More Questions. Few Answers. On the NYT's "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body" article and more

I'm sure most of you have already read/been irked by the NYT's critique of yoga, "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body." It definitely ruffled a few of my feathers, largely because most of the author's "evidence" for the evils of yoga is anecdotal. I've no doubt that there are already many good responses published, such as that of The Reluctant Ashtangi, so I'll leave the rebuttals to others.

(I do feel I must point out that although the author lumps Bikram Yoga in with other yoga series, none of the postures demonized in the article are done in Bikram (I don't think Cobra referred to in the article is the one done in Bikram; the description evokes Upward Dog, often labeled Cobra in non-Bikram classes.).)

What I am more interested in is where the glimmer of truth lies (and I think there's a glimmer of it in all arguments advanced!). Bikram has long touted the safety of his series, claiming that it is a beginners series. Teachers of his yoga are trained to give extensive description of the postures--how to enter and exit, as well as the benefits received from each one. Because you simply stand between each posture instead of moving into a sun salutation or flowing rapidly to another posture, there's less the chance of "getting behind" and injuring yourself in a rush to catch up. I would think that the series is as safe as humanly possible, even for those who don't happen to have much body/self-awareness. Despite the anti-Bikram sentiment that one might interpret in my previous post, I am a Bikramite through and through and recognize the many benefits of this series.

Chapel Hill, Sedona, at sunset

The timing of this anti-yoga article is coincidental, however, considering only two days ago I took a class that left me wondering about the safety factor. I just returned from a trip to Sedona, AZ, where I enjoyed a few days of its rejuvenating, warm red rocks. There is no Bikram studio in Sedona, so after a couple of days, I tried the local "hot yoga" studio to loosen up my hiking-tight hamstrings and shoulders.

I went in with an open mind--pretty easy to do, considering how burned up I've been lately about what I perceive as arrogance on Bikram's part for his insistence on TM-ing, R-ing, and Copyrighting his series. I asked the instructor what type of yoga class she taught and that I was familiar with Bikram. She said her studio offered a style of yoga taught by Bikram's nephew, Sumit, who has apparently made a small name for himself in the hot yoga world. She said it combined Vinyasa with some Bikram poses.

And... that's exactly what it was. The room was lovely--juicy, just uncomfortably warm at first, and it reached a pleasantly toasty temperature midway through the series due to the heater, humidifier, and the many packed bodies who showed up for that weekday morning class.  I was initially trained in Ashtanga, and I would characterize most of the class as being "flow" Ashtanga--postures like Warrior series, Triangle, etc were held momentarily as we "flowed" through sun salutations. This was almost randomly interspersed with postures from the Bikram series--all of a sudden, we'd stop, do Half-moon/Awkward/Eagle, go back to flowing, then do the balancing series, go back to flowing, etc.

I was able to retain my non-judgmental mind for most of the class. The flow-y stuff was initially fun. Then, however,  I realized we really weren't holding the postures very long. The energy I was exerting was going not into a posture. It seemed to evaporate as I moved--quickly! as if we were running out of time!--from one posture to the next. The teacher talked a lot, though it was mostly motivational/hippie-spiritual and less about how to get into and out of the postures, or what to do if I got tired. If I hadn't had a lot of Ashtanga experience, I wouldn't have known what I was doing. I would be looking around and struggling to catch up, much less get a sense of what I was supposed to be getting out of the postures! Talk about an injury-inviting experience.

Talk, also, about an eye-opening experience. On one level, it was kinda fun! My hamstrings got stretched as they haven't in years. The part-Vinyasa, part-Bikram series kept my attention. In that sense, though, it was very American--no chance to get bored, as there was always something to occupy the mind; the poses weren't held long all. And, there wasn't much depth to it.

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. If you are an experienced yogi, I'm sure you'd do fine in the class. For some reason, I feel compelled to make a tenuous connection between the article, my time at the hot yoga studio, and my previous post on Bikram's insistence on going after studio owners who teach too close to his series. The NYT article would seem to bolster Bikram practitioners' justification for the series and why it needs to be kept pure, taught/sold only by trained teachers.

