Experiential Knowledge
Yoga is an embodied practice that involves experiential learning.
Having a sound theoretical framework is very useful but not sufficient for the practice to be realised.
A great thought experiment that always resonated with me in this regard is "Mary in the Black and White Room".
The premise is this;
"Mary is a scientist, and her specialist subject is color. She knows everything there is to know about it. The wavelengths. The neurological effects. Every possible property that color can have. But she lives in a black and white room. She was born there and raised there. And she can only observe the outside world on a black and white monitor. And then one day someone opens the door. And Mary walks out. And she sees a blue sky. And at that moment, she learns something that all her studies couldn't tell her. She learns what it *feels* like to see color."
What this thought experiment teaches us is that there is a gap between intellectual knowledge, and experiential knowledge.
My experience in physiotherapy school privileged understanding theoretical mechanisms. Ironically, most of the pathoanatomical reasoning I learnt at uni in relation to pain and its causation has now been debunked, while simultaneously we were not encouraged as students to participate in embodied movement practices- the very thing we are supposed to be experts at prescribing.
We are taught to read research literature, and determine intervention effect sizes based on population averages (for a subjective endpoint), rather than explore the subjectivity around movement from a 1st person perspective.
This knowledge gap I experienced first hand as a persistent pain patient, which eventually led me to yoga, whereby I gained an appreciation for the importance of experiential knowledge. Particularly the interactions I had with my first yoga teacher Kale, who was an experiential "expert", something I hadn't encountered in my physiotherapy journey.
I think a balanced approach to integrating and reconciling 3rd person experimental science with 1st person introspective movement practice is ideal. We shouldn't grossly neglect one while privileging another.