If you are following this blog, you may have noticed that the recent posts have been from current members of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg 200 hr teacher training program. The majority of posts, and perhaps all, in the next two months will be from them.They have been given an assignment to write a blog addressing something that inspires them in their yoga practice or teaching. We thought it would be a great opportunity to feature different voices in the yoga community: some may inspire, some may provoke. Whatever the case, it is an opportunity expand our circle of awareness and embrace the symphony of others in our community.
Yoga Blog – Review of “The Science of Yoga: the risks and
the rewards” by William J. Broad (Simon and Schuster, 297 pages).
By Andy Park
Science has been described as
organized skepticism. By contrast, my
dictionary defines belief as “a principle, proposition, or idea accepted as
true, esp. without positive
proof”. In the protracted conflict
between science and belief that began in the 17th Century, science,
when done well, has trumped belief in every area of human endeavour. It does not matter what you believe; if a
well designed, replicated experiment says you are wrong, then so much the worse
for belief.
Given the supremacy of scientific
thinking in our age, you would think that people would welcome the guiding
light that scientific study could bring to the practice of yoga. Yet the controversy – frequently spilling
over into hostility - that met a preview of William Broad’s “the Science of
Yoga” was quite astonishing. Perhaps because
the preview article (in the New York Times) focused on the touchy subject of
yoga injuries, it seemed to strike at the core of some strongly held beliefs
about the safety of yoga. Some responses
to the article retreated into denial, while others suggested that there were
too few data on injuries, and therefore, yoga is safe.
But you can not prove a negative,
and the absence of data on something doesn’t show that it is not happening. I know from bitter experience that improper
alignment can hurt you. And respected
teachers, such as Mark Stephens (author of “Teaching Yoga”) have noted the
rising incidence of injuries, especially in hot yoga. Broad notes two types of injury: the sudden
“ouch” of a strained Achilles or shoulder muscle, typical of sports injuries,
and the more insidious damage that can accumulate over decades of practice in
challenging poses like headstands. Data
or no data, Broad records that leading teachers have been quietly modifying
some of these poses to improve safety.
If “The Science of Yoga” was just
about injuries, it would be a very boring and negative book indeed. Fortunately, it is about a lot more than
that. In Broad’s words, he seeks to cut
through the “frothy hodgepodge of public claims and assurances, sales pitches
and new Age promises” to “discern what’s real and what’s not, what helps and
what hurts – and nearly as important, why”.
And to a great extent, I believe he has succeeded in his aims. As we are led through the scientific story of
yoga, we learn, among other things, that the history of yoga is not quite what
we might have thought it to be, and that some of the benefits are
surprising.
The origins of yoga turn out to be
a sometimes seedy, sometimes criminal carnival of wondering showmen, with a
side order of ritualized tantric sex.
The Twentieth Century saw yoga being both sanitized and investigated
scientifically by a remarkable cadre of Indian yogis and physicians who trained
the “gurus” who brought yoga to the west.
One of these men, Jagganeth G Gune, established both an ashram and a
laboratory, where he did pioneering studies of the effects of yoga on blood
pressure and of Pranayama on oxygenation of the bloodstream. In the latter investigation, contrary to
obstinate myth, Gune found that Pranayama did nothing to enrich oxygen supply. Yet the oxygen myth has persisted, being
repeated down the decades in the face of repeated experiments that confirmed
Gune’s findings, demonstrating the pernicious power of belief in the face of
facts.
The truth about oxygen, as in many
scientific stories, is both more elegant and more complex than the myth. Fast yogic breathing, it turns out depletes
carbon dioxide (CO2) in the blood, often producing feelings of
exhilaration. But it also reduces oxygen
supply to the brain, and reduces mental acuity as a result. Slow breathing, on the other hand, has the
opposite effect, increasing CO2 in the blood, which in turn dilates
the cerebral blood vessels, improving oxygen supply to the brain. Voila; mental acuity improves.
I’ll take my practice with some
Ujjayi breath and a state of calm alertness!
William Broad reports many other
interesting benefits of practicing yoga.
We’ve all seen those seemingly ageless yogis or yoginis who are still
kicking yogic ass in their sixties and seventies. We’ve got some science for that. It turns out that an hour of yoga per day can
increase their stocks of telomerase, a crucial enzyme for the maintenance and
repair of DNA, by up to 30 percent. The
researchers concluded that their findings had important implications for
“cellular longevity, tissue renewal…and ‘increases in life span’ ”. And yoga will not make you lose weight – some
styles actually slow metabolism. But the
feeling of wellbeing that yoga engenders may stop you gong to the fridge for
that midnight snack.
The list of benefits goes on, but
Broad finishes up pretty much where he started – that is, with sex. Some yoga poses (you’ll have to read the book
to find out which ones!) produce marked increases in testosterone, especially
among females, which might partly explain yoga’s popularity with the girls! Scientific investigations of couples learning
yoga together have confirmed that it can improve both emotional and physical facets
of relationships.
The bottom line: science reveals
yoga to be more interesting than all the hyperbole and New Age drivel with
which modern society has burdened it.
And the science of yoga is only just beginning. As Broad points out, yoga currently makes
little contribution to formal health care because the science behind the
benefits is not yet fully developed. And
some phenomena, like the creative spinoffs of Kundalini arousal, are still only
poorly understood by science.
Broad concludes that yoga is at a
crossroads. One path leads further into
the foggy slough of New Age bafflegab and increasingly corporate yogis vying
for “market share among the bewildered”.
The other path sees certified yoga teachers with a solid background in
science and anatomy, playing an important role in societal well-being. I know which path I’d like to follow.
Andy is a member of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg 200hr teacher training program
