Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
good enough
()
Date: March 03, 2012 06:05AM
If yoga teachers were smart, they would be open to information about the possible dangers. This way they could help prevent injuries amongst their students and prevent their own likelihood of hurting themselves.
[www.thedailybeast.com]
Yoga Instructors Push Back at New York Times Article on Injury Risk
Jan 10, 2012 4:45 AM EST
Instructors are calling it ‘the elephant in the room’: a New York Times story warning of serious injuries, even brain damage, from practicing yoga. They tell Casey Schwartz what the piece gets wrong—and how they’re fighting back.
The yoga instructor was barely through the door before she started in on her carefully considered remarks.
“I’m sure that many of you have seen the article in The New York Times,” she told her assembled students Friday afternoon at a popular yoga studio in midtown Manhattan, sounding as calm as could be. “I think it serves as a really nice reminder that we always have to be aware of finding our balance.”
The article in question, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” is an excerpt from the journalist William Broad’s upcoming book. The piece went online Thursday and has been topping the Times’s most-emailed list since.
It’s easy to understand why. Broad documents an astounding variety of injuries that can come from practicing yoga: hip injuries so severe they necessitate hip replacements; torn ligaments, nerve damage, spinal injuries. And it gets worse. Broad cites examples of brain damage caused by yoga—one 28-year-old woman suffered a stroke after bending her neck too far backward during the full-wheel pose.
After Friday’s class, in the privacy of the women’s locker room, the instructor’s Zen front crumbled. The gloves came off.
She felt the piece was “unnecessarily negative.” She also didn’t understand why yoga was being singled out: “Where are the articles telling me that if I run 100 miles I can hurt myself?”
And what was with the illustrations? The Times, in a goofy flourish, had photographed cast members from the Broadway musical Godspell in various yoga positions, to which the actors had added their own clownish spins, turning their necks to show off a campy wince for the camera—and demonstrating just the kind of inexact alignment likely to produce serious injury.
Yoga, which is now practiced by roughly 20 million Americans, has become a universe unto itself.
And, in the wake of the Times piece, the yoga universe is roiled. It’s wobbling in its headstand.
“This article, in every class I walk into, is like an elephant in the room,” said Adam Vitolo, a yoga instructor at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York and at Pure Yoga Studio.
Since the article was published, Vitolo, who said he’s never witnessed the extreme injuries described in the Times, has taken to bringing it up before the start of every class so that he and his students “can have a conversation about it.”
“To write a piece that goes into such depth with anatomy, it can only instill fear: ‘Look, here’s all these big words, telling me I’m going to hurt my neck,’” he said. “That’s what’s unfortunate—students are going to start connecting their yoga practice to fear, and that’s not the mental state that’s conducive to yoga anyway. Nothing good comes from fear.”
Lisa Jacobson, an instructor in New York at The Shala, had her own problems with the way the Times represented yoga.
“First of all,” she said, “it’s talking about yoga like it’s another sport fad. It’s not just another thing. It’s not just another Pilates. It’s meant to be so much deeper than that.”
Jacobson repeated words of advice about the article that her own instructor, Kelly Morris, gave a yoga class over the weekend. If you are a master skier, Morris told her students, and you fall down and get injured, you don’t get angry at the mountain.
Everyone can benefit from yoga, Vitolo said, adding that he’s concerned the Times story will unnecessarily drive away students from the practice. Especially because, at the very beginning of the article, a yoga instructor is quoted as saying “the vast majority of people” should not be doing yoga. Vitolo emphasizes the opposite message. When done correctly, he repeated, “yoga is for everyone.”
Jacobson expressed skepticism that a dramatic injury of the kind described in the Times could befall a student without warning.
“There have to have been some subtle signs before this major thing happens,” she said. “You’re supposed to listen to yourself and see if it’s actually safe for you, before you come up into a pose like the full wheel.”
Geralyn Coopersmith, the director of Equinox’s fitness-training institute, was much more enthusiastic about the Times’s reporting.
“I think it’s a really fair article,” she said. “People go into yoga and they think, ‘Well, it’s safe, because it’s yoga.’ But people need to think about, ‘Is this right for me?’”
Coopersmith said many of the risks of yoga can be minimized by simply avoiding certain postures—particularly the inversions, such as the headstand and plow pose, which can stress the neck.
Of course, “there’s risk involved when you do anything physical,” she said. But she was quick to add:
“P.S. There’s a lot more risk when you don’t do anything physical.”
Casey Schwartz is a staff writer at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She is currently at work on her first book, a personal look at the culture of modern psychiatry.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
[www.thedailybeast.com]
Yoga Instructors Push Back at New York Times Article on Injury Risk
Jan 10, 2012 4:45 AM EST
Instructors are calling it ‘the elephant in the room’: a New York Times story warning of serious injuries, even brain damage, from practicing yoga. They tell Casey Schwartz what the piece gets wrong—and how they’re fighting back.
The yoga instructor was barely through the door before she started in on her carefully considered remarks.
“I’m sure that many of you have seen the article in The New York Times,” she told her assembled students Friday afternoon at a popular yoga studio in midtown Manhattan, sounding as calm as could be. “I think it serves as a really nice reminder that we always have to be aware of finding our balance.”
The article in question, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” is an excerpt from the journalist William Broad’s upcoming book. The piece went online Thursday and has been topping the Times’s most-emailed list since.
It’s easy to understand why. Broad documents an astounding variety of injuries that can come from practicing yoga: hip injuries so severe they necessitate hip replacements; torn ligaments, nerve damage, spinal injuries. And it gets worse. Broad cites examples of brain damage caused by yoga—one 28-year-old woman suffered a stroke after bending her neck too far backward during the full-wheel pose.
After Friday’s class, in the privacy of the women’s locker room, the instructor’s Zen front crumbled. The gloves came off.
She felt the piece was “unnecessarily negative.” She also didn’t understand why yoga was being singled out: “Where are the articles telling me that if I run 100 miles I can hurt myself?”
And what was with the illustrations? The Times, in a goofy flourish, had photographed cast members from the Broadway musical Godspell in various yoga positions, to which the actors had added their own clownish spins, turning their necks to show off a campy wince for the camera—and demonstrating just the kind of inexact alignment likely to produce serious injury.
Yoga, which is now practiced by roughly 20 million Americans, has become a universe unto itself.
And, in the wake of the Times piece, the yoga universe is roiled. It’s wobbling in its headstand.
“This article, in every class I walk into, is like an elephant in the room,” said Adam Vitolo, a yoga instructor at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York and at Pure Yoga Studio.
Since the article was published, Vitolo, who said he’s never witnessed the extreme injuries described in the Times, has taken to bringing it up before the start of every class so that he and his students “can have a conversation about it.”
“To write a piece that goes into such depth with anatomy, it can only instill fear: ‘Look, here’s all these big words, telling me I’m going to hurt my neck,’” he said. “That’s what’s unfortunate—students are going to start connecting their yoga practice to fear, and that’s not the mental state that’s conducive to yoga anyway. Nothing good comes from fear.”
Lisa Jacobson, an instructor in New York at The Shala, had her own problems with the way the Times represented yoga.
“First of all,” she said, “it’s talking about yoga like it’s another sport fad. It’s not just another thing. It’s not just another Pilates. It’s meant to be so much deeper than that.”
Jacobson repeated words of advice about the article that her own instructor, Kelly Morris, gave a yoga class over the weekend. If you are a master skier, Morris told her students, and you fall down and get injured, you don’t get angry at the mountain.
Everyone can benefit from yoga, Vitolo said, adding that he’s concerned the Times story will unnecessarily drive away students from the practice. Especially because, at the very beginning of the article, a yoga instructor is quoted as saying “the vast majority of people” should not be doing yoga. Vitolo emphasizes the opposite message. When done correctly, he repeated, “yoga is for everyone.”
Jacobson expressed skepticism that a dramatic injury of the kind described in the Times could befall a student without warning.
“There have to have been some subtle signs before this major thing happens,” she said. “You’re supposed to listen to yourself and see if it’s actually safe for you, before you come up into a pose like the full wheel.”
Geralyn Coopersmith, the director of Equinox’s fitness-training institute, was much more enthusiastic about the Times’s reporting.
“I think it’s a really fair article,” she said. “People go into yoga and they think, ‘Well, it’s safe, because it’s yoga.’ But people need to think about, ‘Is this right for me?’”
Coopersmith said many of the risks of yoga can be minimized by simply avoiding certain postures—particularly the inversions, such as the headstand and plow pose, which can stress the neck.
Of course, “there’s risk involved when you do anything physical,” she said. But she was quick to add:
“P.S. There’s a lot more risk when you don’t do anything physical.”
Casey Schwartz is a staff writer at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She is currently at work on her first book, a personal look at the culture of modern psychiatry.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
good enough
()
Date: March 05, 2012 09:29PM
An article about the rise in rates of yoga injuries and the lack of standards regarding teacher training.
[www.shawnthistle.com]
Globe & Mail - Yoga Troubles
Trouble on the Om Front
Some Toronto yoga instructors go to the mats with as little as two days training. That's left students bent out of shape.
