For reasons that defy explanation, The New York Times has had a troubled relationship with yoga. I've noted the Times obsession and confusion in these pages, as well as the spectacle of five separate yoga stories appearing in one week during July, 2010.
The Times seemed confused about whether yoga was a fashion, a kind of exercise, a form of meditation, or a trend. Last Sunday, the Times, through sheer determination, I suppose, finally overcame its yoga confusion.
Writing in the Sunday Review in last weekend's Times, William J. Broad, a science writer, does a straight news story on why men are more likely to be injured while practicing yoga–and how this might explain why yoga is practiced by so many more women than men.
Men represent perhaps one in five of the 20 million yoga practitioners in the U.S., reports Broad, who says he has practiced yoga since 1970. "But proportionally, they are reporting damage more frequently than women, and their doctors are diagnosing more serious injuries — strokes and fractures, dead nerves and shattered backs. In comparison, women tell mainly of minor upsets," he writes. Broad also does some original research, digging up federal government documents to support the case that men are more likely to be injured.
In his conclusion, he notes that some studios are now offering all-male yoga classes, which, he writes, "avoid the flexibility gap between women and men and instead play to masculine strengths." That is, if you can tolerate such things as "YoGuy," "Broga" (bro yoga), or "yoga for dudes."
Broad thankfully resisted the temptation to make some kind of Seinfeld joke about this. I'm not sure I can do the same, so pardon me while I make a hasty retreat.
-Paul Raeburn
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