Open letter to those doing Yoga “wrong”
Take a deep breath, close your eyes and visualise a Yoga teacher… on Instagram. Can you see the gorgeous background? Can you see their perfect body, sporting bang-on-trend Yoga clothes, striking the perfect headstand? All with wonderful lighting and uplifting hashtags: #bliss #yummy #wheredoesthisnonsensestop?
As an avid Instagram user, I am aware of the presence of Yoga in social media. It is everywhere. My choice of life has become that of millions. As a trained professional, I am now extremely aware of the health risks that certain idealistic images bring forth and the dangers that come with doing certain Yoga poses, without the right supervision.
This morning I felt my body shiver reading an article in The Guardian by Chrissy Auger, on how she suffered a massive spinal injury practising a headstand during Yoga. Her injury has been life-altering, with Chrissy having to undertake extensive rehabilitation. The thing she laments the most is having lost what she loved dearly: currently she is unable to do Yoga. Reading that article as a Yoga teacher I could possibly imagine where things went wrong, but as I wasn’t there to see it happen, it would be presumptuous for me to say anything, other than state my opinion on headstands.
Headstands are NOT for everyone. Not everyone should do them, nor everyone should teach them. Headstands are advanced Yoga poses that require shoulder, arm and core strength, amongst other things. You need the strength and balance to help you lift your body slowly and safely. It requires months, if not years, of consistent training. They are better practiced in the middle of a room, with no walls as support. Doing headstands against a wall relies way too much on throwing your legs up in the air without the upper body strength required to stand in an inverted position. This I learnt through my teacher training at Mandiram Barcelona, a course masterfully taught by Gordana Vranjes and Gloria Rosales. To back this view on headstands I will quote Yoga anatomy expert David Keil*:
“Kicking up onto a wall builds a lot of momentum (…) students who kick up the wall (…) lack core strength and an ability to control their center of gravity”.
However, there are ways of using the wall safely, allowing to build arm and core strength, and I am not saying that Chrissy Auger or her teacher didn’t do it right. What I will say is that headstands are advanced (I cannot say this word enough) Yoga poses that have acquired such popularity that the science, hard work and anatomical knowledge that backs the practice is what you don’t see on social media or on its “uplifting” hashtags.
As a yoga student, I deeply empathise with Chrissy Auger. When I began my teacher training, my heart would sink every time my course mates gracefully lifted their legs up in the air, while I barely managed an air kick. I cried, became furious with myself and my body, and almost quit. Yoga became my own personal challenge and headstands, my Everest.
Fast forward a couple of years and as a teacher, I am encountering students that want to do headstands so badly, they risk hurting themselves. They have been fed the idea that they can do it too, because we live in the age in which “anyone can do anything”. And because, very likely, their Facebook feeds feature pictures like the one below:
This, highly edited and possibly photoshopped image is something us responsible Yogis and Yoginis would call utter male-cow-excrement. Not only it is a highly curated, manufactured version of reality — it is actually an ad. I wonder whether who originally posted this (and who I’m choosing not to link to) is aware of their own influence and the aspirational nature of what they post. From an anatomical perspective, I doubt whether this is a healthy pose to replicate. Necks were not designed to support the weight of our body. Like I mentioned above, safe headstands and shoulder-stands are done by shifting the weight onto arms and shoulders, to protect the neck and spine.
This is the kind of picture that makes students who see headstands as their own personal challenge, something they must be able to achieve at any cost. Most of my students understand that those are advanced Yoga poses that come through a long and steady practise, and that not everyone is designed to do them. But I have come across those who refuse to accept that. Once, a student kept attempting a headstand, after I repeatedly told them to stop because I, the professional, could see that they were going to hurt themselves because they lacked some of the basic blocks to build the pose. They left frustrated with me and themselves, fixated on a goal they “had” to achieve and ultimately, not really getting the point of Yoga.
Chrissy Auger suffered an awful spinal injury, which is something that can happen in any fitness practice. My heart goes out to her and I am glad she shared the experience. With Yoga’s popularity increasing every day, we need to be aware that injuries are also on the rise.
Yoga was never created with the aim of recreating challenging poses on cliff tops whilst wearing a pair of expensive leggings. Yoga exists to help us attain a healthy body and mind, helping us know and recognise our own limitations.
Fellow Yoga teachers, can we please stop with the questionably aspirational, shamelessly curated, Instagram posts? Can we please acknowledge that one thing is wanting to share your love of Yoga and your belief in its life-changing qualities, and another to show off your toned arms and hyper-flexible limbs to an audience that may miss the point? Everything we throw into the world has an effect, and at the moment, that effect is meaningless hashtags and the mass-recreation of advanced and unsafe practices.
Going back to what I learnt from my own teacher training, and what I tell my students: there is no right or wrong way of doing Yoga. There is safe and unsafe Yoga. I still cringe remembering the self-proclaimed teacher who had my boyfriend doing a very dangerous and unsafe headstand, making him put all of his bodyweight onto his neck. If I ever came across that dude again I’d love to slap him, but because, Yoga, I will probably ignore the guy, mumbling a subtle namasf*ckyou as I walk past him. A person who places more importance on the stuff he smokes than on the safety of the students he’s training, is no teacher to me.
As students we need to practise humility in a world hooked on aspirational quotes like it’s some sort of crack. It’s OK not to do everything, especially what you see through the highly curated lens of social-media. Whatever you do, do it safely and when faced with your limitations, understand them, they are there for a reason. Don’t let them drive you into making the wrong choices. You may lose what you love the most.
*Extracted from Functional Anatomy Of Yoga, David Keil, Lotus Publishing, 2014.