By ANNA SHARRATT
Special to The Globe and Mail
Oct. 10, 2009
A self-confessed A-type, Darlene Buan-Basit went to a major yoga studio in Toronto to find inner peace. Instead, she dislocated her shoulder.
"I had done this yoga instructor's class once or twice and perhaps he thought I could go further," says the 37-year-old chiropractor at Balance Fitness in Toronto. Ms. Buan-Basit was doing a bind, a pose in which one arm wraps around the body to grasp the other arm. "He gave me an adjustment and out went my shoulder."
She was lucky: Her classmate, a chiropractic student, "popped" the joint back in - a technique Ms. Buan-Basit is well acquainted with in her practice. But after a painful recovery and intensive rehabilitation, she's now wary. "The injury could have been serious. I'm quick to say 'I'm fine, thank you,' " when instructors offer to push her deeper into a pose, she says.
The experience, which took place in 2000, hasn't soured Ms. Buan-Basit on yoga; she now teaches it. And she's sold on the strength and flexibility it can build. But it has made her aware of just how dangerous an overzealous student, a person with an undisclosed injury and an inexperienced instructor can be. Yet it's bad karma to talk about it.
The yoga industry, understandably, wants such events to remain on the down-low. It's fiercely protective of what has become an estimated $6-billion (U.S.) business built on selling enlightenment.
Last month, New York yogis and yoginis successfully fought off a state proposal that they submit to regulations that govern vocational training - or face stiff fines. Federal regulators had proposed yoga training schools be certified, routinely inspected and charged licensing fees.
Yoga teachers currently don't have to certify with anyone in Canada - and there is no overseeing body which ensures yoga studios are operated safely.
For the most part, the industry's self-regulation works, say insiders. "Most Canadian yoga schools will register with the American Yoga Alliance so that they have that accreditation," says Christine Reeves, an instructor at Yoga Plus in Toronto. "That means that they have to do a certain number of hours of anatomy, a certain number of hours of philosophy, meditation, asanas [postures]."
"The industry is safe," says Todd Canning, co-owner of the Richmond Hill Moksha Yoga studio. (Moksha Yoga has six locations in the Toronto area.)
But health practitioners are alarmed over the spike in injuries over the past five years. "Definitely, I have noticed an increase in yoga-related injuries," says Alan Horowitz, a Richmond Hill-based physiotherapist. "I see many back and neck injuries from yoga, mostly from hyperflexing or hyperextending," as well as knee and groin injuries from twisting and overstretching.
Yoga poses involve most muscle groups and frequently involve extensive stretching, such as forward and back bends, as well as lunges, crouches and plank poses, in which the body resembles a push-up at its apex. Weight is frequently placed on the knees, wrists and back as students hold and deepen poses.
. In "downward-facing dog," the practitioner forms an upside-down V-shape with her body, head down and buttocks stretched upwards, with weight placed on her hands and wrists. "Elbow and wrist tendinitis is common from the downward-dog and upward-dog series as well as in people who try to do handstands without knowing what they are doing," says Dr. Horowitz..
Ms. Buan-Basit singles out chaturanga, one of the positions in the sun-salutation sequence. "If they don't have the stability, they'll just jam their lower backs," she says, adding that she sees four to six yoga injuries a month, some of them very serious.
One of her patients, a fit woman in her early thirties, recently fractured her neck while coming out of a headstand. She's now sporting a cervical collar for eight weeks.
"When the instructor says, 'Take it easy and don't bend too far unless you are a regular,' the cocky person will try to be the best in the class and bend farther than anyone else, which may result in injury," says Dr. Horowitz.
Taba Soble, an instructor at Esther Myers Yoga Studio, says good instructors know when to stop a person from going too far in a pose. "We differentiate assisting from adjusting," says Ms. Soble. "If someone is pushed, you're not working with the body - and injuries do occur."
Dr. Shawn Thistle, a chiropractor with Shape Health and Wellness Centres at Davenport and Avenue Road, says many of his clients are people in their 50s and 60s who are just getting into yoga for the first time. "These are people who had desk jobs all their lives, and now they want to stretch themselves into all sorts of positions."
"They think, 'It worked for so-and-so, and it's going to work for me.'"
The differing levels of experience of yoga aficionados leave instructors in the unenviable position of guessing each person's limits. And that's where their degree of training becomes critical.
Yet Toronto's instructor-training programs are wildly different. While some "intensive" fast-track weekend courses promise teacher certification in two days, some programs, like that of long-standing Esther Myers Yoga Studio, require 750 hours for full teacher certification.
Most Toronto studios fall into the 200-hour category.
"Two days of training - that's an introduction, not a program," says Ms. Soble. She says Esther Myers's program focuses on anatomy, teaching instructors about different populations - such as expectant women - and includes volunteer work.
Ms. Buan-Basit agrees. "You have some instructors going to India and spending a year there - and other teachers doing the minimum and not necessarily going beyond the poses."
Even when instructors complete the minimum 200-hour training, many say that is really only a starting point - and that much more education is needed.
Ms. Reeves was already a certified instructor when she enrolled in a U.S.-based prenatal yoga course. After over 100 hours of study in that area, she augmented her study with additional training in birth education, baby-development education and doula training. But she's in a minority.
"These days the norm in Canada is a 10-to-15-hour weekend workshop in prenatal yoga and in most cases you don't even have to be a yoga teacher in the first place to take it. It's crazy."
Mr. Canning, who originally trained in Bikram, or hot yoga, in Los Angeles, has seen firsthand how important teacher programs are in ensuring a safe and inspiring environment. After ending up with two excruciatingly painful herniated discs in his spine from an aggressive teacher-training program that was "push, push, push," Mr. Canning built a studio devoted to a practice where instructors focus on listening to the needs of their students. And he mandates that they have a year of training behind them.
"That 'push' attitude - we all moved away from that," says Mr. Canning. "If anything, yoga should heal."
[www.shawnthistle.com]
Globe & Mail - Yoga Troubles
Trouble on the Om Front
Some Toronto yoga instructors go to the mats with as little as two days training. That's left students bent out of shape.
By ANNA SHARRATT
Special to The Globe and Mail
Oct. 10, 2009
A self-confessed A-type, Darlene Buan-Basit went to a major yoga studio in Toronto to find inner peace. Instead, she dislocated her shoulder.
"I had done this yoga instructor's class once or twice and perhaps he thought I could go further," says the 37-year-old chiropractor at Balance Fitness in Toronto. Ms. Buan-Basit was doing a bind, a pose in which one arm wraps around the body to grasp the other arm. "He gave me an adjustment and out went my shoulder."
She was lucky: Her classmate, a chiropractic student, "popped" the joint back in - a technique Ms. Buan-Basit is well acquainted with in her practice. But after a painful recovery and intensive rehabilitation, she's now wary. "The injury could have been serious. I'm quick to say 'I'm fine, thank you,' " when instructors offer to push her deeper into a pose, she says.
The experience, which took place in 2000, hasn't soured Ms. Buan-Basit on yoga; she now teaches it. And she's sold on the strength and flexibility it can build. But it has made her aware of just how dangerous an overzealous student, a person with an undisclosed injury and an inexperienced instructor can be. Yet it's bad karma to talk about it.
The yoga industry, understandably, wants such events to remain on the down-low. It's fiercely protective of what has become an estimated $6-billion (U.S.) business built on selling enlightenment.
Last month, New York yogis and yoginis successfully fought off a state proposal that they submit to regulations that govern vocational training - or face stiff fines. Federal regulators had proposed yoga training schools be certified, routinely inspected and charged licensing fees.
Yoga teachers currently don't have to certify with anyone in Canada - and there is no overseeing body which ensures yoga studios are operated safely.
For the most part, the industry's self-regulation works, say insiders. "Most Canadian yoga schools will register with the American Yoga Alliance so that they have that accreditation," says Christine Reeves, an instructor at Yoga Plus in Toronto. "That means that they have to do a certain number of hours of anatomy, a certain number of hours of philosophy, meditation, asanas [postures]."
"The industry is safe," says Todd Canning, co-owner of the Richmond Hill Moksha Yoga studio. (Moksha Yoga has six locations in the Toronto area.)
But health practitioners are alarmed over the spike in injuries over the past five years. "Definitely, I have noticed an increase in yoga-related injuries," says Alan Horowitz, a Richmond Hill-based physiotherapist. "I see many back and neck injuries from yoga, mostly from hyperflexing or hyperextending," as well as knee and groin injuries from twisting and overstretching.
Yoga poses involve most muscle groups and frequently involve extensive stretching, such as forward and back bends, as well as lunges, crouches and plank poses, in which the body resembles a push-up at its apex. Weight is frequently placed on the knees, wrists and back as students hold and deepen poses.
. In "downward-facing dog," the practitioner forms an upside-down V-shape with her body, head down and buttocks stretched upwards, with weight placed on her hands and wrists. "Elbow and wrist tendinitis is common from the downward-dog and upward-dog series as well as in people who try to do handstands without knowing what they are doing," says Dr. Horowitz..