Different strokes for different folks... or is it that some folks, afraid of being slapped with a lawsuit, feel the need to modify classes from Bikram's style so much that they lose much of the benefit and increase risk of injury?

No answers here in my first post of 2012. Is that going to be a theme for this year? No answers, just more questions? :-) Can't wait to get back into the hot (Bikram) room and find out.

"Wrongful Appropriation": Bad Karma?

It's been a while since I got my knickers in a twist.

No... wait... that's not the correct metaphor. That's too polite and girlish for what I felt the other day when I commented on Alive in the Fire's post about yet another Bikram lawsuit. More like, it's been a while since my guts got so heated they could roar fire.

I think most avid Bikram yoga practitioners have weighed in on Bikram's tendency to go after studio owners that use his series without receiving training or paying their monthly dues. I'm writing here not so much with the intention of offering my opinion on the matter, although, as you'll see, I do have one. It's more like I just want to... complicate the discussion and make some connections between this yoga and what I do for a living.

I am a writing teacher. Right now, our semester is winding down, and I'm commenting on final drafts of research papers. One of the things we writing teacher diligently teach is how to avoid plagiarism when citing. Using sources correctly is a tough skill to teach, and contrary to what you might think, teaching students to avoid plagiarism is NOT as simple as reviewing the rules and telling them about the horrifying consequences (reporting to the dean, a black mark on your spotless record, possible expulsion! Life sentence in jail! OK, not the last one). Most of the plagiarism teachers see is unintentional, and there are also cultural differences that can make source management trickier for some folks than for others.


And then, to complicate matters, what I do in my daily life runs counter to hard and fast rules about plagiarism. I manage a file-sharing website for our department that allows teachers to post and download handouts to use in class. I make it clear to anyone who submits something to the site that it is for sharing. Don't expect the instructor who uses your cause-and-effect paper idea to cite you when they distribute it to their students. They might think it's the perfect assignment to share with their students--making little changes here and there as needed to make it their own. Who benefits? The student, as does the instructor who doesn't have to freak out thinking they have to start from square one. Talk about good karma!

(For more on this reeeally interesting issue, check out Feralchick's blog--she taught me all I know about plagiarism (look, I'm citing my source! ;-) or look up plagiarism-obsessed scholars Rebecca Moore Howard or Nick Carbone.)

Look at any aspect of the media, art, culture, etc and you'll see examples that complicate copyright law. In hip-hop music, sampling is often celebrated. And what is art but a graceful amalgamation of other artists' ideas and techniques? No wonder students come into college befuddled, anxious, and even surprised about our rigid guidelines for using sources correctly.

All my gooey, share-the-love goodness runs dry, however, when I read a student research paper on education that begins with this "hook" for their introduction: "Education is often being confused with schooling, relying on the premise that time spent in school is directly related to education. Somehow, by osmosis or some other magic force, spending time in school will lead to an educated person. This is one of the biggest lies and misnomers that is pervasive throughout our society." Wow! Sounds great, right? I've done such a great job teaching my students this semester! Look how much this guy's improved. Aww, wait... "misnomer"? "Osmosis or some other magic force"? Waaaait a second.

Do a quick Google search on one or more of these sentences and you'll see the passage is lifted directly from a blog on education. What follows a teacher's discovery of plagiarism is an odd--and frustrating--range of emotions. Did this student think they could trick me? Did they think I was stupid? How could I not notice that their writing was suddenly of a level publishable by the New York Post? The action of lifting a few sentences to use as a lead for one's research paper is suddenly a full-on assault of a teacher's ego.

