There’s an aura around yoga that renders it apart from a mere exercise regime. Doing convoluted yoga asanas doesn’t merely make limbs supple, it also raises the spiritual quotient and makes the practitioner a more enlightened person. But sceptics now say that those poses could also be injurious to your body.
This sounds about right. It was one thing for all those yogis who sat under trees for years in the classic cross-legged post; it’s quite another for us, caught in the urban rat-race and office-bound for most of our adult lives, to attempt the same. After a tough day at work, staring at a computer screen and stretching back in a chair, twisting the body in complex ways can’t but be uncomfortable. The best pose for tired people is to slouch on a couch in front of the television, ideally watching a cookery programme and sipping some of Scotland’s finest produce. Ideal for spiritual upliftment too. That could help unwind much more than putting an already-strained body through the grinder. To those who claim that yoga is much more than asanas and meditation is an integral part; well, what could be more brain-emptying than mindless reality shows?
One can almost hear the purists howl at this travesty of an ancient form. But when hardened yoga teachers warn that it can damage the spine and even crack a rib or two, we have to take them seriously. Anything that provides an excuse to not get up early in the morning!