Ms. Buan-Basit singles out chaturanga, one of the positions in the sun-salutation sequence. "If they don't have the stability, they'll just jam their lower backs," she says, adding that she sees four to six yoga injuries a month, some of them very serious.
One of her patients, a fit woman in her early thirties, recently fractured her neck while coming out of a headstand. She's now sporting a cervical collar for eight weeks.
"When the instructor says, 'Take it easy and don't bend too far unless you are a regular,' the cocky person will try to be the best in the class and bend farther than anyone else, which may result in injury," says Dr. Horowitz.
Taba Soble, an instructor at Esther Myers Yoga Studio, says good instructors know when to stop a person from going too far in a pose. "We differentiate assisting from adjusting," says Ms. Soble. "If someone is pushed, you're not working with the body - and injuries do occur."
Dr. Shawn Thistle, a chiropractor with Shape Health and Wellness Centres at Davenport and Avenue Road, says many of his clients are people in their 50s and 60s who are just getting into yoga for the first time. "These are people who had desk jobs all their lives, and now they want to stretch themselves into all sorts of positions."
"They think, 'It worked for so-and-so, and it's going to work for me.'"
The differing levels of experience of yoga aficionados leave instructors in the unenviable position of guessing each person's limits. And that's where their degree of training becomes critical.
Yet Toronto's instructor-training programs are wildly different. While some "intensive" fast-track weekend courses promise teacher certification in two days, some programs, like that of long-standing Esther Myers Yoga Studio, require 750 hours for full teacher certification.
Most Toronto studios fall into the 200-hour category.
"Two days of training - that's an introduction, not a program," says Ms. Soble. She says Esther Myers's program focuses on anatomy, teaching instructors about different populations - such as expectant women - and includes volunteer work.
Ms. Buan-Basit agrees. "You have some instructors going to India and spending a year there - and other teachers doing the minimum and not necessarily going beyond the poses."
Even when instructors complete the minimum 200-hour training, many say that is really only a starting point - and that much more education is needed.
Ms. Reeves was already a certified instructor when she enrolled in a U.S.-based prenatal yoga course. After over 100 hours of study in that area, she augmented her study with additional training in birth education, baby-development education and doula training. But she's in a minority.
"These days the norm in Canada is a 10-to-15-hour weekend workshop in prenatal yoga and in most cases you don't even have to be a yoga teacher in the first place to take it. It's crazy."
Mr. Canning, who originally trained in Bikram, or hot yoga, in Los Angeles, has seen firsthand how important teacher programs are in ensuring a safe and inspiring environment. After ending up with two excruciatingly painful herniated discs in his spine from an aggressive teacher-training program that was "push, push, push," Mr. Canning built a studio devoted to a practice where instructors focus on listening to the needs of their students. And he mandates that they have a year of training behind them.
"That 'push' attitude - we all moved away from that," says Mr. Canning. "If anything, yoga should heal."
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
good enough
()
Date: March 08, 2012 03:38AM
A piece about eating disorders and fundamentalism in yoga world.
[lorinroche.com]
Lorin Roche, Ph.D.
a zesty, life-affirming approach to meditation
Eating Disorders Masquerading as Yogic Food Theory
Hoosier Yoga
A courageous group of Yoga instructors in the Midwest selected me to give the keynote talk and several workshops at their annual retreat. The whole thing was a delight, to me at least. My first impression at landing in the airport was that the girls don't realize how good-looking they are. I checked luggage for the first time in years – I was bringing a lot of books – so I wound up having to stand around the baggage carousel for twenty minutes. A young woman stood next to me, talking to her boyfriend. She was great-looking and clearly had NO idea of it, which just added to her beauty. You would never see this in Los Angeles or at the beach in Southern California. Here, with a few exceptions, the women know exactly how good-looking they are, and like houses that have been appraised, know to the dollar how much that beauty is worth. Beauty is power.
My second impression is that people in the Midwest are very open-hearted. Everywhere I went, people were warm and helpful. warmer and more helpful than anyone is in Los Angeles, unless you are rich and powerful or they have seen you on the cover of a magazine. In Indianapolis, average people at the hotel and the restaurants treated me with a courtesy you don't experience in Los Angeles unless you are an elite in an elite and expensive locale.
At the workshop, I read from The Radiance Sutras, which was great fun.
After the Friday evening talk, a woman, let's call her Julia, walked up to me and said, "But won't we just be polluting Yoga with our Western egotism and disease if we customize it to fit our needs? Yoga is a PERFECT 5000-year-old tradition. We in the West are just diseased, ignorant people." Just looking at Julia, one could see that she practices yoga as a form of botox, a war on the body, and that she hates, hates, just hates every curve on her body, and eats and exercises and pushes herself to stay skinny as a twig.
Julia is a wonderful of a yoganista, a person who fanatically believes in the fantasy of an ideal that has never existed on earth. I gently explained that this image of perfection is the way we never were, it is an ideal that exists in the realm of the imagination, like the images of women in fashion magazines who are perfectly thin, with long legs, and have rosy complexions and the breeze is blowing their hair. It took an army of body slaves, makeup artists, lighting people, photographers, wind machines, botox, and thousands of shots to get that image, which was then worked over extensively in Photoshop.
I am getting worse and worse in terms of telling the truth, whether people want to hear it or not. For example, I talk about the kinds of injuries meditators get. And when someone talks about technique or style of approaching meditation that is likely to lead to injury or failure, I point it out.
This is a terrible trend, and it's been going on since at least 1975, when I started talking about the dangers of meditation and all my former TM friends shunned me. This is so odd because all I really have been saying is that meditating is like running, or any sport or form of training – injuries happen. And injuries are to be avoided if possible! They ruin the fun. But the denial system in meditators is so intense they can't stand ANY hint that their practice may be less than perfect. And this denial, of course, is one of the hidden dangers of meditation. Go figure.
The only good thing I can say in my defense is that my takes or opinions about things are grounded in a considerable amount of clinical experience – clinical in the sense that I've been running a meditation clinic for awhile, like 30 years, since I stopped teaching for the Transcendental Meditation organization. Meditators of all varieties come to talk about their meditation practice and how to fine-tune it, and I listen. I say that anyone can replicate my statements by spending a few years just listening to meditators talk. Anyway, it is weird to feel obligated to speak responsibly on what is actually happening.
For example:
Food Theory and Eating Disorders
When I was in there, a female yoga teacher asked me about how to tell yoga students that they should become vegetarians, and eat only spiritually-correct foods. She was very sincere, and clearly was thinking that I was going to give her communication tips about how to format the information, how to be a better missionary for vegetarianism.
I would have gotten SO many points if I had just said, "Yeah, how can we connive together to get these midwesterners to stop eating meat?" And in the class, I could have gained SO much power of domination over the students if I had started shaming them about their eating habits. Shame is just unbelievably powerful. I could have had all those yoga teachers in training, hanging their heads in shame and swearing to become more pure.
But NOOO, I said, "Whoa - let's back up a minute. Where would a yoga teacher be coming from in giving dietary advice? What asana of authority would you be in? What is your position of authority and expertise? Do you have a blood workup of that particular person? Do you have an analysis of their digestion? Do you have a degree in nutrition? Did they come to you for dietary advice or did they come to a yoga class? Let's take a breath here and think about this. If they haven't come to you and specifically requested dietary advice, and if you aren't qualified, then it is a boundary invasion to even suggest an approach to eating. It's none of your damn business. And in general, yoga teachers who talk about food have eating disorders."
There was a kind of stunned silence while this little group of midwesterners took this in. No one even asked a question to follow up. Then over the next couple of days, I found out that many of the savvy women in the group, who don't have eating disorders, had long suspected that some of the female yoga teachers do have eating disorders. They were relieved to find out that yoga and eating disorders are two different things. It was just too taboo to inquire about.
Detachment and Homelessness
In the next session, a devout yoga student attacked me over my dismissal of "detachment" as a valid concept. What I was saying just went against the grain of what he was learning from his studies of Buddhism and Yoga. He went on and on for awhile about how important it is to keep the ego in check, and even destroy it; and how necessary it is to control passion.
I was really enjoying the confrontation because he was stating so clearly why some yoga teachers hate what I have to say, and I encouraged him to go on and on.
I just looked at him and said, "Well, it's a choice we all need to make - whether to become Yoga Fundamentalists or not. You can become a sutra thumper. But if you want to be a fundamentalist, why drag Yoga into it? Why not become a Christian Fundamentalist to satisfy your need for a bible to thump, and let Yoga be Yoga?
Furthermore, I continued, "Buddha strongly suggested that meditators question everything, and only take a concept as true if is proven by direct experience to be useful. He was very clear about this. So it is ironic that people are so unquestioning in their acceptance of Buddha's terminology. It's really a betrayal of Buddha to believe anything he said. Detachment is essentially an attack on the structures that connect things. The reason this is good in Buddhist terminology is that back in the day, Buddhists wanted to become homeless beggars. The Buddhist path was called Going Forth into Homelessness."
