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The Science of Yoga

The Science of Yoga

Titel: The Science of Yoga Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: William J Broad
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number of cases.”
    The reassurance was empty because the medical world had exactly zero evidence about the frequency of such damage. In fact, no scientist had ever published a study on how often yogis injured their vertebral arteries. The question was far too esoteric to have received the kind of major funding that would be required to address a deep riddle of epidemiology. So the exact size of the problem with yogis in the United States was simply unknown. What was easy to estimate was its minimal extent—roughly three hundred yogis a year.
    Seeking to further brighten the grim subject, the magazine said “treatment is simple” and called rates of recovery high. But that rosy prognosis required that it ignore the agonizing months and years of therapy, the hand tremors and the clumsy gaits, the patients whose arms continued to waver and eyelids continued to droop.
    Then, in what was apparently meant to be more good news, it added: “Death results in less than 5 percent of the cases.”
    Here again, the figure was correct but misleading because it failed to put the number in perspective. If three hundred yogis in the United States suffered injuries of the vertebral arteries each year (the lowball estimate), 5 percent of that would be fifteen—fifteen yogis who lay dead after wounds to their vertebralarteries resulted in brain injuries serious enough to kill. And the real number of fatalities, despite the percentage being “less than” five, was probably higher given the large number of poses in yoga that involve extreme contortions of the neck. Maybe it was thirty fatalities annually, and maybe three hundred over a decade. Globally, the fatalities might number in the thousands. It was an open question.
    The article ended with a list of cautions—listen to your body, move slowly, avoid thrusting or jerky motions, go up to the point of resistance but never beyond. Its last warning focused on the neck. It advised students, especially beginners, to avoid putting the relatively thin, upper part of the spine in a position where it had to support a lot of body weight.
    The magazine’s attempt to deal with the sensitive topic appears to have made few waves in the world of yoga practitioners. Outside of Yoga Journal , the article got no general notice on the Internet from blogs, studios, or magazines, unlike the magazine’s aerobics news. It rapidly sank into the void of cultural forgetfulness.
    The subject of stroke nonetheless proved to be a topic of continuing worry among yogis—even if the discussions were superficial. More than three decades after Russell’s warning, after the clinical reports, after the crystallization of medical concern, after the debut of the X-rated exercises, and after the threat summary in Yoga Journal , practitioners could still get lost in a cloud of uncertainty.
    In 2004, the Internet buzzed with discussion about a woman of thirty-nine who did Power Yoga nearly every day and had suffered two strokes that threw her into the hospital. Her doctors, a friend reported, called her yoga routine the apparent cause and advised her to drop the practice. The woman did a beautiful Shoulder Stand, her friend reported in a discussion forum. But she wondered if the identified source of the trouble could possibly be accurate.
    “Misinformed and misguided,” one discussant said of the attending physicians. “Blaming yoga for a stroke is absurd.”
    During this period, yoga in America felt the sting of bureaucratic oversight for the first time as states began to regulate the training of teachers. They did so under the banner of consumer protection, the effort expanding in step with the new disclosures and the rising debate.
    Regulators said licensing the schools would let states enforce basic standards and protect customerswho typically spend thousands of dollars on training courses, as well as improving the quality of the experience for their students. “If you’re going to start a school,” said Patrick Sweeney, a Wisconsin licensing official, “you should play by a set of rules.”
    A disturbing new kind of injury came to light even as states began their regulatory effort. The case involved a woman of twenty-nine who was undergoing teacher training at Kripalu, the yoga emporium in the Berkshires. One night, she was practicing the rapid breathing method known as Kapalbhati Pranayama, or Shining Skull Breath—the form of Breath of Fire that Bikram students do as a grand finale. The next day

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