How can I avoid injury when doing yoga?
Although the answer is simple: “Be careful” a lot of people still fall prey to ‘Yoga injuries’. This only goes to show that, no matter how careful you are, a lot has to do with which Yoga institute, studio, center or ashram you’ve enrolled in; who you your Yoga instructor is; and above all, how competent, how qualified, and how experienced he or she is. This will make all the difference to your practices.
The right Yoga institute and instructor are of paramount importance to getting Yoga right. Most people, it has been found end up with ‘Yoga injuries’ as a result of learning on their own or through wrong instruction. Hence the importance of right instruction has been stressed upon so much. Nowadays there are a slew of Yoga institutes, studios, centers and ashrams all over the world attracting a lot of eager students, all with their own claims of cures and therapies. Not all of them, unfortunately, are genuinely qualified individuals, or institutes, for that matter. As a result, many people end up getting hurt and injured.
In fact you should consider yourself lucky if you notice immediate injuries. Many wrong and erroneous practices reveal themselves by way of serious health disorders only after years, by which time they might have become very serious, and irreversible. So please be careful in your choice of Yoga instruction.
Another reason for injuries during yoga sessions is negligence and failure to comply with instructions. Injuries don’t occur purely because of faulty instructions and dubious trainers. Trainees often fail to incorporate knowledge imparted to them or choose to ignore instructions that seem trivial or unappealing to them. In addition to this some practitioners rely purely on instructional cds or dvds and online help when learning yoga practices. This is often a dangerous way to go about it as these sources serve more as a resource centre for knowledge, but are not a replacement for the guidance and supervision of a trainer. A trainer’s guidance and supervision is essential and irreplaceable.
A good instructor will give you all the right guidance about warm-ups, posture, postural and structural alignment; which exercises should be practiced, the sequence, and likewise breathing techniques. He or she will help you enter and exit tough poses, will observe and correct you whenever you go wrong and give you tips and guidelines on how not to repeat recurrent errors. Above all, pay attention to your breathing at every stage of Yoga exercises and asanas (poses).