There were shocked, incredulous faces all around. You could feel that I was violating a taboo by even questioning - by DARING to question – one of the Sacred Concepts.
I said, "Look it up. Google going forth into homelessness. Back in the day, it was very fashionable in spiritual circles to become a dirty hippie, drifting aimlessly from town to town, begging for food. It's not really so attractive to do that now, so you should question the allure of homeless thinking, which includes a set of related ideas - detachment, egolessness, desirelessness, the war on passion, and devotion to a guru."
Then I said, "You know, you are being intellectually lazy. Yoga concepts are like yoga asanas. They are not to be believed. They are to be stretched, felt, worked with, explored, breathed with. You don't just put them on the wall and worship them. Don't believe a thing I am saying. The discomfort you are feeling is like that you feel when you've been inert, not exercising and not doing yoga, and it feels weird to start moving again."
There was a moment of tension, and then about half the group or more started to breathe with excitement, suddenly freed of this odious burden of having to unquestioningly believe in a whole universe of imported yogic thoughts. But really, the most radical thing I said was that you need to be active intellectually if you want to absorb yoga theory. Something terrible has happened to Americans – they have become passive receptacles of information. They seem to think you just slurp info like fast food, without tasting it, chewing it, noticing it.
After the group, a handsome, well-dressed man came up to me and said that he had become homeless after practicing Buddhism for several years. The idea of detachment just took over his mind and he didn't see any purpose in having a job, or a wife, or an apartment. He gave up everything.
Realism vs. Idealism
It is as if there is a deep craving to hear only about the ideal – how meditation would be in an ideal world. "If only meditation were a kind of pill you take, blessed by the Dalai Lama, and you were instantly blessed and enlightened and didn't have to do any work." Also, people seem to want their mental to-do list to instantly disappear as soon as they close their eyes.
[lorinroche.com]
Lorin Roche, Ph.D.
a zesty, life-affirming approach to meditation
Eating Disorders Masquerading as Yogic Food Theory
Hoosier Yoga
A courageous group of Yoga instructors in the Midwest selected me to give the keynote talk and several workshops at their annual retreat. The whole thing was a delight, to me at least. My first impression at landing in the airport was that the girls don't realize how good-looking they are. I checked luggage for the first time in years – I was bringing a lot of books – so I wound up having to stand around the baggage carousel for twenty minutes. A young woman stood next to me, talking to her boyfriend. She was great-looking and clearly had NO idea of it, which just added to her beauty. You would never see this in Los Angeles or at the beach in Southern California. Here, with a few exceptions, the women know exactly how good-looking they are, and like houses that have been appraised, know to the dollar how much that beauty is worth. Beauty is power.
My second impression is that people in the Midwest are very open-hearted. Everywhere I went, people were warm and helpful. warmer and more helpful than anyone is in Los Angeles, unless you are rich and powerful or they have seen you on the cover of a magazine. In Indianapolis, average people at the hotel and the restaurants treated me with a courtesy you don't experience in Los Angeles unless you are an elite in an elite and expensive locale.
At the workshop, I read from The Radiance Sutras, which was great fun.
After the Friday evening talk, a woman, let's call her Julia, walked up to me and said, "But won't we just be polluting Yoga with our Western egotism and disease if we customize it to fit our needs? Yoga is a PERFECT 5000-year-old tradition. We in the West are just diseased, ignorant people." Just looking at Julia, one could see that she practices yoga as a form of botox, a war on the body, and that she hates, hates, just hates every curve on her body, and eats and exercises and pushes herself to stay skinny as a twig.
Julia is a wonderful of a yoganista, a person who fanatically believes in the fantasy of an ideal that has never existed on earth. I gently explained that this image of perfection is the way we never were, it is an ideal that exists in the realm of the imagination, like the images of women in fashion magazines who are perfectly thin, with long legs, and have rosy complexions and the breeze is blowing their hair. It took an army of body slaves, makeup artists, lighting people, photographers, wind machines, botox, and thousands of shots to get that image, which was then worked over extensively in Photoshop.
I am getting worse and worse in terms of telling the truth, whether people want to hear it or not. For example, I talk about the kinds of injuries meditators get. And when someone talks about technique or style of approaching meditation that is likely to lead to injury or failure, I point it out.
This is a terrible trend, and it's been going on since at least 1975, when I started talking about the dangers of meditation and all my former TM friends shunned me. This is so odd because all I really have been saying is that meditating is like running, or any sport or form of training – injuries happen. And injuries are to be avoided if possible! They ruin the fun. But the denial system in meditators is so intense they can't stand ANY hint that their practice may be less than perfect. And this denial, of course, is one of the hidden dangers of meditation. Go figure.
The only good thing I can say in my defense is that my takes or opinions about things are grounded in a considerable amount of clinical experience – clinical in the sense that I've been running a meditation clinic for awhile, like 30 years, since I stopped teaching for the Transcendental Meditation organization. Meditators of all varieties come to talk about their meditation practice and how to fine-tune it, and I listen. I say that anyone can replicate my statements by spending a few years just listening to meditators talk. Anyway, it is weird to feel obligated to speak responsibly on what is actually happening.
For example:
Food Theory and Eating Disorders
When I was in there, a female yoga teacher asked me about how to tell yoga students that they should become vegetarians, and eat only spiritually-correct foods. She was very sincere, and clearly was thinking that I was going to give her communication tips about how to format the information, how to be a better missionary for vegetarianism.
I would have gotten SO many points if I had just said, "Yeah, how can we connive together to get these midwesterners to stop eating meat?" And in the class, I could have gained SO much power of domination over the students if I had started shaming them about their eating habits. Shame is just unbelievably powerful. I could have had all those yoga teachers in training, hanging their heads in shame and swearing to become more pure.
But NOOO, I said, "Whoa - let's back up a minute. Where would a yoga teacher be coming from in giving dietary advice? What asana of authority would you be in? What is your position of authority and expertise? Do you have a blood workup of that particular person? Do you have an analysis of their digestion? Do you have a degree in nutrition? Did they come to you for dietary advice or did they come to a yoga class? Let's take a breath here and think about this. If they haven't come to you and specifically requested dietary advice, and if you aren't qualified, then it is a boundary invasion to even suggest an approach to eating. It's none of your damn business. And in general, yoga teachers who talk about food have eating disorders."
There was a kind of stunned silence while this little group of midwesterners took this in. No one even asked a question to follow up. Then over the next couple of days, I found out that many of the savvy women in the group, who don't have eating disorders, had long suspected that some of the female yoga teachers do have eating disorders. They were relieved to find out that yoga and eating disorders are two different things. It was just too taboo to inquire about.
Detachment and Homelessness
In the next session, a devout yoga student attacked me over my dismissal of "detachment" as a valid concept. What I was saying just went against the grain of what he was learning from his studies of Buddhism and Yoga. He went on and on for awhile about how important it is to keep the ego in check, and even destroy it; and how necessary it is to control passion.
I was really enjoying the confrontation because he was stating so clearly why some yoga teachers hate what I have to say, and I encouraged him to go on and on.
I just looked at him and said, "Well, it's a choice we all need to make - whether to become Yoga Fundamentalists or not. You can become a sutra thumper. But if you want to be a fundamentalist, why drag Yoga into it? Why not become a Christian Fundamentalist to satisfy your need for a bible to thump, and let Yoga be Yoga?
Furthermore, I continued, "Buddha strongly suggested that meditators question everything, and only take a concept as true if is proven by direct experience to be useful. He was very clear about this. So it is ironic that people are so unquestioning in their acceptance of Buddha's terminology. It's really a betrayal of Buddha to believe anything he said. Detachment is essentially an attack on the structures that connect things. The reason this is good in Buddhist terminology is that back in the day, Buddhists wanted to become homeless beggars. The Buddhist path was called Going Forth into Homelessness."
There were shocked, incredulous faces all around. You could feel that I was violating a taboo by even questioning - by DARING to question – one of the Sacred Concepts.
I said, "Look it up. Google going forth into homelessness. Back in the day, it was very fashionable in spiritual circles to become a dirty hippie, drifting aimlessly from town to town, begging for food. It's not really so attractive to do that now, so you should question the allure of homeless thinking, which includes a set of related ideas - detachment, egolessness, desirelessness, the war on passion, and devotion to a guru."
Then I said, "You know, you are being intellectually lazy. Yoga concepts are like yoga asanas. They are not to be believed. They are to be stretched, felt, worked with, explored, breathed with. You don't just put them on the wall and worship them. Don't believe a thing I am saying. The discomfort you are feeling is like that you feel when you've been inert, not exercising and not doing yoga, and it feels weird to start moving again."
There was a moment of tension, and then about half the group or more started to breathe with excitement, suddenly freed of this odious burden of having to unquestioningly believe in a whole universe of imported yogic thoughts. But really, the most radical thing I said was that you need to be active intellectually if you want to absorb yoga theory. Something terrible has happened to Americans – they have become passive receptacles of information. They seem to think you just slurp info like fast food, without tasting it, chewing it, noticing it.
