I went to Kundalini Yoga to get happier and healthier. If I get holier too, that’s a bonus.
Overall, I’ve been very happy with my journey. I feel happier and healthier.
The past five days, I’ve been obsessed with reading all the critical articles on Kundalini Yoga at the website of cult-buster RickRoss. I think everyone interested in the topic should listen to both sides — those who venerate this yoga and those who say it is dangerous to body, mind, and soul.
I’ve tweaked my right knee a few times doing Kundalini Yoga, particularly the frog poses. It could be that I was doing them wrong or that I launched into poses that my body was not ready for.
According to this essay, such yoga can be dangerous to your health:
Anatomically, the only way you can squat and execute the move is to allow the knees out over the toes. For every inch the knee (patella) is out over the toe, you will put five times your body weight on the knee–and surrounding ligaments/muscle.
Also–this position will sandwich the femur (thighbone) and tibia (shinbone)–possibly pulling the knee joint apart ( patella from the socket), which stretches over the ligaments at the joint. Now add to this the ballistic pumping up/down motion for six to nine minutes–several hundred times. Also the complication of the hands folded on the head and you just might have added a compression to the cervical through increased weight. The "frog pose" is actually old-fashion deep-knee bends, which are now on almost every banned exercise list. This exercise could cause a knee injury.
I don’t have a position on all this because I don’t know much (neither about this yoga nor about exercise). I know that after paying for a few acupuncture sessions on my tweaked right knee, I will henceforth abandon frog poses. I have also abandoned most breath work — a fundamental part of Kundalini Yoga — because I can’t do it without violating what I learn in Alexander Technique. I also have to abstain from certain yoga poses because I can’t pull them off without tightening my neck and narrowing my back and shoulders, cardinal sins in Alexander Technique.
I love all my yoga teachers and they all seem careful to teach in a way that helps their students and not exposes them to harm.
I talked about these lofty issues with Marc Germain on Talk Radio One Tuesday night.
