to be a yogi in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to admit I\u2019m not a perfect teacher. I\u2019ve probably made numerous mistakes, and left out key information numerous times. I don\u2019t have any plans for adding disclaimers or contraindications, but I\u2019d definitely consider that in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

I pivoted to the issue of a different kind of safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think the trolling on your channel makes it an unsafe space for your intended audience?\u201d<\/p>\n

(There have been 12 million viewers for her video of Supta Hasta Padangusthasana, most of whom seem drawn over by the thumbnail from fitsploitation channels that produce soft porn faux-yoga for ad revenue. The clip has earned over 1500 comments, most of which are sexually harassing.)<\/p>\n

\u201cGosh, I hope not. When some guy says I have sexy feet, I think \u2018Whatever.\u2019 But the mean-spirited stuff \u2013 the misogynistic and racist stuff \u2013 that\u2019s part of why I\u2019m renovating the channel. In the new videos I\u2019m wearing leggings, speaking slower, and the angles are PG-13, 100%. The intention is to keep it mild-mannered. My hope is that one of these videos will become my most popular. That will mean that people are coming back to the practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you consider deleting abusive comments and banning users?\u201d I asked. \u201cIt might be another full-time job, but….\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would consider it, but I\u2019m also concerned about the boundaries of free speech in a public forum like YouTube. But anything racist and misogynistic \u2013 I\u2019ll keep an eye out for it with these new videos, and I\u2019ll definitely consider blocking users who cross a line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amongst MacGregor\u2019s non-troll fan base, a few commenters on the injury photo have offered her friendly but imaginative healing advice. They tell her she should take raw garlic to battle the parasite infection that will now invade her hip. They tell her to be mindful of the effects of Saturn, or to determine which chakra is causing her acute pain. One dreamy supporter suggested that MacGregor discover which past memories were tightening her hamstrings.<\/p>\n

But by and large, MacGregor\u2019s following has flooded her channels with less intrusive wishes for a full recovery.<\/p>\n

So have her esteemed colleagues in the Ashtanga community. Eddie Stern, founder of the iconic Ashtanga Yoga New York, commented by email, \u201cI think it was very brave of Kino to post about her injury, and share it with her following.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that she didn\u2019t do anything too serious,\u201d Stern continues. \u201cAnd I hope that her recovery is quick. She will probably gain some insights that she can pass along to her students and social media fans that they will perhaps benefit from.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere, lesser-known yogis\u00a0riding the media wave that MacGregor has churned are also coming clean about the painful faultline between practice and performance.<\/p>\n

Twenty-three year-old Instagram yogi Irene Pappas (@fitqueenirene<\/a>, 476K followers), is now practicing with one arm only to protect her arm-balance-aggravated necrotic wrist<\/a> bones, which may never be able to bear weight again. Another Instagram yogi, @blue_yagoo (21.5K followers), reports<\/a> on being removed from her home via stretcher after tearing her trapezius muscle, following a period of intense practice.<\/p>\n

She posts: \u201cI was \u2018listening to my body\u2019 intently the same way I had a thousand times before, and I STILL assessed the situation incorrectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe paramedic asked me how I got into my predicament as I was lying on the stretcher. I tried explaining the asana verbally, which only rendered confusion. So I showed him the photo.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis eyebrows shot up. \u2018Yep. That’ll do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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____<\/p>\n

photo of Kino MacGregor by Tom Rosenthal<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Remski<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The circular argument that MacGregor transparently makes is so hard to understand, it seems to validate the adage that yoga cannot be conceptualized. Pain is described as a necessary spiritual tool in a practice that claims to heal the body and ego and free the person from all limitation. But if you have too much pain, or the wrong kind, you\u2019re courting injury. No-one wants that. Or do they? If too much pain does injure the yogi, the bright side is that renewed focus upon bodily healing may hurt the ego as it contemplates its new limitations. This is ultimately good news, because, as MacGregor says, \u201cthe real yoga is the burning up of the ego\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,24,70,27,19,28],"tags":[448,449,450,51,451,452,53],"class_list":["post-5324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-featured","category-press-interviews","category-wawadia","category-yoga","category-yoga-philosophy","tag-beachyogagirl","tag-fitqueenirene","tag-instagram-yogi","tag-kino-macgregor","tag-kinoyoga","tag-media-studies","tag-yoga-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5324","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=5324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewremski.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}