If you're reading this, you likely already know that yoga is medicine: for the body, the mind, and the soul. You know it, your teachers know it, the ancient sages definitely knew it (that's why they invented it in the first place!) But the Western medical industry at large has been slow to warm up to the idea. So yogis have started realizing that, if we want the rest of the world to believe how good this stuff really is for you, we better find some Western ways of proving it.

That's what a lot of today's offerings, at the final day of the YJ conference, were about. The theme of the day was Yoga as Medicine, and I took Gary Kraftsow's day-long workshop entitled Viniyoga Therapy: Back Care. Gary (pictured above), who founded the American Viniyoga Institute, is an important figure in the yoga-as-medicine world. Over the last several years, he has conducted studies in conjunction with the National Institute of Health that have proven, through scientific method, that yoga is beneficial in healing the body. This is a big deal because it means that the Western world is starting to take seriously the practice we cherish so much.

Gary talked a lot about basic principles of therapeutics, which is his area of expertise, and offered us three different therapeutic series' for lower back and sacrum, hips, and upper back and neck. He stressed the importance of dynamic, repetitive movement as a treatment for muscular injuries as opposed to long holds in a pose because: 1) contracting and releasing a muscle helps bring circulation to the area, which is essential in its healing and 2) repetitive movement helps train the body to create new patterns. Gary also strongly stressed that poses are meant to be adapted in different ways for different purposes for different people. If you've been trying to access a pose a particular way for years and it's just not happening, he said, you might want to try another approach.

In the middle of my day with Gary, there was a lunchtime talk being given by Dr. Dean Ornish (pictured left) who is, among other things, the director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito and Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF. A huge proponent of natural health, Ornish has also taken on the task of getting natural healing modalities, like yoga and diet changes, to be taken more seriously by the Western medical world. (He says Medicaid will soon be covering yoga as a result of his efforts!) Ornish's speech was short but captivating, and his message was clear: No matter what genetic condition we have been handed down, we can change the way it is expressed by watching our diet, and doing yoga and meditation. Ornish also did a book signing today, as did Dr. Timothy McCall, the author of the best-selling book for which the conference was named: Yoga as Medicine.

It's so great that the wider world is finally recognizing what we know to be true. I like to imagine a day where people of all walks of life are doing asana and eating ayurvedically after being diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease—as opposed to downing a bunch of pills with a Coke and a Big Mac. (Hey, I can dream, right?)