I bet my fire-breathing reaction to plagiarism is a little what Bikram must feel when he realizes that yet another studio is teaching something akin to his series without crediting (*cough*paying*cough*) him for its proper use. I'd be pissed, too. If I designed a series of yoga postures and breathing exercises, added a dollup of hot, and remained convinced that this could significantly improve people's well-being, my ego would scream I did that, you cocksucker motherfuckers! (Sorry for the profanity, kiddos. I'm just using the words of the man himself that he was screaming into a phone the one time I approached him for a photo.)

It's a perfectly human reaction. The first time I saw chunks of one of my syllabus in another instructor's syllabus, I thought, "Hey! That looks familiar. I'm not sure I dig that." Aaaaaand then I remembered I pretty much stole most of my syllabus from other teachers when I first started. Once again: who benefited from the instructor who used excerpts of my syllabus? The students. The instructor. The only one who was momentarily hurt? My delicate ego.

But it only hurt for a few seconds.

I totally get the very legitimate reasons for why Bikram would want to copyright the series. As I said on Alive in the Fire's blog, I want to take a Bikram yoga class. I want my Pranyama followed by Ardha Chandrasana followed by Padahastasana.  I don't want the teacher to ask for "requests" at the beginning of a yoga class. Don't mess with the order, dammit. Don't touch that dial. Bikram doesn't need a copyright to keep people coming to his studios. I'm not going to other studios because when I want McDonald's, I'm not settling for Jack-n-the-Box. Or Hardee's. Or whatever else y'all have on the east coast ;-)


And before I finish my little tirade, what gets me most of all is that it seems like Bikram (or his handlers?) are proud of the fact that they go after every studio. Check out this self-congratulatory note on his copyright page on his website: "The asana sequence copyright registration joins Bikram’s growing portfolio of registered copyrights and trademarks that lie at the heart of the proprietary Bikram Yoga system.   Bikram can now easily and effectively enforce these rights."

Yay! He can now sue easily and efficiently. Phew. Now that his portfolio of lawsuits is growing steadily, surely no one will dare to bait his wrath!

That's just what I keep thinking my plagiarizing students will realize. Hmm. We're not quite there yet.

Please note that I am not pro-plagiarism, nor am I pro-copyright infringement, or pro-badness in any way :-) I am not a legal scholar, so take my comments on copyright with a grain of salt. I know it takes a great deal of critical thinking and due diligence to use source material responsibly, and I am definitely pro--, uh, that!

If I could offer up a paltry piece of advice, though, it would be this: Let the karma yoga you preach about actually be your karma yoga.

Trails Untrod

Do you ever feel like "doing the posture" is an incredibly lofty goal? Do you ever want to laugh in the teacher's face when they say, "One day you will touch your forehead to your toes!" Not in this lifetime, right? (Those of you who can do this, well... I guess I'm not talking to you ;-)

What force entices us to undertake these seemingly impossible challenges again and again? It seems like inside and outside the hot room, challenges we've seen time and time again are placed before us. I think of 'em as "Deja vu Obstacles": The frustration I feel in the balancing series, the claustrophobia that sets in during the floor postures, the heart-pounding head rush of Camel pose. And don't even get me started on stuff in my personal life. Boy, have I been here before.

I've been thinking a lot about these patterns lately. I feel like I've been stuck in a certain sticky cycle--one you'll have to buy me a burger to get me to open up about--for quite a while now. I get out of a tough situation, and I breathe a sigh of sweet relief. Then, I notice a pretty trail open up before me. I happily toss my stuff into my wheelbarrow and skip down it, thinking, "This time it's going to be different." Almost immediately, though, I can see it's not. The trail is as well-trod and worn, and before I know it my little wheel has slipped right back into the same rut.

What compels us to sign up for more of the same?

To answer, indulge me in a little detour into my grad program. One semester I took a seminar on William Faulkner. The teacher, a grumpy PhD who was itching to retire, assigned me a presentation on his short story, "Red Leaves."  Part of the story centers on a slave (known only as "Negro"), who has been assigned to live and work with an Indian chief. (Criticism of this white Southerner's problematic portrayal of Native Americans and black slaves is duly noted.)

