“The Science of Yoga: The Risk and Rewards” by William J. Broad

At around 220 pages, The Science of Yoga is not a very long book, but it is a very demanding one—if only because it contradicts so many mistaken beliefs. William J. Broad attempts to bring perspective to this ancient practice, not to disprove it, but to make it better.

Broad takes Yoga seriously. He's benefited personally from it (having practiced for thirty years), but has also been injured while practicing. He is not so naïve to ignore the inherent dangers: that some poses can cause chronic damage to nerves and tissue, and even cause fatal blood clots.

Yoga can save, but it can also destroy. It can kill.

Due to Broad's past injury, I question his objectivity at times, as he appears to have an ax to grind with the Yoga community, which flaunts Yoga's benefits while hiding its dangers; but to any reader who can read objectively, there's enough of the good and bad to see both sides. And Broad doesn't blame as much as he explains why modern Yoga is the way it is today—for better or for worse.

In The Science of Yoga William J. Broad discusses “yoga myths,” statements about Yoga's ability to increase metabolism and oxygen. He finds these myths to be false when science explores Yoga through its rigorous analysis. In fact, science has found that Yogic breathing decreases metabolism significantly, and though Yoga has been found to be uplifting and relaxing, this is due to increased carbon dioxide, not oxygen.

Broad attacks the myth that Yoga is sufficient for exercise. Though Yoga fails to meet cardiovascular standards, he asserts that Yoga's ability to increase flexibility and boost mood should not be ignored. But, he warns, Yoga is for cross-trainers, for those already in shape, and not for the weekend warrior who only exercises once or twice a week.

He discusses the history of Yoga (my favorite part). I learned that much of what we practice today as Yoga is not necessarily thousands of years old, but was perfected in the twentieth century by Indians, and brought to America where it has undergone even further evolution.

The Science of Yoga won't explain poses or breathing, but it'll give the reader a deeper understanding of Yoga's origins and not only its risks and rewards, but why the risks and rewards are what they are, and Broad sources most of what he has to say.

Unfortunately, the first half of the book was more interesting than the second half. Chapter five, on healing, seemed to unravel as he went back to the topic of the previous chapter, “The Risk of Injury,” attacking the Yoga community (and rightly so) for attempting to act as physical therapists without the required education. The final two chapters, on sexuality (with more warnings) and creativity, were anticlimactic compared to the book's eventful and knowledgeable beginning.

I didn't like at all his images of “Yoga in a century or two” in his epilogue. In the first he sees a Yoga that is even more splintered and disorganized than it is now, with more hucksters and misguided information. In the second he dreams of Yoga being accepted as medicine, with Yoga teachers as rigorously educated and qualified as doctors are today. I found both extreme, but especially his idea of “colleges of yoga medicine.”

Should Yoga, a spiritual practice, be put into the hands of government or other powerful institutions? Would that even be legal? It would, seemingly overnight, remove the upstarts and hucksters from the Yoga community, but at the cost of Yoga being open to everyone. Yoga would become as expensive as medicine, if teachers had to be trained as if they were practicing medicine. Though Yoga is in its Wild West stage now, it is inexpensive and overwhelmingly beneficial, even if some yogis do get hurt—while athletes get hurt in every sport, no one is rushing out to regulate weight lifting or running.

As Broad states earlier in his book, the general Yoga community is in no hurry to change its practices or its image. Yoga, for now, will be up to each individual practitioner to manage for him- or herself.

So buyer beware.

February is going to be a successful month for me. Why? Because I am willing it. Sheer mind over matter is going on my way.

I've got goals! But more importantly, I'm on the top side of my usual wave-pattern. I have bad months and I have good months. Now, my bad months aren't really bad, but more “down”, not necessarily in a negative sense. I'm just not as energetic or accomplished. January was a down month. That must mean February will be a home run, right?

I'm not going to sit here and take it for granted. I'm in a stretch of 29 days, and each day will ooze work ethic. I'll worry about March when March gets here. The past will stay dead. I'm living for now. And work!

Work is play, and play means writing, working out, meditating. I've begun to wake up early (at 7) to meditate for an hour before I even start my day. I've done a lot more Yoga, and have even begun to go outside to skip a little rope. Maybe my “voluntary” presence out of doors will key springtime.

I've been far more creative already in just the first few days of the month. I've started what I hope will be a stand alone novel, and though I've gotten off to a slow start editing my novel “Rising”, all I need is to kick the rust off a bit.

~

Now for a curiosity.

