Finding fault

My friends have an annoying habit of pointing out that I'm not the best advertisement for yoga, since I'm often nursing a back injury. And this criticism gets under my skin—it's like a big fat "I told you so"—but it worries me enough that I asked my wonderful Feldenkrais practitioner, D, whether I should give it up. He was incredulous that I would even suggest such a thing. "Yoga didn't do this to you," he said. "You did it." And the more I think about it, the more I realize he's right. Indeed, yoga not only didn't injure me, but it is intrinsically injury-preventive in its teachings. Yoga is all about detachment and staying in the present and examining the path rather than racing for the goal. It was my attachment to achievement and to leaping into the future and to attaining a goal that got me where I am now—in pain and in physical therapy. So I may not be the best advertisement for yoga, but that's not because yoga is at fault. I'm at fault.