When the Indian chief dies, the nameless slave panics, knowing that it is his fate to be buried with his "master." Although he has been prepped his entire life for this hard fact, the slave runs for miles and days, trying to outrun his fate, saying, "Ole, grandfather. It is that I do not wish to die." At last, though, the slave gives in and is caught, led back to the village to meet his death.

When I was to present on this story, the only instruction I was given was to be prepared to tell the class why the nameless slave ran. I read and reread the story, thinking there must be some magic sentence in the text to help me answer the professor's question. Finding none, I stumbled nervously on the day of the presentation until she asked me the question outright. "Why did the slave run?" "Uhm, because.... ah, that's Life," I managed to spit out. "Human beings are compelled to live, and no amount of conditioning can take away our desire to live."

I think this is the same force that compels us to take up that trail again in the hopes that it's fresh and untrod. Or perhaps it's that we take up the trail in the hopes that we'll have the strength to propel ourselves out of the rut in the hopes that we can continue marching toward our goal. We may know deep down that it's our fate to fail to touch our forehead to our toes, but that doesn't stop us from unrolling our mat in the hot room day after day. No amount of neurotic conditioning should rob us of our will to attempt improving ourselves again and again. Find that pretty trail. Get your wheelbarrow ready. Try, try again.

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You can read "Red Leaves" here.

Yoga Babies

Yoga babies. No, it's not an attempt to rip off the ever-growing yoga clothing industry, nor did I witness some strange new Mommy-and-Me mutation. It's the perfect description for the class I had today.

Now, babies have been on my brain lately. Not in the way you might think--I'm not gettin' knocked up anytime soon--but I have been thinking about 'em. A dear friend welcomed her first child into the world recently, and following her experiences with that has been fun. I'm also in the mid-semester grading slump that hits all of us teacher types. (Non-teachers: please forgive your teacher friends for their inexplicable yet cyclical October/April madness.) To prevent myself from falling into a pit of grading despair, I take a few moments here and there to let my thoughts get all innocent and childlike. There's a big difference between this internal monologue: "Goddammit. How did you make it to this level of college without learning to use a fucking apostrophe?" and this one: "I notice that this student takes a creative approach to the conventions of English!"Ahh, a beginner's mind can be a welcome relief to the drudgery of the day.

Back to yoga. Today's class was a steamer. To boot, there were quite a few first-timers, which meant the instructor had to spend a bit of time here and there attending to Fixed Firm poses and ankle-holding issues :-) And there was just... something in the air. You know those classes that seem to have bad energy? Those ones in which us students remain obstinate and listless, wrung out like an old rag, despite the best efforts of a wonderful instructor to keep us going? It was one of those.

As the normal hour for class to be over approached, we were still postures away from being done. As I lay on my back between postures, I noticed bizarre things--people walking back and forth (to get what, I don't know), the wheeze and moan of a newcomer. At one point, I turned my head to see the instructor walking the rows during mid-posture savasana. She knelt down between two new students, whispering some sweet reassurance to them. Enviously, I wanted to know what she was saying. Couldn't she see we were all suffering, too?

That was when it hit me: our class was a bunch of yoga babies. There we lay, little infants, exhausted, begging for relief and attention. The teacher was ultimately of no use in this matter. And I think that the best of teachers, mothers, husbands, lovers, friends--none of them can do anything but remind us of the fact that we are already worthy of our own love. Isn't yoga all about self-care? Ain't it a tool for us to tend to our weary, irritated, and ambivalent souls?

So, it's OK, little yoga babies. We can throw our little tantrums and wish our teachers would tell us "take it easy, honey." But even sweeter is the realization that we already have the ability to soothe ourselves.

Lions and Camels and Nietzsche, Oh My!

"Writing is like magic because you cannot see the simple psychology you are weaving, the questions you are asking, the way you are reshaping how you interact with your world," writes Rebecca K. O'Connor, author, falconer, and blogger on The Rumpus.