My last blog post had just 24 views in two days. That's down considerably from the 60+ views I had been getting, and the 100+ views one post received.

Maybe no one likes Yoga? Or I'm getting tired of posting my links all over the place, spamming the net.

You know, when you put too much in a net, the net will break!

24 views may throw someone else for a loop, but not me. It makes me not even care anymore, trying to win the prize, getting 100,000 page views. I'm going to refocus my attention, breaking away from selling my blog to the internet in order to worry about myself. I may be posting more frequently, and hey, maybe my posts will be of a lesser quality, but I'm not going to try to write what everyone will like, which I may have been doing with all the writing posts I've written in January.

I'm plain sick of writing about writing. There's more to life than that, right? Sure, I'll let a writing post slide through now and again, and I may even fill the net up with it, but not too frequently.

Why is this?

On my Yoga post I got some feedback from a few of the people who saw it, and it was really positive, so positive that I realized what I had decided before was ultimate truth, but had somehow forgotten through January as my hits went through the roof.

If even one person reads my blog and gets something productive/positive/inspiring out of it, or if I write even one thing that someone disagrees with, resulting in my learning from their point of view, I win.

And so does that one person.

There are two parts because I felt the need to tell this in two ways. The first is a little silly, and the second I thought was a bit more rigid. The first wiggles, and the second prickles. 

 

Having two parts to this is a fitting analogy for perspective. There are at least two ways to see the world. For me, Yoga provides multiple perspectives by clearing away the things that would block multiple perspectives. In this way Yoga can be a purely mental practice. 

 

Yoga also cures my sciatica, and can be a purely physical practice. I dig both ways.

~

 

Part I

The first is the Old Yoga. It's the Yoga of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. This Yoga realizes unity with the Cosmos. Can you dig it? All for is one, one for is all.

Patanjali's Yoga rids the mind of its numerous thought patterns (preconceived notions), allowing the practitioner (me!) to see the world as it is, and not as the mind would have it. Old Yoga is meditation. It's clear perception, cutting away the thicket to see the meadow.

Clear perception is not for everyone.

It seems Americans don't really dig this Eastern mumbo jumbo. They want what's physically practical. Forget that metaphysical stuff.

So there is another Yoga. This Yoga is like a beautiful woman who came to the West and was stripped down. We have taken her red dress off, looking under the hood if you will, to see her bare flesh.

Stretching. There's nothing very spiritual or metaphysical or philosophical about that, right? This Yoga, call it New Yoga (though there's nothing new about it, except the way we practice it here in the West, without its philosophical trimmings) is more or less naked. 

Yoga as stretching, and only stretching. Some breathing, too, but mostly just stretching. It doesn't require meditation or an Eastern bent, so it's safe for Western consumption.

Now, Patanjali's Yoga is great. It can unlock the Universe's secrets and let us live with a chill perspective on life. But that doesn't cure a backache, increase flexibility, prevent injury, tone muscle, burn calories, or bond us in a large sweaty group.

They're different, for sure, but one Yoga is not more important or less viable and valid than the other.

With its dressings off, Yoga is still really amazing. It's so amazing, even dogs and cats, cows and cranes, snakes and trees practice it.

But what happens when the two types of Yoga are put together? What happens if, in the middle of a pose, I suddenly wonder what it would be like if I and everything else were the same, as if everything I do effects everyone else, and every other one and every other thing effects me?





Americans have made the very ancient art of Yoga into something that suits our culture, our needs. Our Yoga is no longer the Yoga of India, but something else entirely.

This isn't the only change we've made to the old world. We've turned martial arts into Tae Bo and have given up monasteries altogether. Not that people don't still practice martial arts or live in monasteries in the West, or practice Indian Yoga for that matter, but these aren't what you'll likely find when you look for them.

No, we have ten-year-old black belts and Yoga classes are filled with middle-aged housewives, and few gurus. We also decorate our tabletops with plastic fruit.

We have, generally speaking, a different purpose for living than did the ancients. For better or worse, our culture isn't suited for doing anything slowly, with care, for the purpose of the act. We are always asking what we'll receive in return. We run not so much for pleasure as to outrun future heart attacks.

So we practice Yoga, not for its spiritual benefits (which can only be had in the moment of the act) or for sheer enjoyment, but for what other needs it can help fulfill. We have little need for the spiritual aspects of Yoga, so we've quietly gotten rid of them. Yoga and Yoga products are marketed and sold like fast food and soft drinks. Not that this is a bad thing. It's just different.

But it's not what I'm after.