date: 11/4/2016
time: 3:30
style: viniyoga
instructor: Gary Kraftsow


This was certainly an interesting class. For most of the class I felt like I was in physical therapy - a lot of the moves that we did were actually very similar to moves I was prescribed for my physical therapy. The interesting part about that was that I went to physical therapy for my knees and hips - not my lower back at all. The jargon used by Gary was very interesting because it was absolutely being used to assert some sort of knowledgeable authority - that Gary was a leading doctor in this field. Right from the start, however, I had to doubt Gary. In his initial power point presentation in which he explains how yoga can improve a lifestyle he describes types of pain - chronic versus acute. From this slide on I was distrustful of Gary as a medical professional because he described chronic pain as pain measured by duration and acute pain as pain measured in intensity: chronic and acute are both terms that describe the duration of pain, chronic being long term and acute being short term. There was also the discussion of yoga as an "ancient medicine" from Gary, who described yoga as an ancient physical practice that worked in a similar way to todays prescription/diagnosis style of treatment. Gary also made the bold statement that "proprioceptive neuromuscular fascillitation" was a style of healing known to yoga practitioners for centuries, when PNF was first clinically designed, presented, and implemented around the 1950's. The use of Sanskrit terms to support his yogic knowledge was also weakly-based.So in my book Gary was neither a reliable health professional nor a reliable yogi - simple another person hopping on the yoga trend. The practice itself was awkward and choppy - hopping from one pose sequence to another with poor transitions and guidance that was lacking in clarity. The videos were accessible for all ages and skills, but there were a few moves that I immediately thought "why is he having us do this?" for. The lower back focus also didn't seem all that relevant when looking at what some of these moves worked. Overall it came together as a poor clash of yoga and western medicine.