The Science of Yoga

cure-all. In fact, if you do it with ego or obsession, you’ll end up causing problems.’ A lot of people don’t like to hear that.”
    Black said the results were entirely predictable. “More people are finding out that yoga is causing injuries.”

IV
RISK OF INJURY
    I t is no surprise that a field that prides itself on the routine performance of twists, contortions, and dramatic bends of the human body can do a lot of damage. In a similar vein, it makes sense that circus performers—including tumblers and acrobats—also suffer high rates of impairment, and that running, bicycling, and other vigorous sports can result in painful accidents. Even so, yoga injuries are unsettling because of the discipline’s image as a path to exceptional health. Many people turn to yoga as a gentle alternative to exercises that leave them hurt or intimidated. The idea of damage also runs counter to yoga’s reputation for healing and its promotion of superior levels of fitness and well-being. Few practitioners anticipate strokes and dislocations, dead nerves and ruptured lungs.
    The good reputation of yoga rests in no small part on the public silence of the gurus. Their virtual ban on the word “injury” made the topic of blinding pain and physical damage almost as unmentionable as Hatha’s origins. Gune made no allusion to injuries in Yoga Mimansa or his book Asanas. Indra Devi avoided the issue in Forever Young , as did Iyengar in Light on Yoga. Silence about injury or strong reassurances about yoga safety also prevailed in the how-to books of Swami Sivananda, K. Pattabhi Jois, and Bikram Choudhury. In general, the famous gurus tend to describe yoga as a nearly miraculous agent of renewal. As one, they imply or state explicitly that ages of practice have shown the discipline to be free of hidden danger.
    “Real yoga is as safe as mother’s milk,” declared Swami Gitananda (1907–1993), a popular guru who made ten world tours and founded ashrams on multiple continents.
    Modern physicians, on the other hand, have taken an almost malicious delight in recounting the self-inflicted wounds of yoga practitioners and warning of danger,doing so in dozens of reports. Perhaps they are jealous of the admiration accorded to yoga teachers and get a thrill out of challenging yoga’s mystique. Some have gone so far as to condemn yoga as intrinsically unsafe. What takes the edge off some of this criticism—especially during its first appearance—is how it often revealed a lack of deep knowledge about the workings of yoga but nonetheless managed to strike a tone of icy condescension. Even so, the medical professionals lavished attention on yogis who stumbled into their offices and emergency rooms writhing in pain, and wrote up detailed clinical reports on the accidents and injuries.
    Like stones cast into a pond, these disclosures produced waves of reaction that in time affected the practice of modern yoga and ultimately helped make it safer—albeit after considerable resistance. Initially, some yogis challenged the reports as biased and mean-spirited. Others, perhaps taken with the mother’s milk argument, tried to ignore the criticism or shrug off the injuries as an inconspicuous cost of doing business.
    In recent years, the best teachers have responded to the warnings with new sensitivity (and better insurance policies). They put safety first, caution their students to proceed with care, and reject the one-size-fits-all mentality of early styles and instructors.
    To yoga’s credit, a number of knowledgeable practitioners have recently stepped forward to confront the physical threats quite directly in articles, books, bibliographies, and—most recently—detailed surveys of yoga injuries. The activists are generally reformers who seek to raise awareness of the dangers and offer precautions. The surveys, which can be alarming, suggest that yoga’s recent popularity has created a rush of inexperienced teachers. Ironically, it seems that idyllic vacation spots are particularly treacherous.
    Robin is one of the reformers. His books feature lengthy addendums that detail some of the ways in which yoga can go wrong. They tell of paralyzed limbs, bulging eyeballs, damaged brains—among other varieties of destruction, some verging on the bizarre. The appendices reflect his careful reading of the medical literature. They portray a hidden world of major trauma as well as minor problems such as sprains and torn muscles, which turn out