After the group, a handsome, well-dressed man came up to me and said that he had become homeless after practicing Buddhism for several years. The idea of detachment just took over his mind and he didn't see any purpose in having a job, or a wife, or an apartment. He gave up everything.
Realism vs. Idealism
It is as if there is a deep craving to hear only about the ideal – how meditation would be in an ideal world. "If only meditation were a kind of pill you take, blessed by the Dalai Lama, and you were instantly blessed and enlightened and didn't have to do any work." Also, people seem to want their mental to-do list to instantly disappear as soon as they close their eyes.
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 08, 2012 11:53PM
Now that we have the reader's attention...
Eros resembles nuclear energy. Both forms of vitality if aroused, must be managed consciously and skillfully to remain beneficial and harmless.
No one is allowed to work inside the control center of a nuclear reactor unless they're trained and certified and usually they're accompanied by coworkers.
The entire article with live links can be read here:
[culteducation.com]
Quotes here:
One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise.
Hatha yoga — the parent of the styles now practiced around the globe — began as a branch of Tantra. In medieval India, Tantra devotees sought to fuse the male and female aspects of the cosmos into a blissful state of consciousness.
The rites of Tantric cults, while often steeped in symbolism, could also include group and individual sex. One text advised devotees to revere the female sex organ and enjoy vigorous intercourse. Candidates for worship included actresses and prostitutes, as well as the sisters of practitioners.
Hatha originated as a way to speed the Tantric agenda. It used poses, deep breathing and stimulating acts — including intercourse — to hasten rapturous bliss. In time, Tantra and Hatha developed bad reputations. The main charge was that practitioners indulged in sexual debauchery under the pretext of spirituality.
Early in the 20th century, the founders of modern yoga worked hard to remove the Tantric stain. They devised a sanitized discipline that played down the old eroticism for a new emphasis on health and fitness.
B. K. S. Iyengar, the author of "Light on Yoga," published in 1965, exemplified the change. His book made no mention of Hatha's Tantric roots and praised the discipline as a panacea that could cure nearly 100 ailments and diseases. And so modern practitioners have embraced a whitewashed simulacrum of Hatha.
But over the decades, many have discovered from personal experience that the practice can fan the sexual flames. Pelvic regions can feel more sensitive and orgasms more intense.
Science has begun to clarify the inner mechanisms. In Russia and India, scientists have measured sharp rises in testosterone — a main hormone of sexual arousal in both men and women. Czech scientists working with electroencephalographs have shown how poses can result in bursts of brainwaves indistinguishable from those of lovers. More recently, scientists at the University of British Columbia have documented how fast breathing — done in many yoga classes — can increase blood flow through the genitals. The effect was found to be strong enough to promote sexual arousal not only in healthy individuals but among those with diminished libidos.
In India, recent clinical studies have shown that men and women who take up yoga report wide improvements in their sex lives, including enhanced feelings of pleasure and satisfaction as well as emotional closeness with partners.
At Rutgers University, scientists are investigating how yoga and related practices can foster autoerotic bliss. It turns out that some individuals can think themselves into states of sexual ecstasy — a phenomenon known clinically as spontaneous orgasm and popularly as "thinking off."
The Rutgers scientists use brain scanners to measure the levels of excitement in women and compare their responses with readings from manual stimulation of the genitals. The results demonstrate that both practices light up the brain in characteristic ways and produce significant rises in blood pressure, heart rate and tolerance for pain — what turns out to be a signature of orgasm.
Since the baby boomers discovered yoga, the arousal, sweating, heavy breathing and states of undress that characterize yoga classes have led to predictable results. In 1995, sex between students and teachers became so prevalent that the California Yoga Teachers Association deplored it as immoral and called for high standards.
"We wrote the code," Judith Lasater, the group's president, told a reporter, "because there were so many violations going on."
If yoga can arouse everyday practitioners, it apparently has similar, if not greater, effects on gurus — often charming extroverts in excellent physical condition, some enthusiastic for veneration.
Corboy note: Google "Kegel" and "pelvic floor" for comparison.
Kegel exercises produce the same effects as certain yoga exercises, but are not surrounded by the mystique of yoga. For decades, "Kegels" have been prescribed by health care practitioners to assist women preparing for labor and delivery, and recommended to both men and women troubled by urinary incontinence.
A by product of this very useful exercise is that many report improvement in sexual performance.
Under Sanskrit terminology, certain yogic exercises do the same thing as Kegels.
Context is very important. It is very different to be prescribed pelvic floor exercises by a secular health care provider, practice these by oneself and enjoy the results with a chosen partner.
It is rather different to be doing pelvic floor exercises in group, all of you clad in revealing clothing, in a lovely room with chanting, haunting music, and a very charming instructor giving instructions and perhaps rather scantily clad him or herself.
And in a roomful of people, there are murmurs, sighs, scents.
That is why bramacharya (the vows of decorum and sexual boundaries) is so very important in yoga praxis.
One yoga teacher told us in a an ethics class "I became aware that more and more people in my yoga classes were becoming too attractive for me. I took that as a signal to intensify my practice of bramacharya."
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 08, 2012 11:57PM
[culteducation.com]Quote
"However, the benefits are real and can be scientifically documented as well, and Broad does exactly that. The science suggests* that it can lift moods, increase flexibility, and (Viagra salesmen beware) raise testosterone levels in men and women.
*(Corboy: Please note the emphasis on 'suggest'. All this means is that there is some information but more research is needed. And that requires money and double blind research testing and a research design exacting enough that the article will meet standards for publication in a peer reviewed medical journal.)
In the balance (yes, a yoga pun), Broad makes it clear that despite its dangers (be careful doing headstand and cobra), the practice offers a host of benefits. What it needs, he says, is a set of consistent guidelines to standardize it as a discipline and some reasonable public funding to continue answering important questions about its efficacy. "
Quote
The good, the bad and the future of yoga
The Virginian-Pilot/March 6, 2012
By Michael Pearson
Yoga studios may be as ubiquitous as Starbucks in our country, and worldwide, yoga is getting as popular as Coca-Cola. The Yoga Health Foundation estimates that more than 20 million people practice yoga in the United States. Around the globe, yoga is big business, with all the cultural accoutrements and products - and superheroes.
The word "yoga" means unity and implies a joining of body and spirit. At its best, perhaps, it is what my yoga instructor calls "moving meditation." But many make more exorbitant claims - it helps you shed pounds, be joyful, stay physically fit, or sleep better. In his new book, William J. Broad, a senior science writer for The New York Times, examines the medical veracity of such claims. For anyone interested in yoga, he offers an objective, scientifically based study of the pros and cons of the ancient practice.
A yoga practitioner for 40 years, Broad is not exactly delivering an expose. Instead, he offers a carefully researched discussion of what yoga does and doesn't do.
Yoga does little for aerobic conditioning. It will not speed up the metabolism or keep a practitioner slim. The dirty little secret is that it has caused nerve damage, torn ligaments, even strokes. As Broad says, "The good reputation of yoga rests in no small part on the public silence of the gurus.... Facts can be stubborn things, and they now suggested that yoga had long involved not only celebrated benefits but a number of hidden dangers."
However, the benefits are real and can be scientifically documented as well, and Broad does exactly that. The science suggests that it can lift moods, increase flexibility, and (Viagra salesmen beware) raise testosterone levels in men and women.
In the balance (yes, a yoga pun), Broad makes it clear that despite its dangers (be careful doing headstand and cobra), the practice offers a host of benefits. What it needs, he says, is a set of consistent guidelines to standardize it as a discipline and some reasonable public funding to continue answering important questions about its efficacy.
Namaste - the bow of respect - may not be enough. Perhaps, as Broad argues, some regulation of its teachers and common sense for its practitioners would be the right pose for the future.
To see more documents/articles reg
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 09, 2012 12:12AM
A yoga practice similar to the medically prescribed Kegel exercises is called Mula Banda (or Mula Bandha. In some varients it might be spelt Moola Bandha)
Here is one article in which Mula Banda is described as valuable for 'personal evolution'.
Here are a few quotes
Hmm...
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
For comparison a description of how to do Kegel (pelvic floor) exercises from a Mayo Clinic website. No mystification here, at all. And though the article is written for women, men may be prescribed this same exercise - and can benefit too.
A note from this article:
"Doing Kegel exercises with a full bladder or while emptying your bladder can actually weaken the muscles, as well as lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder — which increases the risk of a urinary tract infection."
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Kegel Exercises for Men
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Here is one article in which Mula Banda is described as valuable for 'personal evolution'.
Here are a few quotes
Quote
Mula bandha is a traditional Yoga practice that is reputed to be one of the most powerful for personal evolution.
Quote
The word “bandha” means “to bind” or “to lock”. With mula bandha, this is in reference to the locking of the muscles of the perineum. Bandha can also mean “to redirect,” and here the esoteric meaning of the practice becomes clear. As you “lock” the muscles of the perineum, you “unlock” energy in the pranic body, redirecting the flow upwards and reversing the natural tendency of apana to flow downwards.
