Even though it would lead you away from the truth? There are many exercises that can be done to help arthritis.
She’s talking about the exercise, not the spiritual practice which can be separated from the exercise.
I don’t buy into this “black and white” mentality that because something is attached to an Eastern spirituality, it is automatically “bad”. It’s like saying an author wrote a bad book so therefore all his good books must be bad as well.
There are positive elements in any culture/spirituality besides our own. That’s not to say that the
entire practice of a specific spirituality is all good, but it doesn’t mean it’s all bad either. If the “inventors” of yoga managed to put together moves that are beneficial to sufferers of arthritis or other conditions, and that are superior to other forms of exercise, there’s nothing wrong with borrowing that particular exercise from yoga and doing it on its own.
Similarly some forms of Eastern meditation are useful for clearing the mind and focusing on prayer. If we use an Eastern technique to focus on Christ, what’s the big deal?
May I ask from a pure exercise basis what people get from yoga. In my opinion the only type of exercise that does any good is aerobic.
This is absolutely not true. Many exercises are prescribed for various issues such as improving joint flexibility or building up muscle mass to deal with such things as poor posture or back pain. It’s especially true as we age.
Of course aerobic exercise is extremely important. For instance my wife and I do long-distance road bicycling. But the non-aerobic part of our routine, that is pre- and post-ride stretches, are increasingly important as we get older (we’re in our late 50s).
My wife is a family doctor and she routinely prescribes non-aerobic exercises to her patients to deal with specific aches and pains, side effects or lingering effects of surgery, arthritis, sprains, back troubles, etc. etc.
