(...I beg for your forgiveness from all, starting with the beginners and ending with advanced spiritual leaders or Gurus, if my expression below hurts their feelings. I love you all and respect your understanding about yogic postures/ poses/asanas. By no means, am I trying to say that you are wrong. You all are right, and please continue doing the right things...)
Question 1: What are the risk factors for injury in yoga?
Answer: On one hand, the risk factors are numerous and uncountable, on the other hand, there are none. There are risks if you are performing some yogic poses without proper concentration on the internal organs and without following breathing patterns properly (e.g. inhaling–exhaling–holding post exhalation and pre inhalation).
Question 2: What is "good" alignment? Has your thinking on this changed in light of the recent discussion?
Answer: Yoga without meditation is useless and is similar to a person lost in the Amazon forest who may not reach/arrive at the destination. Focusing your attention on breathing, mentally sending energetic signals to the internal organs related to the particular yogic pose and attempting to illuminate unconditional love to the whole universe is essential. When your mental state is misbalanced or when you are not cheerful enough, you cannot attain any benefits of yoga. Good alignment of mind, spirit and body is compulsory to benefit from yoga.
Question 3: What are the benefits or detriments in practicing particular postures?
Answer: There are said to be 84 Lakh (8,400,000) yogic poses/postures/asanas. Simply speaking every gesture and movement of the body belongs to some kind of yogic pose! For example, laughing leads to the activation of seven energetic centres and raising the Kundalini Shakti, screaming leads to cleansing of negative energy and self-realization afterwards, falling unconscious resembles a thoughtless mind, breathing Pranayama, sleeping Corpse pose (Shabhasana), thinking a kind of meditation, vomiting stomach cleansing (Kunjal kriya /vaman dhoti), diarrhoea colon cleansing (Shankha Prakshalana), movement of the hands and fingers resembles various types of Mudras etc…
As long as a person is alive, s/he is engaged in doing some kind of yoga constantly. Thus, to remain alive means to perform yoga. For the human, as a living being, what could be a greater benefit than remaining alive!
There are contraindications for practicing postures based on the state of health of the practicing person. Nevertheless, it is said that a Sadguru has life not only if s/he is moving physically, but also if s/he can react to external stimuli when immovable.
While practicing advanced postures or practicing without the supervision of a Sadguru who has gone through those poses himself/herself, the practicing person may have a cerebrovascular accident (CVA), coughing out blood due to the rupture of lung vessels, varicose veins, heart blockage, blood clotting due to severe dehydration, intestinal obstruction, various kinds of internal and external hernia, radiculitis (spinal chord/nerve damage), neurogenic disorders like sleeplessness and tingling of the whole body or worse, psychiatric conditions etc.
As long as a person is alive, s/he is engaged in doing some kind of yoga constantly. Thus, to remain alive means to perform yoga. For the human, as a living being, what could be a greater benefit than remaining alive!
There are contraindications for practicing postures based on the state of health of the practicing person. Nevertheless, it is said that a Sadguru has life not only if s/he is moving physically, but also if s/he can react to external stimuli when immovable.
While practicing advanced postures or practicing without the supervision of a Sadguru who has gone through those poses himself/herself, the practicing person may have a cerebrovascular accident (CVA), coughing out blood due to the rupture of lung vessels, varicose veins, heart blockage, blood clotting due to severe dehydration, intestinal obstruction, various kinds of internal and external hernia, radiculitis (spinal chord/nerve damage), neurogenic disorders like sleeplessness and tingling of the whole body or worse, psychiatric conditions etc.
Question 4 : How are some aspects of yoga philosophy contributing to injury?
Answer: Yoga philosophy says that any yogic posture should be started slowly and learned gradually with strict guidance of a Sadguru. I have met with some famous gymnasts and sportsmen who were severely injured by doing advanced yogic postures and kriyas on their own, independently with the help of books, videos and Google.
Question 5: What can we do to keep ourselves and our students safe when practicing yoga?
Answer: In order to keep everyone safe, we (i.e. instructors) should teach to our students only those postures which we have performed ourselves. We must apply the principle of keeping the body, mind and spirit of practitioners in a state of constant harmony. Learners must not ignore the Sadguru’s instructions.
Question 6: Has your approach to teaching changed in light of this discussion? If so, how?
Answer: Very nice effort. Discussion leads to evidence based conclusions.
Question 7: How do you address anatomical variation, different levels of experience and individual driving forces in your classes?
Answer: The instructor should be able to explain the body, mind and spirit connection in pictures from the colored atlas of human anatomy and physiology. Students must be given some general knowledge of the location of internal organs and the elementary functions of human physiology. Each student should receive yoga training based on his/her knowledge and level of yoga and meditation.
It is a good idea to obtain from students a “no objection to perform yogic practices” letter from a licensed medical practitioner.
Yogacharya Dr.Binod Baral