She Exists: ‘I can be…’ A Yoga Teacher Barbie Doll.
Still with the feet. Bet she can’t do tree pose, and her triangle probably looks really weird.
Plus a chihuahua. Huh?
Get yours today, at Target.
Courtesy of Yogadork.
Here’s an elegant response from yoga teacher/anatomist Leslie Kaminoff, whom I studied with in January, to the recent yoga scandal involving John Friend and Anusara Yoga.
I’ve watched the headlines about the exodus of senior teachers and the revelations about Friend’s flaws with a measure of detachment. The headlines say enough — no details are needed.
This is an old story that often happens when power goes to a leader’s head, who is usually male. It’s the story of the flawed guru, the untrustworthy leader, the downfall of the powerful. It’s an archetypal story about human nature and usually involves sex and/or money, and sometimes substance abuse, and always, trust, betrayal, and loss of reputation.
It doesn’t have to happen. People are people. Attraction happens…and it takes self-aware teachers who are mindful of others and themselves and have enough personal resources to draw on to keep the trust given them, to notice when it/they may be slipping, to maintain the integrity of their teaching program.
It is part of the challenge of taking that path. The teacher is also the teaching.
If you want to catch up on what happened, check out WellandGood‘s coverage.
Disclosure: I take an Anusara class each week, and I love it and my Anusara-inspired teacher who has worked so hard for years to understand and teach yoga well and keep us safe and growing.
In my opinion, the quality of the yoga being taught includes the integrity of the teacher as well as the skill and knowledge. JF, as the founder of Anusara Yoga, did not have had much influence on me except in the body of work he created, and my teacher, who took classes from him and other Anusara teachers.
Anusara is good yoga, and I hope Anusara will still stand as an offering in the yoga world.
I’ve been lucky to have had some skilled, righteous yoga teachers whom I have trusted.
My respect for Leslie Kaminoff only increases. He talks about the suffering that occurs when a group gathers around a teacher whose human frailties prevent him from living up to the task he has been trusted with. (Yes, it’s usually men, but men hold more positions of power than women. And…the women involved made choices too.)
He relates how his teacher, Desikachar, who created Viniyoga, then decided to dissolve it because he was uncomfortable with the idea of branding. He found certification (which includes some standardization) to be antithetical to the traditional teacher/student relationship found in Indian yoga.
Desikachar resisted every opportunity to become a guru. He based his interactions with his students on his faith that the students could come up with the answers for themselves. He allowed them to struggle instead of giving them easy answers.
From the great Yogadork, here’s the complete and exhaustive guide to the yoga community’s response to the New York Times article about how yoga can wreck your body.
Thanks, Yogadork, for compiling this and for promising to add more as new responses surface.
I’m glad the conversation is happening. The original article seemed to deliberately fan some flames in order to promote a book by New York Times science reporter William J. Broad. A lot of egos are on the line — yoga in America has become an industry, a far cry from one of six schools of Indian philosophy.
The guide includes Part 2 of Leslie Kaminoff’s response to the controversy. He said in his workshop that he was about halfway through reading The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards (available for preorder, publication date is Feb. 7) and thinks it’s worth the read (even if possibly not entirely fair or accurate, still, good enough).
And with that, I’m bowing out of continuing to post about this controversy. After I read the book (and it’s not at the top of my reading list — gotta study for the massage licensing exam first), I’ll post a review.
Yoga (asana) has been part of my life since 1982. I feel fortunate to have discovered and made this practice part of my life. It’s transformed my being in all its koshas, brought me good health and spiritual gifts, and there’s still learning to be done. It’s blessed me.
My advice for preventing injuries is to work with good teachers who understand anatomy far beyond what’s required to become an RYT-200, teachers who teach small enough classes that they can really keep an eye on each student and keep them out of trouble.
Also, pay a lot of attention to what you’re doing. Use and cultivate your awareness.
Now that’s yoga.
I wanted to post links to several follow-up articles relating to my recent post The dark side of yoga about last week’s New York Times article about yoga and injuries, How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body so that if you are following this controversy through my blog, you can keep up.
Ashtanga Yoga New York posted an article, How the NYT Can Wreck Yoga. This article cites two reasons for the increase in yoga injuries: overzealousness on the part of students and the yoga industry.
