If you want to train for climbing, you'd be better off with more climbing-specific training. It is possible to get hurt doing yoga, and it is unlikely that it can improve your balance in climbing movement.

On the other hand, if you want to do yoga for its own sake, have at it.

Alright ... others have alluded, but I'm goign to do the real education here.

Yoga *is* in fact a way to nirvana. That's why it was invented. It is primarily a spiritual practice ... a way of using fire in the body to focus the mind on spiritual matters.

This, from someone who has the word "Eden" in his signature.

It's a quote about dogs, said by someone else, that I find to be quite an accurate description of how I feel about my two dogs.

I'm not saying that everyone else should feel the same way, nor that if they don't, they're missing out on the whole-ness of owning a dog.

Subtle difference, but do try to keep up.

Alright ... others have alluded, but I'm goign to do the real education here.

Yoga *is* in fact a way to nirvana. That's why it was invented. It is primarily a spiritual practice ... a way of using fire in the body to focus the mind on spiritual matters. If you are not using it for the mental fitness, then you're only get 25% out of it, and the meditation and focus are what have been most useful to me in my climbing...

I would never tell a boulderer that s/he is missing out on 75% of what climbing is about if s/he rarely ropes up.

Agreed. I don't want them learning about the joy of Sport & Trad climbing, and competing for the same routes that I am looking to do.

So, yoga has given you the mental toughness to lead sport 5.10a?

Jay

As for Yoga, if you find spiritualism in doing yoga, and that part is 75% of what makes yoga important to you, that's for you.

Yup. It has. After being dropped and spending 6 months barely able to walk, I had trouble trusting a belayer on toprope, let alone lead. Yoga has helped me regain the strength and flexibility I lost in that injury, settle my mind, focus on the climb and get past the residual fear I have. It helped recover after I broke my ankle last year, too. Huh. Turns out I've had a hard time working for a long enough contiguous time to actually get past the mid tens. Funny how that shit works.

Maybe you should try yoga. It might help you be less of an ass. And maybe it would help you learn that insulting people when you know little of their circumstances is, you know, kind of heartless.

But, oh yeah ... I guess my experiences don't mean much because I'm not as much of a hardman as you. You've truly humbled me, oh great intarweb god. You've showed me how truly large your man meat is. Forgive me for my hubris, oh great climber man. I guess I'll just go crawl into a hole now, because I'm not worthy.

This is a dig at me. Notice that I didn't say spiritualism ... I said the mental fitness aspect, and I used those words very carefully. My experience is that doing yoga from a tape doesn't get that meditative aspect that can be very helpful. You can train balance and flexibility with climbing specific exercises and stretching ... yoga doens't provide significant benefits over other exercises unless you do take it for the combination of mental and physical fitness. Yoga was designed for that, very specifically. That's all.

Yup. It has. After being dropped and spending 6 months barely able to walk, I had trouble trusting a belayer on toprope,..[blah blah blah]

Apparently that yoga hasn't helped you not be an ass.

Regardless of spiritualism or mental fitness... you have still fully imposed your values and experiences on others very unfairly. If "mental fitness" and "spiritualism" are so different for you, replace the two terms in my original statement, and I still stand by it fully.

Yoga is not necessarily a *theistic* or *worship* practice, though, which means you can put it to relatively secular use ... part of why it's translated well into western culture. But, remember, that the yoga instructor is supposed to be a spiritual instructor as well ... guiding you through the physical poses and the meditations that go with it.

Yoga or real training: you be the judge.

Jay

After injury, you have to train the strength and flexibility of the injured area in a way so as not to overstrain and re-injure it. Yoga provided a very good (yes, physical) environment where I could do that without risk of pushing too far (as opposed to climbing, which can put lots of strain on isolated parts of the body when trying to pull certain moves ... there's very little ability to tune it up or down according to how your injury is feeling).

What did you do to recoup your injury?

Thing is, in yoga while I was stretching, I was also working on strength, balance, focus, body awareness, and movement.

I came back at my same level.

PT and climbing.

I was able to do that climbing. Which activity do you think transfers better to climbing?

I came back about one number grade harder.

I'm not knocking yoga per se, just your unrealistic claims about its benefits to climbing.

... and yoga substituted for PT for me. I spent *that* time doing yoga (with my doctor's endorsement, natch). It was cheaper too.


MY point is that yoga transfers better than PT, not climbing.


... and I came back at the same level not having climbed at all. Huh. Seems kindof analogous, doesn't it? Had I climbed in that time, I would have risked further injury, but I could probably make similar claims about progress.

I don't think I was risking further injury while climbing, and I think what I've demonstrated is that PT + climbing was more efficient for climbing training while injured than yoga.

Jay

Have not. You're ignoring my second paragraph in that original post:

You've ignored my entire original point.

I refuse to argue with your ignorance.

The mental training, however, is a perspective unique to yoga that can benefit one's climbing.

Somebody forgot to tell Arno Ilgner. http://www.warriorsway.com

Jay