Yesterday, 5/10/2007, the NY Times published an article on yoga therapy. You can read it for yourself at this site: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/fashion/10Fitness.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Wow. Much of what is written there is what I have been teaching (or preaching?) for years. It’s nice to be validated by the media.

Establishing a working relationship with main-stream medicine is easier said than done though. For one thing, few doctors have had any personal experience with yoga or yoga therapy. Many are  mis-informed about yoga is, believing it to be a form of ‘exercise’ that helps people relax. I suppose that is true on some level, however it’s so much more than that.

Regardless, it’s nice to be on the cutting edge of something and helping to establish the standards. What frightens me though is the idea that at some point we, yoga teachers & therapists alike, will be regulated by some anonymous body of ‘professionals’ who will try to standardize our practices. Although I do recognize the need for some sort of credential that lets the public know that we have learned something, standardization will also seriously diminish the creative and intuitive spark that fuels our abilities. Yoga, as we know, is a body/mind/spiritual approach to health. How do you measure Spirit?

Time to meditate……………………………..