The article states that too much zeal is a trait of a particular type of person “no matter what a teacher may caution.” (I just wonder if some of the people with this trait become bad yoga teachers themselves.)
The second reason is about the $5 billion per year yoga products and services industry and a value system that is based on economic incentive. The author argues that quality declines when the potential for making money is great, resulting in yoga becoming “McDonafied”. Therefore, more injuries occur because teachers and studios are more into making money than teaching quality yoga that prevents injuries.
Some good data are included, and the writer brings up injury rates in other physical activities, like basketball or football.
A balanced, serious, and accurate scientific report on the risks of yoga would have, at a minimum, explicitly stated that no one actually knows the injury rates for yoga, as is actually the case.
Click the link above to read the whole thing and all the comments.
Another article was published on Yogadork’s excellent blog. Is the New York Times Wrecking Yoga? The Community Responds includes the response mentioned above as well as a letter by Roger Cole, senior Iyengar teacher and Ph.D., to the New York Times, setting the record straight:
‘The article incorrectly states that yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar “insisted” that students practice shoulder stand in a manner that dangerously hyperflexes the neck. In fact, he insists on exactly the opposite. Mr. Broad cites a Yoga Journal column I wrote describing a method of “reducing neck bending in a shoulder stand by lifting the shoulders on a stack of folded blankets…” This safer method was invented by B.K.S. Iyengar and he has long been adamant that all of his certified teachers must teach the pose this way. Mr. Iyengar, who recently celebrated his 93rd birthday, still maintains a vigorous yoga practice that includes long holds in headstand (without support) and shoulder stand with his shoulders lifted on a prop.
The column describing Mr. Iyengar’s safer shoulder stand technique, entitled “Keep the Neck Healthy in Shoulderstand,” is at http://www.yogajournal.com/for_teachers/1091. The original version of Mr. Broad’s article supplied an incorrect link.
This is the way I was taught to do and teach shoulder stand by my teacher and trainer Eleanor Harris, as I mentioned in my previous post on this topic.
The third (so far) article was posted by Charlotte Bell on the blog of Huggermugger, a company that sells yoga supplies. In Youch! Yoga Injuries: How Not to Wreck Your Body, this 30-year yoga practitioner says matter of factly that any time you take your body out of its normal range of motion, there’s the potential for injury.
She wishes the NYT had examined modern versus traditional yoga teacher training. Me too. The traditional way has a teacher training students individually.
This is the model I chose. I was one of two students in my seven-month-long teacher training by Eleanor, who trained in the Iyengar tradition as well as other styles and who has over 20 years of experience. The other student, Kandice, and I had both been in Eleanor’s yoga classes for a good period of time before beginning her teacher training. She was aware of our practices and could address our needs individually.
The modern way of teacher training is often one-size-fits-all, for up to 40 students at a time, sometimes in a short amount of time.
Which do you think is going to produce better yoga teachers and reduced injury rates?
Bell also makes the point that yoga is not just poses:
We all know that yoga is not just poses, but asana remains the centerpiece of most Western practice. I wonder if the rise of yoga-related injuries might also be related to the fact that asana has been taken out of its original context. When the physical practice for its own sake becomes the be-all, end-all, it is much easier to become forceful and competitive, which IMO is the source of many yoga injuries. Consider how practicing the eight limbs tempers asana practice:
- Yama: The yamas teach us to approach practice with honesty, generosity and the spirit of non-harming.
- Niyama: The niyamas teach us about contentment, self-study (so that we know how poses affect us), and that our practice is not just about ourselves, that our practice is for the benefit of all beings.
- Pranayama: Giving our breath primacy in asana practice, as Donna Farhi teaches, shows us how to practice with the continuity of our breath in mind, so that we don’t move beyond the limits of our body’s ability to breathe freely.
- Pratyahara: Pratyahara teaches us to not become attached to the pleasant—or unpleasant—sensations we feel in practice.
- Dharana: Dharana steadies the mind so that we can see more clearly what is happening in our bodies as we practice.
- Dhyana: Dhyana refines our awareness of the experiences of each passing moment.
- Samadhi: Gives us a taste of the settling of the mind into silence—the true definition of yoga.
Well said, Charlotte Bell.
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 