We get into shaky territory in yoga and especially yin yoga when we start suggesting it can fix pain.
Pain is personal, complex and multifactorial.
It doesn’t neatly dissolve after a class or a stretch and even speaking anecdotally about an individuals persons experience of their pain improving through yoga can be irresponsibly misleading.
It might sell your class but how comfortable do you feel with that?
When we share stories of students feeling relief, we need to remember two things: context and relevance. Anecdotes are interesting but they’re not evidence.
In The Tune Up (my newsletter for Yoga Teachers), we unpacked a Daily Mail article via video on sciatica that was entirely built from personal comments including one person who claimed that taking their bra off cured their leg pain. It’s entertaining, yes, but it’s not evidenced or ethical guidance – similar territory to yoga teachers sharing a students positive pain reduction from their class.
In my yin yoga refresher course Finding the Yoga in Yin, there’s a section called The Claims and The Aims exploring exactly how to navigate this type of tricky territory with honesty and integrity.
And if you’re someone who experiences pain yourself, or works with people who do, my upcoming digital course The Body Odyssey will help you understand pain in a new way. How to explain it and how to tame it are the two key course components.
We need to be thoughtful with our words. Yoga doesn’t need grand claims, its power is already in the practice and presence.