Mula bandha is said to awaken muladhara chakra and the kundalini that resides within. Additionally, in the tantras it is written that the 72,000 nadis originate in a place just above muladhara chakra known as “medhra.” Given their proximity, it is believed that mula bandha stimulates all 72,000 nadis at their source, an effect which makes it very powerful.
Beyond the physical and energy bodies, mula bandha is also said to affect the manomayakosha, the mental body. Yoga teachings describe granthis, or psychic knots, which represent blockages of awareness manifesting as tensions, anxieties, and unresolved conflicts. Brahma granthi, located near muladhara chakra, is believed to be pierced and then untied by an aspirant’s practice of mula bandha.
In modern alternative medicine there’s a theory that repressed emotions and prior traumatic memories can be preserved physically within the body structure – and that they can be released with myofascial manipulation. Similarly, mula bandha is thought to release emotional and mental conflicts stored in the pelvis. Accordingly, while performing this practice, one can experience old memories, feelings, and experiences that bubble to the surface of consciousness and burst, releasing them from their structural binding and freeing the practitioner from their depressive effects.
In his book, Moola Bandha: The Master Key, Swami Buddhananda refers to unspecified ancient tantric texts when stating that, done correctly, there should be no movement of the anus, and for men, the penis should not move. Regarding the involvement of these structures, there is some debate. Dr. Gore of the G.S.College of Yoga in Kaivalyadham states in his book, Anatomy and Physiology of Yogic Practices, that a contraction of the anal sphincter should accompany that of the perineum. His justification is that urination and defecation are both excretory functions of apana vayu. To prohibit its downward flow, the full pelvic floor must be contracted, and that includes the anal sphincter as well as the muscles controlling urination.
Hmm...
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Quote
Mula Bandha: Yoga’s Advanced Kegel Exercises
Mula bandha is a traditional Yoga practice that is reputed to be one of the most powerful for personal evolution.
Although more complex than modern medicine’s Kegel exercises, or pelvic floor exercises, there are similarities in the techniques. Here we will discuss both mula bandha and Kegels in detail, review the anatomy of the pelvic floor, and then compare the two practices.
book cover
Mula Bandha
References to the practice of mula bandha are found in the Upanishads. The Siva Samhita (4:12-15) lists it as one of the ten best yogic practices. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika is explicit in its description:
3:61 Pressing the perineum with the heel and contracting the rectum so that the apana vayu moves upward is mula bandha.
3:62 By contracting the perineum the downward moving apana vayu is forced to go upward. Yogis call this mula bandha.
3:63 Press the heel firmly against the rectum and contract forcefully and repeatedly, so that the vital energy rises.
3:64 There is no doubt that by practicing mula bandha, prana and apana, and nada and bindu, are united, and total perfection is attained.
The word “bandha” means “to bind” or “to lock”. With mula bandha, this is in reference to the locking of the muscles of the perineum. Bandha can also mean “to redirect,” and here the esoteric meaning of the practice becomes clear. As you “lock” the muscles of the perineum, you “unlock” energy in the pranic body, redirecting the flow upwards and reversing the natural tendency of apana to flow downwards.
Mula bandha is said to awaken muladhara chakra and the kundalini that resides within. Additionally, in the tantras it is written that the 72,000 nadis originate in a place just above muladhara chakra known as “medhra.” Given their proximity, it is believed that mula bandha stimulates all 72,000 nadis at their source, an effect which makes it very powerful.
Beyond the physical and energy bodies, mula bandha is also said to affect the manomayakosha, the mental body. Yoga teachings describe granthis, or psychic knots, which represent blockages of awareness manifesting as tensions, anxieties, and unresolved conflicts. Brahma granthi, located near muladhara chakra, is believed to be pierced and then untied by an aspirant’s practice of mula bandha.
In modern alternative medicine there’s a theory that repressed emotions and prior traumatic memories can be preserved physically within the body structure – and that they can be released with myofascial manipulation. Similarly, mula bandha is thought to release emotional and mental conflicts stored in the pelvis. Accordingly, while performing this practice, one can experience old memories, feelings, and experiences that bubble to the surface of consciousness and burst, releasing them from their structural binding and freeing the practitioner from their depressive effects.
In his book, Moola Bandha: The Master Key, Swami Buddhananda refers to unspecified ancient tantric texts when stating that, done correctly, there should be no movement of the anus, and for men, the penis should not move. Regarding the involvement of these structures, there is some debate. Dr. Gore of the G.S.College of Yoga in Kaivalyadham states in his book, Anatomy and Physiology of Yogic Practices, that a contraction of the anal sphincter should accompany that of the perineum. His justification is that urination and defecation are both excretory functions of apana vayu. To prohibit its downward flow, the full pelvic floor must be contracted, and that includes the anal sphincter as well as the muscles controlling urination.
According to the tantrics, in the advanced stages of practice muscle contraction does not necessarily occur. It is primarily a pranic and psychic technique. The initial stages of contraction are to teach awareness. Eventually with complete mastery of energy flow, control over ejaculation occurs enabling multiple orgasms.
Kegel Exercises
More than 60 years ago a gynecologist in California noticed there were marked differences in patients in the tone of muscles surrounding the vagina. While in some women, the muscles exhibited firmness and thickness, in others there was thinning and weakness with a tendency for the vaginal walls to collapse upon themselves. It was in the latter women that leaky urinary bladders, the ones difficult or even impossible to control, were found.
Those women with thin muscles in the pelvic floor were also noted to have a higher incidence of uterine prolapse, a condition in which the uterus slides down through the vaginal canal and even hangs out of it, in extreme cases. A similar “falling” of the bladder and the rectum can also occur, disorders known as cystoceles and rectoceles.
Given the known physiology of muscles, that those in disuse become smaller and thinner, resulting in weakness in a condition known as atrophy, Dr. Kegel hypothesized that, as with biceps, working out those muscles will bulk them up and make them stronger. He hoped that by building up the muscle fibers and strengthening them, urinary incontinence and uterine prolapse could be treated.
Over the next decade he proved his theory to be correct. After developing a set of exercises designed to specifically strengthen the pubococcygeus muscle, he found that women with leaky bladders who preformed those exercises consistently, no longer had that embarrassing problem. He discovered that exercising this muscle also helped to treat uterine prolapse as well as cystoceles and rectoceles. He advocated that all women be taught to work out the pubococcygeus muscle to maintain a healthy tone and thereby prevent disease. For an online version of one of his early papers, click here.
Subsequent studies over the years have repeatedly backed him up. Kegel exercises are now the first-line therapy for stress urinary incontinence, the leaky bladder that comes from aging, childbirth, and excess weight. Click here to see a review.
Prolapsed organs have also shown a reduction in the degree of protrusion in a study with Kegel exercises in combination with an intra-vaginal device, and an ultrasound study documented the morphological changes occurring after 6-months of Kegels, results which included an elevation in the resting position of the bladder and the rectum.
There’s evidence that regular Kegel exercises intensify women’s orgasms and make them easier to achieve. Some women who have pain in the vaginal or vulvar area, particularly during intercourse, have been shown to get relief by doing pelvic floor exercises in combination with psychotherapy.
Regarding prevention, there is a lack of controlled, prospective studies, but it is firmly believed that habitually working out the pelvic floor keeps it healthy and is a good way to stave off the development of incontinence and various forms of prolapse, as we age. In a recent consensus statement, the National Institutes of Health notes their support for pelvic floor exercises in the prevention of incontinence in women and also in men undergoing prostate surgery.
With Kegel’s you want to contract all components of the pelvic floor musculature, so there will be a sensation of a tightening of the muscles around the anus as if you are trying to stop a bowel movement, and also a sensation as if stopping of the urine stream or an inability to urinate.
To perform Kegels, insert a finger either into the vagina or between the scrotum and the anus. Pull up the perineum by contracting the entire pelvic floor. You’ll feel this as a tightening of the muscles around your finger or as the perineum moving towards the trunk. Once you’ve initially employed a finger to get an understanding of the movement, it’s no longer needed.
Hold contractions of the pelvic muscles for five seconds, then release for 5 seconds. Repeat 10 times per session, and do three sessions every day, at different times. Eventually, work your way up to holding the contraction continuously for 10 seconds each time you contract. More instructions can be found at the Mayo Clinic site here.
There are also vaginal “cones” and “eggs” on the market that act as weights. A woman can increase pelvic floor muscle strength by holding in and moving the device while standing.
Pelvic Anatomy Review
So what’s really going on “down there” with these two similar techniques of mula bandha and Kegel exercises?
When it comes to anatomy, the messages out there are confusing and sometimes contradictory, at times using different names when referring to the same muscles. The anatomy of the pelvic musculature is confusing on its own. It’s an area that’s not readily seen or palpated, and it’s not easy to picture in its 3-D form, which is necessary, to fully understand its functions.
To begin with, let’s think of a trampoline, one that’s stretched between points along its diameter. That trampoline is a layer of muscle that should be strong and taut. On it rest the uterus, bladder, and rectum.
