I felt triggered by an article written on Facebook by a Chinese osteopath master, shared by my cousin. He mentioned he is a practitioner of several Chinese kung fu / taichi / qigong practices, and he has treated many Chinese yoga teachers who got injured from over-stretching in yoga. He asked some of his yoga teacher patients why they hurt themselves over-stretching, and the yoga teachers replied that when they saw that some of their students could do certain asanas better than they can, they felt the pressure to "keep up with the students". He explicitly declared he didn't know so much about yoga, but he felt that it is a dangerous practice, because the emphasis of the current yoga teachings seem to be on pushing students to get into the pretzel asanas whether their bodies are ready or not.
The osteopath went in-depth talking about the tendon, ligament, and fascia system, noting that a lot of his yoga practitioner patients had some body parts that are loose, say: hips, or hamstrings, but the ends of the bodies, such as attachment around the hands and feet, were very tight. This is because the whole connected fascia system needs some tension, so when we over-loosen some parts, other parts of the body would tighten up to compensate.
He feels yoga is a very advanced study, but not all students should practice the same asanas, because different bodies have different needs. He is also concerned that the teachers don't adequately teach how people should breath in each asana, for example, breathing from the chest or breathing from the abdomen. He feels that people could serious hurt themselves if they breath wrongly while going into these advanced asanas.
What he says about the connective tissues is fine, and his advice that people should not push to their absolute edge when they do an asana is also fine. What I have a problem is that he says "yoga is very dangerous" based on his patients. I guess his addressing women who turn off their common sense and decide to push their bodies to an extreme in order to look like "advanced yoga teachers". Shouldn't it be that "lack of common sense" is dangerous? If you are hypermobile, please focus on the strengthening rather than the stretching aspects of asana. Even better, add some other exercises to your life, such as long walks, jogging, resistance exercises (lifting weights etc) or even dancing.
Secondly, a large part of his article is focused on his theories about connective tissues. This section sounded very complicated. I am not really sure if it applies to everyone or just "bendy people". As far as I know, my fellow yogis who constantly complain they feel stiff, even a decade later when their flexibility in the area they work on (say, hamstrings or hips) has gradually improved, still claim they are stiff. Having overly lax connective tissues just doesn't seem to be a problem for people whose bodies do not have hypermobile tendencies. Even when they overstretch and pull a muscle, it seems to be quite local. However, this article was shared by hundreds of this master's fans, many of which are yoga teachers. I guess it's not a problem to tell everyone to be more careful when practicing yoga, but I just feel like people without hypermobile tendencies should have trouble truly understanding what he wrote, since they have never felt like their bodies are "too loose" while tight near the muscle attachments. But it seems like he got a ton of comments saying "So true!!" "Such a well written article!" "I learned so much from this article!" It left me seriously scratching my head.
Regarding breathing, he made it sound super complicated. People's natural reaction when they do a new, uncomfortable pose, is to hold their breaths. Or they can only do very shallow chest breathing initially. I feel like this naturally protects the body so people don't push past their range of joint motion on their first attempt. The solution is simply to back off from the full posture, and try to breath more deeply. Interestingly, he mentioned something about how good breathing should work based on his qigong knowledge, which basically describes mula bandha. I think what he means by yoga being very advanced, is when one grasps how mula and the other bandhas work, combined with correct methods of breathing, the nadis, the fascia system will be fully activated. Now, I have felt electricity running through my body sometimes during and after yoga practice, but sometimes I don't. I know some people who don't really feel the electricity at all. I'm not sure about other yoga styles, but for Ashtanga, the closing postures are quite important for containing all these activated prana/chi energy, so his worries are taken care of by the ancient wisdom of yoga.
I guess my annoyance comes from the fact that the Chinese way of teaching energy work is that "the body is very dangerous! Only move it in the way I, as a master, tell you to do so, and don't you dare to play with your body or your breath on your own! You will hurt yourself!" The thing is, in the beginning, the students feel nothing, because as beginners, we are not moving or breathing in the "right" way that facilitate the chi flow. The teacher then goes on and on about how powerful the practice is. While it is true when the students eventually do it correctly, it is sort of untrue for the first months, or even years. What ends up happening is a ton of people bragging about all the miracles of Chinese energy practices before actually experiencing anything real. For the beginners, the movements are so mild that they don't really get a work out for the muscles.
With yoga, initially people only experience the superficial stretching, and balancing, and muscular work. The movements are more dramatic. I sincerely believe that while most people get a workout while others increase their range of motion, many never experience the deeper work on the subtle body, at least not consciously. To them, yoga is an exercise routine. As for those who are hyper-focused on the human-pretzel aspect of yoga and who end up screwing up their connective tissues, well, I can only say I hope they realize one day that hyper-flexibility certainly does not equal health. I wouldn't say "yoga is dangerous!!" For me, that warning implies that everyone should stop practicing yoga immediately.
To summarize, I guess I have a problem with the Chinese way of viewing health and life. The west generally promotes that exercising is healthy (based on many many scientific studies). Yes, there are people who over do it and need joint replacement surgeries much too early in their lives. As long as these people enjoy what their bodies can accomplish in marathons, skiing, cycling etc, I think the purpose is justified. This thinking of "don't breath or move the wrong way or you will hurt yourself" applies to people without basic fitness. The idea of training baseline cardiovascular and muscular fitness is good for you is just not fundamental in the Chinese culture. You can build some chi in the dan-tien (diaphragm) area, and/or you can also just build some core muscles. Both protects the body. I wish that in addition to warning which exercises or movements can hurt people, these kung fu / qigong masters could also warn people the danger of inactivity, which can be just as bad for people. The masters also need to realize that some people will claim they understand and can access the chi, but they never actually get it. Getting people to sweat and increase their heart rates are much more straightforward way of promoting health.
