Why do so many people who come to yoga for healing and spiritual relief hurt themselves, or are hurt by their teachers?  What are the basic relational tensions in yoga learning and teaching?  Is the history of modern yoga all rainbows?

 

Over the past 2.5 years, yoga teacher and author Matthew Remski has interviewed 250 yoga practitioners, teachers, and scholars about  discomfort, pain, injury, and healing in modern yoga.  He's recorded his initial findings in over 30 articles that have attracted over 350K readers.  The emerging book weaves subject interviews, personal memoir, and intensive research into the somatics of the modern yoga movement to create a natural history of shadows and light.  In this afternoon of presentation, discussion and journaling, participants will explore the tangled but fertile landscape of how a therapeutic art can become toxic, and redeem itself.

 

"Matthew Remski's WAWADIA research digs beneath the statistics of yoga injuries to examine the stories we tell ourselves about our bodies, perfection, inadequacy and freedom.  We all know that repetitive strain or too much flexibility creates the conditions for injury.  But what we haven't brought to light yet are the consequences of the narratives we tell ourselves - how they set us up for physical trouble in practice and how they influence the way we go through life.  This research will help you pay attention to the strange unconscious intentions that get all mixed up in a life-long practice, so you can clear out unhelpful motivations and follow through on what's truly good for you." --Michael Stone, teacher, author