A wellbeing skill: moving attentively in hospital yoga practice

Abstract

Yoga is sometimes interpreted as medical therapy and the evidence from biomedical research indicates that it can be useful in a broad range of health conditions. Yoga, however, can also be pursued as a process-oriented contemplative practice. This article draws on participant observation-based research with yoga practitioners at two hospitals, one in Pondicherry, India, and one in Fukui, Japan. It explores how patients and their families at these healthcare institutions are invited to move without anticipating an outcome and to cultivate attitudes such as contentment and non-violence. Taking cues from research participants’ approaches to yoga as a skill and from anthropological understandings of skill, yoga is considered here as a capacity of moving with awareness. A skill-based approach allows practitioners to try out yogic techniques according to their personal abilities and needs. The analysis suggests that, in the contexts discussed, yoga practitioners pursue wellbeing not as an individual therapeutic goal but as mutual explorative learning.

Keywords:

• Yoga
• movement awareness
• skill
• wellbeing
• India
• Japan

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to all research participants, Dr. Motoko Saito and Dr. Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani in particular. Thank you for your time, insights, and for making this research possible. I am indebted to colleagues at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, the Medical Anthropology Working Group, and the Centre for Area Studies at Freie Universität Berlin for insightful comments and suggestions on the earlier drafts of this article and especially to IfSCA’s Director prof. Hansjörg Dilger. I am indebted to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable and encouraging comments. Last but certainly not least, I am grateful to Prof. Alison Shaw and Dr. Esra Kayatz, editors of this special issue, for their careful attention to the manuscripts as well as helpful editorial comments and suggestions.

Ethical approval

The funding institution did not require formal ethics clearance. The author obtained ethics approval from Shri Balaji Vidyapeeth Medical College for fieldwork.

Disclosure statement

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Notes

1 The verse could also be translated as follows: ‘yoga entails proficiency in/of movement.’ 

2 At RCH patients tend to be older but also appear more relaxed and less drowsy from medication.

3 See Hauser, this issue, for different theorisations of the kosha model.

4 As they contemplate how perception and senses of self alter with practice, they can relinquish conceptual interpretation of movement and its effects and, instead, to experience (self and the world) without judgement. 

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded through Dahlem Research School 2015 Point Fellowship, which is gratefully acknowledged.