Sorry this post is so longwinded and scattered. I have many thoughts on different aspects of this issue that I just need to write them out on a page before re-organizing them.
The osteopath went in-depth talking about the tendon, ligament, and fascia system, noting that a lot of his yoga practitioner patients had some body parts that are loose, say: hips, or hamstrings, but the ends of the bodies, such as attachment around the hands and feet, were very tight. This is because the whole connected fascia system needs some tension, so when we over-loosen some parts, other parts of the body would tighten up to compensate.
He feels yoga is a very advanced study, but not all students should practice the same asanas, because different bodies have different needs. He is also concerned that the teachers don't adequately teach how people should breath in each asana, for example, breathing from the chest or breathing from the abdomen. He feels that people could serious hurt themselves if they breath wrongly while going into these advanced asanas.
What he says about the connective tissues is fine, and his advice that people should not push to their absolute edge when they do an asana is also fine. What I have a problem is that he says "yoga is very dangerous" based on his patients. I guess his addressing women who turn off their common sense and decide to push their bodies to an extreme in order to look like "advanced yoga teachers". Shouldn't it be that "lack of common sense" is dangerous? If you are hypermobile, please focus on the strengthening rather than the stretching aspects of asana. Even better, add some other exercises to your life, such as long walks, jogging, resistance exercises (lifting weights etc) or even dancing.
Secondly, a large part of his article is focused on his theories about connective tissues. This section sounded very complicated. I am not really sure if it applies to everyone or just "bendy people". As far as I know, my fellow yogis who constantly complain they feel stiff, even a decade later when their flexibility in the area they work on (say, hamstrings or hips) has gradually improved, still claim they are stiff. Having overly lax connective tissues just doesn't seem to be a problem for people whose bodies do not have hypermobile tendencies. Even when they overstretch and pull a muscle, it seems to be quite local. However, this article was shared by hundreds of this master's fans, many of which are yoga teachers. I guess it's not a problem to tell everyone to be more careful when practicing yoga, but I just feel like people without hypermobile tendencies should have trouble truly understanding what he wrote, since they have never felt like their bodies are "too loose" while tight near the muscle attachments. But it seems like he got a ton of comments saying "So true!!" "Such a well written article!" "I learned so much from this article!" It left me seriously scratching my head.
Regarding breathing, he made it sound super complicated. People's natural reaction when they do a new, uncomfortable pose, is to hold their breaths. Or they can only do very shallow chest breathing initially. I feel like this naturally protects the body so people don't push past their range of joint motion on their first attempt. The solution is simply to back off from the full posture, and try to breath more deeply. Interestingly, he mentioned something about how good breathing should work based on his qigong knowledge, which basically describes mula bandha. I think what he means by yoga being very advanced, is when one grasps how mula and the other bandhas work, combined with correct methods of breathing, the nadis, the fascia system will be fully activated. Now, I have felt electricity running through my body sometimes during and after yoga practice, but sometimes I don't. I know some people who don't really feel the electricity at all. I'm not sure about other yoga styles, but for Ashtanga, the closing postures are quite important for containing all these activated prana/chi energy, so his worries are taken care of by the ancient wisdom of yoga.
I guess my annoyance comes from the fact that the Chinese way of teaching energy work is that "the body is very dangerous! Only move it in the way I, as a master, tell you to do so, and don't you dare to play with your body or your breath on your own! You will hurt yourself!" The thing is, in the beginning, the students feel nothing, because as beginners, we are not moving or breathing in the "right" way that facilitate the chi flow. The teacher then goes on and on about how powerful the practice is. While it is true when the students eventually do it correctly, it is sort of untrue for the first months, or even years. What ends up happening is a ton of people bragging about all the miracles of Chinese energy practices before actually experiencing anything real. For the beginners, the movements are so mild that they don't really get a work out for the muscles.
With yoga, initially people only experience the superficial stretching, and balancing, and muscular work. The movements are more dramatic. I sincerely believe that while most people get a workout while others increase their range of motion, many never experience the deeper work on the subtle body, at least not consciously. To them, yoga is an exercise routine. As for those who are hyper-focused on the human-pretzel aspect of yoga and who end up screwing up their connective tissues, well, I can only say I hope they realize one day that hyper-flexibility certainly does not equal health. I wouldn't say "yoga is dangerous!!" For me, that warning implies that everyone should stop practicing yoga immediately.
To summarize, I guess I have a problem with the Chinese way of viewing health and life. The west generally promotes that exercising is healthy (based on many many scientific studies). Yes, there are people who over do it and need joint replacement surgeries much too early in their lives. As long as these people enjoy what their bodies can accomplish in marathons, skiing, cycling etc, I think the purpose is justified. This thinking of "don't breath or move the wrong way or you will hurt yourself" applies to people without basic fitness. The idea of training baseline cardiovascular and muscular fitness is good for you is just not fundamental in the Chinese culture. You can build some chi in the dan-tien (diaphragm) area, and/or you can also just build some core muscles. Both protects the body. I wish that in addition to warning which exercises or movements can hurt people, these kung fu / qigong masters could also warn people the danger of inactivity, which can be just as bad for people. The masters also need to realize that some people will claim they understand and can access the chi, but they never actually get it. Getting people to sweat and increase their heart rates are much more straightforward way of promoting health.
Sorry this post is so longwinded and scattered. I have many thoughts on different aspects of this issue that I just need to write them out on a page before re-organizing them.
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