A wellbeing skill: moving attentively in hospital yoga practice

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.