I wasn't able to articulate why I haven't been able to blog lately until I read that wonderful piece of O'Connor's. Lately, I feel like I'm seeing life so clearly. In looking back over the stages when I've blogged most often--and blogged best, if I may be so bold--it was when I was mired in little tragedies I was willing to share with you all. I was desperately trying to peak behind the fabric of my experience, and writing was the fingers that allowed me to grasp. For a moment, perhaps I'm taking a break from weaving that simple psychology.

These past few months have led up to a pretty big change in my life. I made a decision that took far too long to arrive at, but the relief that swept over me after making it was so welcome I don't regret the lost time one bit. I feel now that I've been on my knees, begging for mercy, for over two years, and I finally heard a voice saying it was OK to get up. And, mind you, not one of those "Hello, E, it's schizophrenia calling" kind of voices. Something different.

Anyway, how wonderful it is to finally stand up! Nietzsche and, oddly enough, Sufi poet Rumi write that spiritual unfolding occurs in three stages: the camel, the lion, and then the child. In the camel phase, we feel we have been burdened with the suffering of our existence. We trudge onward, until finally we kneel, as a camel will, under the weight of our burdens. We surrender completely. It's only then that we can rise up like a lion, full of the strength and majesty we need to meet our challenges.

OK, I get it--it's kind of a cheesy comparison. (That's also an odd thing to say about something Nietzsche-generated.) But you know, don't we all get to feeling like we've been taking a knee from the weight of our burdens for far too damn long? Moreover, I bet we also all know what it feels like to finally set that heaviness aside and rise the fuck up. I'm feeling it now--every sleepless night, every jagged meditation session, every scalding tear, every desperate conversation with friends, every scrawl in the journal, and every sweaty yoga class--they do add up to something far bigger than the sum of their well-intentioned parts.

Ahhh. Life is good. I teach, I sweat, and I sleep. The only downside is that it doesn't provide me with much inspiration for blogging :-)

But I know from living in a dualistic universe that these things are cyclical ;-)  I'm sure the camel will be back, but for the moment, I'm sure enjoying being a lion.

Being Breathed

It's not often I scramble for a pen when I hear someone speak. When I'm listening, I like to let the person's words wash over me. I like to get lost in the scrunch of facial features, of animated hand movements, of  soft or rushed tones of voice. Buddhist teachers tell us that if we hear something we like, it's resonating with what we already know. No need to form attachment to words--we already know it all.

But I've been haunted by this quote by poet W.S. Merwin since I heard it two weeks ago. "Little breath, breathe me gently," he writes, "for I am a river I am trying to cross."

Ah. So much here. I think we all know what it's like to experience anxiety and fear. What happens when we perceive something as being fearful? The breath takes over, enlarging itself to spur the body to action. We panic. But with attention, even in stressful situations, we can encourage the breath to remain gentle.

I also like the author's implication that we are not forcing ourselves to breathe. Even as we bring our attention to it in yoga or meditation, it's ultimately an unconscious action. It's a natural part of our existence. Knock ourselves out with a hammer, booze, or drugs, and the breath will soldier on. It holds us. It's our rock--it will always be with us, until it's not, and until we are not. It's like something is breathing us. (Maybe that's why noticing it can be so centering.)

I think we struggle to cross our own rivers all the time. We have a tide of tendencies, of habits,  compulsions, and obstacles that arise constantly. They can seem overwhelming, and it's so easy to lose sight of that little breath. But to remember that we are being breathed, well, that would sure go a long way to fuel our little boat.

Caesura

It's been a while. It may be even longer before there's an actual post to speak of. The change of the semester starting has seemed awfully big this year, and while objectively, things are good, there seems to be a bit of a sea change going on in my life. Makes it hard to write, knowing that these uncertainties will be etched into some corner of the internet for all eternity.

It's just a caesura, a brief rest in this particular musical score. I'm sure I will be back! Don't think for a moment that I've stopped going to yoga or reading your blogs :-)