Yoga Injuries

Potential yoga injuries must be a hot topic lately as I (Jen) have just read the fourth article about the risk of injury to participants. You might think I'd be quick to jump to yoga's defense but, surprise, no I'm not. People often turn to yoga as a therapeutic, relaxing way to spend some. It absolutely can and should be used that way. But participants need to be aware that even though we move slowly and there's quiet music going on and the teacher speaks in a soft calming voice, it's still involves moving the body in ways outside of our normal routine. The chance of incorrectly aligning the joints is fairly great. When I first started doing yoga, I just did videos at home and had no one there to tell me the reason my knee hurt is that it was way out of place. Sometimes it can be so tempting to try to stretch thiiiiiiis much past the point we really should be, especially when the guy next to me can bend a mile further than I can. I find that I can get wrapped up in it and obviously I'm not alone as it's all over the news. But when we get competitive with others, we risk injuring ourselves and we also risk missing out on the mental relaxation we can find, which is a fundamental part of the yoga experience.

From a physical standpoint, the great thing about going to a any kind of class is the idea of having the instructor there to assess how your body looks as you move. One article I read spoke about instructors jumping on and pushing students to force them into poses. You're never going to experience that in our classes. Luckily, all of our instructors have had training on proper alignment. Our ethos is not about manipulating students to get this one idea of how a pose has to be. We encourage students to find their version of a pose. The concept of a deep stretch is so subject to the individual. It doesn't matter how great of a teacher we are, none of us will ever know the level of sensation a person feels as well as they will and we recognise that stretching one inch for one individual can be at least as challenging as a limber person stretching a foot. We work to encourage participants to become aware of their own personal limits and then to be honest enough to honor those boundaries. When the other instructors and I teach, we try to stress the importance of listening to your body. You'll often hear us giving tips about where we want our joints in relation to each other. Listen to those, they are intended to help prevent injury.

We want people to get the best experience they can have emotionally as well as physically. Yoga offers people the chance to turn off their day. You can get into this mental "yoga zone" that can be hard to describe but feels great. Personally, final relaxation is the part that first sold me on yoga. There is no where else in my day where I get the chance to have quite reflection for even 5 minutes, and I'm sure I'm not the only person out there like that. If someone is moving through our series of poses to the best of their abilities, using the alignments cues the instructor offers, not worrying about what their friends, spouse, neighbor is doing, they can get into that zone. However, if someone spends their time straining to power through the whole class and worrying about everyone else, they probably haven't really had the chance to mentally decompress. That means they have missed out on an important component of yoga and that's unfortunate.

Take heart that coming to yoga does not necessarily guarantee you will walk out our door limping or worse, at risk for stroke or anything else that's currently being reported. Here you have instructors that work to safely guide you through your yoga practice in order to help you give yourself a wonderful experience that can be repeated over and over again. Keep honest with yourself about your abilities and keep coming to class!