Why modern yoga should be more spiritual – and less narcissistic
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Version 0 of 1. Inexperienced yoga teachers are apparently hurting themselves attempting complicated poses for their Instagram feeds, says Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore Oh my, people have been hurting themselves trying to look good on Instagram. It’s not funny, is it? I mean, we don’t laugh at people who fall off cliffs while taking selfies, do we? Anyway, a wave of hip and knee injuries among yoga instructors has led to concern. A leading physiotherapist, Benoy Mathew, has said he has seen a lot of injuries as a result of inexperienced teachers attempting the most complicated poses for the ’gram. God, it’s all so spiritual, isn’t it? So much part of yoga’s 5,000-year-old tradition. Who hasn’t been to a yoga class where madly competitive people contort themselves at the front while some of us lie at the back snoring? What qualifies some people to be yoga teachers I shall never know, apart from a week on a beach in Kerala and undiagnosed hypermobility. Of course, yoga is great if taught properly and sensitively; the very opposite of endless pictures of lithe young things in specious, sunset poses. “Look at me,” is not part of any meditative practice I understand. It is simply mindful flashing. The worst yoga teachers are surely the ones who demonstrate poses in front of stiff, horrified middle-aged people with little instruction except: “Behold my toned abs.” The second worst are the ones who speak a few words in Sanskrit and then offer nuggets of philosophy that are about as far from compassion as you can get. My favourite was at a class I attended with a woman who had just had a knee operation and was unable to sit in certain positions. “What I notice,” said the teacher, “is that people with knee problems often have way too much ego.” I caught the woman’s eye. Oh, the ancient wisdom of the terminally up themselves. That universe is boundless. And breathe. • Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist |