One take I heard about yoga that kinda applies here is "if yoga is injuring you, your understanding of it is wrong"
I think the underlying issue with all these asian-spiritualism-turned-western-nouveau-health is that western people sometimes come in wanting things to be intense, clinical and goal-oriented. But that's literally the opposite of what most of what these disciplines are all about. Asian health upkeep practices (yoga, tai chi, meditation, radio taiso, etc) are mostly about gentle but consistent practice to keep gears oiled for the long run. Most of those aren't even meant to be healing disciplines.
if yoga is injuring you, your understanding of it is wrong
That feels a lot like either victim blaming, or being fed a No True Scotsman truism and accepting it.
One could say the same thing about staying within their skill level for any high-risk adventure sport. "If that advanced ski course is injuring you ...."
It's interesting that you brought up high risk sports. The context of that quote was related to people injuring themselves by being too aggressive on stuff they should know better (one example was a relatively advanced practitioner pulling a calf muscle on a downward dog of all things). That's an example of a type of injury where the person sets goals (e.g. stretching to some specific previously achieved limit) without paying attention to the current state of the body (e.g. it's a fairly well known phenomenon that muscles are tighter in the morning than early evening, especially before warm ups).
Yoga isn't about quantified stretch goals, it's a daily fitness regime. So if you pull a leg muscle by going on a super deep downward dog first thing in the morning without warming up because you're aspiring to reach some guru-like level quickly, instead of seeing yoga as a fitness program to carry your body to old age, then yes, your understanding of the practice is wrong.
At that point it's just a truism. Most sports injuries, aside from the ones caused by physical contact with another player, are the result of some mistake in form that, in hindsight, could have been prevented.
"western people sometimes come in wanting things to be intense, clinical and goal-oriented."
That describes me exactly. I spent forever look for a "quantified meditation" course.
I even kept a mediation journal where I could track how many times I lost track of my breath in a 5 minute session. I started out around 50 and was desperately trying to get to 0.
I even used an app that counts taps, that I would rest under my finger, so that I could mark each failure as quickly and easily as possible. Without trying to "remember" the count of failures because it would distract me from the breath.
I felt that if I could get to 0, that I wouldn't be ready for enlightenment, but I would at least achieve ACCESS CONCENTRATION and be able to enter the stream. At that point, it could become a spiritual practice, but I wanted to develop sufficient concentration abilities and conquer my ADHD before thinking too much about what mediation was actually for.
It's been really hard for me to let go of the idea that my meditation needs a score to track my progress.
Goal-oriented meditation is not Buddhist meditation.
I once read a book by Aleister Crowley, that included a series of meditation practices intended to increase your personal power. The instruction was very similar to the instructions I had received for a type of mindfulness.
I never tried Crowley's practices; but still, for weeks after reading that book, I had a feeling of dread, as if something awful was following me around.
Tai Chi is intense and goal-oriented; it's a martial arts system. The katas look like some kind of calm "yoga in motion", but the katas are not the core of Tai Chi.
I mean, yes and no. It's a martial arts system in the sense that it incorporates combative mechanics, and I do know of people who attempt to incorporate it into combat against resisting opponents, but some people take issue w/ calling it a martial art because of quack "masters" claiming to be invincible (but then getting their ass kicked within seconds by some MMA dude), and also partly because the popular calisthenic variety is not combat-oriented.
IMHO the biggest dissonance between western idea of "intense" vs eastern is that westerners think of intensity as optimizing for burst amplitude (in martial arts' case, specifically honing combative prowess), whereas easterners think of it as a matter of consistent holistic development (core strength, balance, attention, etc).
I think the underlying issue with all these asian-spiritualism-turned-western-nouveau-health is that western people sometimes come in wanting things to be intense, clinical and goal-oriented. But that's literally the opposite of what most of what these disciplines are all about. Asian health upkeep practices (yoga, tai chi, meditation, radio taiso, etc) are mostly about gentle but consistent practice to keep gears oiled for the long run. Most of those aren't even meant to be healing disciplines.