Yoga is bad for you …If you do it without consciousness. There is a notion that simply the act of doing yoga is good for you. Those same people often think that running is bad for you because so many people get injured while running. And while it is true that doing is better than not doing in terms of exercising, it is also true that anything can be bad for if you don’t pay attention to how you do it.
We are all dominant on one side of the body which means we all tend to be tighter and stronger on one side of the body and looser and weaker on the other. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. In my mind, we want to bring these two opposite poles to the middle- make the tight side a little looser and the loose side a little tighter. This isn’t all that easy.
Back to why yoga is bad for you. Let’s say you are tighter and stronger on the right side which is the case for a majority of people. Then let’s say that you start your yoga poses on the right side which is the case for a majority of yoga practices. If you are in a class and the teacher tells you to step your right foot forward into a lunge to stretch the back thigh you get the foot forward and put the back knee down stretching into the shape. But that right hip is tight and with it comes the frustration of not being able to go as far as you would like. That’s all well and good until you move to the second side. Because here is freedom; when the left foot comes forward all of a sudden there is room to go deeper and that is exactly what you do. All of the stretch that you were looking for on the first side is available on the second so you take full advantage of the opportunity. It is hard not to, but what you are really doing is increasing your imbalances making your loose side looser without having as much effect on the tighter side.
Yoga is bad for you, just as everything is bad for you, if you do it without consciousness.