Now, rather than picturing those organs simply resting on the trampoline, see that on the underside they are embedded within it. The tube from the bladder, the urethra, pierces it to hang below. The tube from the uterus, the vagina, also pierces it to hang underneath. And so it is with the rectum, which itself pierces the trampoline-like muscle to expel its contents through the anus.
The muscles that make up the trampoline are collectively called the pelvic floor, or the pelvic diaphragm. They hold everything inside – at least that’s what they’re designed to do. When they get weak and thin, all of those pelvic organs can slide right on through. They prolapse. It’s as if the trampoline got saggy, thread-bare and worn out. (It’s more common than you think. Some experts believe that up to one in eight women will have some degree of uterine prolapse, and the more children a woman has given birth to, the more likely it is to happen.)
Below is a side of view of the pelvis. It’s as if you cut the body straight up from between the legs and then looked at the opened half of it. You can see that the pelvic floor isn’t exactly flat like a typical trampoline. Its edges follow the contours of the bony pelvis.
mula_fig1_female_pelvic_floor
That trampoline, the pelvic floor, is composed of two main muscle groups, the levator ani and the coccygeus. The levator ani group is made of two muscles, the pubococcygeus and the ileococcygeus. The former is the middle of the trampoline, and the latter is found along the outside of it, along the edges.
Now the anatomy gets more fun. Men and women are a bit different here, as you are well aware. Let’s talk first about women.
Women
The pubococcygeus is itself divided into portions, reflecting where various parts of it attach within the pelvis. There’s a urethral portion that forms around the urethra, known as the pubourethralis. That’s the part of the pubococcygeus that allows you to stop your urine stream. There’s a vaginal portion that attaches to the vaginal walls, the pubovaginalis. Another portion, the puboanalis, also attaches to the vaginal wall. Those two are the parts you feel clamp down on a finger placed in your vagina. There’s also a puborectalis portion that passes around the rectum to form a sling. And finally, there are other portions more posterior that attach to the coccyx, or tailbone.
Below the pelvic floor lies another thin layer of muscles. They are more superficial, meaning that they are closer to the skin of the genital region.
There’s controversy over whether a part of this layer is one solid sheet or if it is composed of three separate muscles, the compressor urethra, sphincter urethra, and urethra-vaginalis. In addition, the bulbospongiosus, ischiocavernosus, and superficial transverse perinea muscles are part of this more superficial layer below the pelvic floor. This layer can have an almost sphincter-like effect on the vaginal opening, and it helps to prevent urine leakage from the bladder.
The last structure to discuss is the perineal body, an important part of the pelvic floor. It’s shaped like a pyramid with its base sitting between the vagina and the rectum. Some parts of the muscles of the pelvic floor merge and end in this structure. The rectum attaches to it, as does the anal sphincter. It also contains smooth muscle, elastic fibers, and nerve endings. Extreme weakness of this structure results in prolapse of the rectum, or rectocele.
Now let’s briefly talk about the vagina. There are no vaginal muscles under voluntary control, as the muscles within the walls of the vagina proper are smooth muscles. When a woman says she’s contracting her vagina, what she’s really doing is primarily contracting the levator ani muscles that surround, attach to, and support the thin vaginal wall a little less than midway to the uterus. There’s also some conscious control of the more superficial layer of muscles that act a bit like a vaginal sphincter just at the introitus.
For more than you could ever want to know about the anatomy of the vagina, including some detailed photos, click here. For more detail about the female pelvic floor in general, click here
On one last note, Swami Buddhananda says that it is the muscles around the cervix that should be contracted in women to perform mula bandha. However, there are no striated muscular attachments or surrounding muscles to contract and squeeze the cervix. The cervix itself is primarily dense connective tissue with very few smooth muscle fibers – the type of muscle that doesn’t allow for conscious control.
Men
The male anatomy is essentially the same. The difference is that there are only two openings through the pelvic floor. Within the penis, the urethra serves as a tube for both urine and sexual fluids. Because there is one less opening through the muscle layer, and as that opening doesn’t split far and wide to release a baby, it tends to be more stable in men.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be pathology. Like women, men can also suffer from urinary incontinence as they age, especially if they’ve had prostate problems. Pelvic floor exercises aid treatment of incontinence, and keeping the pelvic floor muscles strong is great prevention against a leaky bladder. For men with erectile dysfunction, and some men with premature ejaculation, particularly those with concomitant erectile dysfunction, pelvic floor exercises are therapeutic. Chronic prostatitis, a painful and frustrating condition, can be relieved by a work-out of the pelvic floor in combination with Yoga asanas that stretch muscles in the pelvic area.
Contractions of the more superficial layer of muscles (or “reverse Kegels”) compresses the large vein on the dorsal surface preventing the outflow of blood from an engorged penis, thereby enlarging and facilitating maintenance of an erection. This layer is also involved in pumping ejaculate, so mastery of its movement may potentially aid in semen retention.
Comparison of Mula Bandha and Kegel Exercises
So, are they the same thing? That depends on which Yoga teacher you ask. If you follow Dr. Gore’s line of teaching then, as with Kegel exercises, mula bandha contracts the pelvic floor musculature indiscriminately.
What Swami Buddhananda describes is something different. Ultimately, in his teaching there may be no muscle contraction at all, and that’s definitely not a Kegel. His tantric lineage focuses on effects on the energetic and mental levels.
Still, in the beginning stages of the tantric practice, one must learn to distinguish the various muscles of the pelvis, isolating and contracting the portions that specifically pull up the perineal body.
Rather than subscribing to one version of mula bandha or the other, it makes sense to understand them as a continuum. For effects on the physical body, the annamayakosha, the full Kegel exercise is important. It indiscriminately works out and tones all portions of the pelvic floor including the layer of superficial muscles and the segments of the pubococcygeus that are involved with closing of the anus and urethra.
With advanced practice, it’s possible to isolate muscles, eventually controlling and lifting only the perineal body, theoretically initiating mula bandha’s effects on the energy body, the pranamayakosha. This can be done without abandoning the full pelvic floor contractions during another portion of a daily routine. In this way, mula bandha can function holistically for optimal health.
References:
Backman, H et al. Combined physical and psychosexual therapy for provoked vestibulodynia-an evaluation of a multidisciplinary treatment model. J Sex Res. 2008 Oct-Dec;45(4):378-85.
Gore, Makarand Madhukar. Anatomy and Physiology of Yogic Practices. New Age Books, Delhi, India. 2005
Dorey, G et al. Randomised controlled trial of pelvic floor muscle exercises and manometric biofeedback for erectile dysfunction. Br J Gen Pract. 2004 November 1; 54(508): 819–825.
Hay-Smith EJ, Dumoulin C (2006). “Pelvic floor muscle training versus no treatment, or inactive control treatments, for urinary incontinence in women”. Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online)
Herschorn, S. Female Pelvic Floor Anatomy: The pelvic floor, supporting structure, and Pelvic Organs. Rev Urol. 2004;6(Suppl 5):S2-S10.
Hoff Braekken I, Majida M, Engh ME, Bø K. Morphological changes after pelvic floor muscle training measured by 3-dimensional ultrasonography: a randomized controlled trial. Obstet Gynecol. 2010 Feb;115(2 Pt 1):317-24.
Kegel, AH. Active Exercise of the Pubococcygeus Muscle. Meigs, J.V., and Sturgis, S .H., editors: Progress in Gynecology, vol. II, New York: Grune & Stratton, 1950, pp. 778-792
Kegel, AH. Progressive Resistance Exercise in the Functional Restoration of the Perineal Muscles. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1948 Aug;56(2):238-48.
Kegel, AH. Stress Incontinence and Genital Relaxation. CIBA Clinical Symposia, Feb-Mar 1952, Vol. 4, No. 2, pages 35-52.
Kegel, AH. The Nonsurgical Treatment of Genital Relaxation; Use of the Perineometer as an Aid in Restoring Anatomic and Functional Structure. Ann West Med Surg. 1948 May;2(5):213-6.
Lawson JO. Pelvic Anatomy. I. Pelvic floor muscles. Ann R Coll Surg Engl. 1974 May;54(5):244-52.
Nickel, JC. Prostatis. Wein: Campbell-Walsh Urology, 9th ed. 2007
NIH state-of-the-science conference statement on prevention of fecal and urinary incontinence in adults. NIH Consens State Sci Statements. 2007 Dec 12-14;24(1):1-37.
Romanzi, L. Sexercise. Urogynics.org/blog. 2007
Rosenbaum, TY. Pelvic floor involvement in male and female sexual dysfunction and the role of pelvic floor rehabilitation in treatment: A literature review. J. Sex Med. Jan 2007. 4(1):4-13.
Standaert CJ and Herring SA. Expert opinion and controversies in musculoskeletal and sports medicine: core stabilization as a treatment for low back pain. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2007 Dec;88(12):1734-6.
Swami Buddhananda. Moolah Bandha: The Master Key. Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, Bihar, India. 1996
Swami Muktibodhananda. Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, Bihar, India. 1993.
