The Dangers of Yoga?

I've done various forms of sport and exercise over the years, from martial arts to weightlifting to tennis. Just recently I was thinking about taking up yoga. Then I saw a recent article from the New York Times about "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body." Here is a scary quote:

While balanced on her head, her neck bent far backward, the woman “suddenly felt a severe throbbing headache.” She had difficulty getting up, and when helped into a standing position, was unable to walk without assistance. The woman was rushed to the hospital. She had no sensation on the right side of her body; her left arm and leg responded poorly to her commands. Her eyes kept glancing involuntarily to the left. And the left side of her face showed a contracted pupil, a drooping upper eyelid and a rising lower lid — a cluster of symptoms known as Horner’s syndrome. Nagler reported that the woman also had a tendency to fall to the left.

Her doctors found that the woman’s left vertebral artery, which runs between the first two cervical vertebrae, had narrowed considerably and that the arteries feeding her cerebellum had undergone severe displacement. Given the lack of advanced imaging technologies at the time, an exploratory operation was conducted to get a clearer sense of her injuries. The surgeons who opened her skull found that the left hemisphere of her cerebellum suffered a major failure of blood supply that resulted in much dead tissue and that the site was seeped in secondary hemorrhages. 

The patient began an intensive program of rehabilitation. Two years later, she was able to walk, Nagler reported, “with [a] broad-based gait.” But her left arm continued to wander and her left eye continued to show Horner’s syndrome. Nagler concluded that such injuries appeared to be rare but served as a warning about the hazards of “forceful hyperextension of the neck.” He urged caution in recommending such postures, particularly to individuals of middle age.

I showed this to a friend who did yoga for a while, and she agreed with the substance of the article, that yoga can easily become a dangerous activity if practiced improperly. In fact, she felt that many yoga poses should not be done at all, ever, by anyone. She still does certain yoga poses, but does not strain or hold them for long periods, and she avoids movements that cause discomfort or pain.

I would rather learn yoga from a class than a video, but this is definitely a concern. I realize this kind of catastrophic injury is rare, but I am also concerned about the advisability of doing movements or positions that stretch the ligaments, which, unlike muscles and tendons, do not "bounce back." Stretched ligaments means loosened joints, which is a recipe for injury.

The likelihood is that I will still try out yoga for while, but I will have to practice smart and listen to my body, as they say. I have had enough injuries over the years as it is.