Yoga Discussion: "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body"

Here is the article "How Yoga Can wrek your Body" that created quite a stir in the yoga world:

It is part of a book: The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards by William Broad

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wreck-your-body.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

FIRST of all It is clear that the article was written with the intention of creating publicity for this book - and it was successful in that respect, however at the cost of putting out mis-information and fear about hatha yoga. It was a publicity stunt that I find to be disappointing on both the part of the author and the New York Times. Although the author went about this in "shock journalism" sort of way the article does raise a valid point: Yoga is not a perfect, 100% safe form of activity, like ALL things in life it has a certain level of risk that yoga practitioners (especailly new students) should be aware of.

Here is my Major problem with the content of the article:
Hatha Yoga is a form of physical activity and like ALL forms of physical activity you can hurt yourself.(running, gymnastics, tennis, football, bicycling, walking, swimming, skiing...) I have plenty of injuries from when I played soccer and ran track - and yes I have had minor injuries  from doing yoga. The difference is that with soccer and track I was pushed to work through my injury, ignore the pain and get back into the competition. With yoga I am encouraged to learn from pain and discomfort, listen to my body and modify my practice. If we approach our Yoga practice with the same mindset as competitive sports then you do risk serious injury - even more than with sports because the nature of Hatha Yoga is to take the body to its limits in both strength and flexability.  When we practice yoga postures with our Ego we lose many of the true benefits of our practice because we are no longer practicing YOGA.

Here are some interesting Responses to this article/Book:

http://www.youryogamn.com/blog/2012/1/8/yoga-and-injuries.html