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For comparison a description of how to do Kegel (pelvic floor) exercises from a Mayo Clinic website. No mystification here, at all. And though the article is written for women, men may be prescribed this same exercise - and can benefit too.
A note from this article:
"Doing Kegel exercises with a full bladder or while emptying your bladder can actually weaken the muscles, as well as lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder — which increases the risk of a urinary tract infection."
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Kegel exercises strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, which support the uterus, bladder and bowel. You can do Kegel exercises discreetly just about anytime, whether you're driving in your car, sitting at your desk or relaxing on the couch. You can even do Kegel exercises when you're pregnant. Start by understanding what Kegel exercises can do for you — then follow step-by-step instructions for contracting and relaxing your pelvic floor muscles.
Why Kegel exercises matter
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Female pelvic floor muscles
Many factors can weaken your pelvic floor muscles, from pregnancy and childbirth to aging and being overweight. This may allow your pelvic organs to descend and bulge into your vagina — a condition known as pelvic organ prolapse. The effects of pelvic organ prolapse range from uncomfortable pelvic pressure to leakage of urine. Pelvic organ prolapse isn't inevitable, however. Kegel exercises can help delay or even prevent pelvic organ prolapse and the related symptoms.
Kegel exercises — along with counseling and sex therapy — may also be helpful for women who have persistent problems reaching orgasm.
How to do Kegel exercises
It takes diligence to identify your pelvic floor muscles and learn how to contract and relax them. Here are some pointers:
Find the right muscles. Insert a finger inside your vagina and try to squeeze the surrounding muscles. You should feel your vagina tighten and your pelvic floor move upward. Then relax your muscles and feel your pelvic floor return to the starting position. You can also try to stop the flow of urine when you urinate. If you succeed, you've got the basic move. Don't make a habit of starting and stopping your urine stream, though. Doing Kegel exercises with a full bladder or while emptying your bladder can actually weaken the muscles, as well as lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder — which increases the risk of a urinary tract infection.
Perfect your technique. Once you've identified your pelvic floor muscles, empty your bladder and sit or lie down. Contract your pelvic floor muscles, hold the contraction for five seconds, then relax for five seconds. Try it four or five times in a row. Work up to keeping the muscles contracted for 10 seconds at a time, relaxing for 10 seconds between contractions.
Maintain your focus. For best results, focus on tightening only your pelvic floor muscles. Be careful not to flex the muscles in your abdomen, thighs or buttocks. Avoid holding your breath. Instead, breathe freely during the exercises.
Repeat three times a day. Aim for at least three sets of 10 repetitions a day. You might make a practice of fitting in a set every time you do a routine task, such as checking email, commuting to work, preparing meals or watching TV.
Kegel Exercises for Men
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Kegel Exercises: Treating Male Urinary Incontinence
Male urinary incontinence isn’t a natural part of getting older. There’s a lot you can do to manage -- or prevent -- symptoms. Kegel exercises can help you take control.
Do Kegel exercises (also called pelvic floor exercises) for five minutes, two or three times daily, and you could see significant improvement in your urinary incontinence. Another bonus: Kegel exercises can also help a man have more intense orgasms, and improve erections.
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What Are Kegel Exercises for Men?
Kegels are exercises that help you zero in on and strengthen muscles below the bladder that help control urination.
In men, urinary incontinence can be caused by a weak urinary sphincter, an overactive bladder, or a bladder that doesn't contract. Kegel exercises can help you improve -- or in some cases completely regain -- bladder control.
How Can Men Do Kegel Exercises?
Kegels are easy to do, once you know which muscles to target. One of the easiest ways to locate your muscles is during urination. Here’s how:
Halfway through urination, try to stop or slow down the flow of urine.
Don’t tense the muscles in your buttocks, legs, or abdomen, and don’t hold your breath.
When you can slow or stop the flow of urine, you’ve successfully located these muscles.
Some men find these muscles by imagining that they are trying to stop the passage of gas. Squeezing these muscles gives a pulling sensation; these are the right muscles for pelvic exercises. It's important not to contract other muscles.
Some men need biofeedback to help them target the right muscles.
To do Kegel exercises for men:
Contract these muscles for a slow count of five.
Release the muscles to a slow count of five.
Repeat 10 times.
Do a set of 10 Kegels daily, three times a day.
When you’re first starting, it may be easier to do Kegel exercises lying down, so your muscles aren’t fighting against gravity. It may also be easier to contract the muscles for just two or three seconds at first.
After a few weeks, increase the time until eventually you’re contracting the muscles for a slow five or 10 seconds, and do the exercises standing up. That puts more weight on the muscles, boosting your workout and improving your control.
Remember not to tense your buttock, legs, or stomach muscles while you’re doing Kegels.
When Will You See Results from Kegel Exercises?
Seeing results with any exercise takes time, so be patient. If you do Kegels three times a day, you should see better bladder control in three to six weeks -- some men see it even sooner. Try keeping a record of your urine leakage each day to help you notice improvements.
If you don’t see any change in a month, you may not have located the right muscles for Kegel exercises. Give your doctor or urologist a call. They can offer tips on how to find and successfully exercise the right muscles.
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 09, 2012 12:23AM
A Computer Search You Should Not Do At Work*
(*Unless you work at a veeeery interesting place)
If you do a google search on mula bandha and pleasure, these citations appear.
[www.google.com]
One can run a search on kegels and pleasure and see what one gets.
This is not to say give up yoga.
This is not to say give up prescribing and doing Kegel exercises.
But, know that these methods have powerful effects on libido, in addition to the textbook medical benefits which are real enough.
Here are some questions from an unevolved onlooker of the yoga scene:
If one is an authority figure standing in a room full of people in a yoga studio and gives instructions for mula bandha, what is the probabablity that one will feel at least a tingle when giving the instructions on how to do this?
And...what is the probabability that the person giving instructions will then feel another tingle when leading the entire class through this exercise concentrating on his or her own pelvic floor exercises and knowing that most of the others in the room are working those same muscles?
This has to be powerful stuff.
Add in that most yogis and yoginis wear somewhat scanty or contour fitting clothing.
One needs to know bramacharaya and boundaries...or else.
(*Unless you work at a veeeery interesting place)
If you do a google search on mula bandha and pleasure, these citations appear.
[www.google.com]
One can run a search on kegels and pleasure and see what one gets.
This is not to say give up yoga.
This is not to say give up prescribing and doing Kegel exercises.
But, know that these methods have powerful effects on libido, in addition to the textbook medical benefits which are real enough.
Here are some questions from an unevolved onlooker of the yoga scene:
If one is an authority figure standing in a room full of people in a yoga studio and gives instructions for mula bandha, what is the probabablity that one will feel at least a tingle when giving the instructions on how to do this?
And...what is the probabability that the person giving instructions will then feel another tingle when leading the entire class through this exercise concentrating on his or her own pelvic floor exercises and knowing that most of the others in the room are working those same muscles?
This has to be powerful stuff.
Add in that most yogis and yoginis wear somewhat scanty or contour fitting clothing.
One needs to know bramacharaya and boundaries...or else.
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 09, 2012 12:26AM
Here are some Google citations from a search on Moola bandha and ethics
[www.google.com]
and teacher ethics
[www.google.com]
[www.google.com]
and teacher ethics
[www.google.com]
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 09, 2012 12:32AM
Finally, plain ol' medically prescribed Kegels have the potential to arouse people...why not yoga, eh?
And remember, this is a medically prescribed exercise where you're given information on how to do it at home, for a medical benefit and without the mystical and sensual ambiance of yoga.
Note that one or two persons felt shy about even discussing the subject.
[www.google.com]
Again, this is not to say we should give up yoga or stop prescribing Kegels.
But there needs to be much more information provided that certain medical exercises and certain types of yoga poses are STIMULATING, for instructors and for students, and advice be given how to be aware if one is going through a period in life where there is severe temptation to cross relationship boundaries in ways that could produce harmful patterns of secrecy, betrayal, scandal and or family wreckage.
Again, sex is like nuclear energy. Contained, consciously monitored and channelled, we benefit. If in denial, we suffer and use others as objects.
And remember, this is a medically prescribed exercise where you're given information on how to do it at home, for a medical benefit and without the mystical and sensual ambiance of yoga.
Note that one or two persons felt shy about even discussing the subject.
[www.google.com]
Again, this is not to say we should give up yoga or stop prescribing Kegels.
But there needs to be much more information provided that certain medical exercises and certain types of yoga poses are STIMULATING, for instructors and for students, and advice be given how to be aware if one is going through a period in life where there is severe temptation to cross relationship boundaries in ways that could produce harmful patterns of secrecy, betrayal, scandal and or family wreckage.
Again, sex is like nuclear energy. Contained, consciously monitored and channelled, we benefit. If in denial, we suffer and use others as objects.
Re: The downside of yoga
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 09, 2012 12:33AM
When I last checked, the view count for this thread was about 319-320
Lets see if anything happens.
Lets see if anything happens.
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