Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Chakrasana FAIL--Gifts and lessons

Injuries.  They're physically painful and, in the past, I used to only see them as these things that were preventing me from doing the things that I loved--or at least from doing them without pain (I ran entire track seasons with excruciating shin splints and nearly torn muscles).  Now, initially my first thought still tends to be: "Seriously?  Another injury?!  This sucks!  Why does this always happen to me?!!"  I let myself feel upset and a pissy for a little while, and then I let it go and try to see exactly what is it that my body is trying to tell me?  Because that's what an injury does--it literally forces you to take a pause in your "normal routine" and gives you the opportunity to gain a new, or deeper, understanding of some part of your life and, if you're really paying attention, instill a deeper sense of gratitude for the things that you have in your life and what you are capable of.

Lessons: 

(1) The muscles in your neck do a lot of work!  It takes a lot of effort just to hold that 10 pound ball that is your head in an upright position--let alone move it.  Add in a job where I sit in front of a computer and I am suddenly very aware of how often I lean/sag my head forward towards the computer.  I've been learning how to sit with my head in a more neutral position while I'm at work, because, really you don't actually need to lean your head forward to look at the computer.  Granted it requires less muscular effort to let it hang forward than it does to hold it neutral, but the leaning forward pulls on the muscles and felt like it actually weakened them.

(2)  I overuse the neck muscles.  Ok, that's not exactly a "new" lesson, but it's one that I've really felt now as opposed to just knowing it in my head.  The pain that came whenever I had to use my neck muscles was a pretty good kick in the...well, neck, lol, to let me know when I was using my neck muscles and didn't need to be.  For example: abdominal work.  I went to a Forrest yoga class last Thursday and during the abdominal work section I got a nice little jolt whenever my body tried to "cheat" and lift with my neck as opposed to my abs.  Talk about learning the hard way!  Again, this isn't exactly new, I know my abs don't actually like to do work when they're supposed to--it will recruit from my neck and my back instead.  But, now that both of those areas have "body tweaks" they have no choice but to do the work ;-) 

(3) Related to number 2 is I get to learn how to properly use the other muscles in my body since the one I overuse is injured.  Example: twists.  Again, I know that I'm supposed to twist through my core first and then the neck follows, and I actually do a fairly good job of making sure I don't just turn through the neck.  But...I do have one side that is harder to twist on than the other and apparently I use my neck to do it.  So, again, now the twist has to come through my core first.  The other place I've noticed that I really overuse the neck is in Up Dog, even if I'm not letting my head drop back.  It's been difficult to get the lift through the upper part of the back and I can feel now that I've been trying to pull it up with the muscles of my neck.  Now, I've been focusing on getting more lift in that pose by actually using the breath--instead of the neck muscles ;-)

(4) Forrest Yoga is a very intelligent practice.  I've still been practicing the Ashtanga series but since I hurt my neck I've had to bring in some aspects of Forrest Yoga.  Such as: keeping the chin in line with the chest during twists and not turning the head at all so that you can't do all of the turn in your neck.  Also, 2 words: Turbo Dog.  I think this is a genius pose.  It's down dog except you bend your arms.  Not all the way down to the floor, just enough so that you can feel the muscles on the side of the ribs turn on (specifically, your latissimus dorsi muscles).  It's wicked hard and that has been my down dog for the majority of my practice since I injured my neck.  Why?  Because it has been the only way I could get the upper muscles of my trapezius to not grip around my neck.  Also, it feels like strengthening that muscle has given my very open shoulders a little more stability because the shoulder muscles aren't having to do all of the work.  Lately I've also been noticing the inside of my elbows starting to get sore and I've heard from a couple of body workers and other teachers to not lock my elbows in poses where the arms are straight.  So having to keep that slight bend in my arms during down dog has been helping there too.

Gifts:

(1)  I said in my last post that this injury has felt like it was truly a gift and the big reason isn't because of all the great little lessons that I'm learning.  It's because it has made me fall in love with my home practice.  During the last week or so that I've been healing my neck injury, I've been practicing primarily at home and it's been so good.  In one of the posts that I wrote about my last day of teacher training, I said that the thing that I wanted to take with me from the training was my home practice.  Well, that didn't really happen.  I've been pretty much living in the Mysore room since the end of the training.  Which has been great, but it's almost like I haven't stopped to come up for air, almost like I haven't really processed all the yoga asana that I've been doing.  Home practice has always been a "weak" area for me.  I didn't start out my practice of yoga with a home practice and I've never really had one during my 2 1/2 years of practice.  The training forced me to practice more at home, in order to write my sequences, and I discovered that I practice very differently when I'm at home.  Even if it's the same thing that I practice at the studio (i.e, the Ashtanga series).  There's just something about the way I practice at home that makes everything I practice seem more easeful, less strenuous.  My shoulders never feel tired in down dog and I relish in holding poses for longer--and it never feels strenuous.  Well, with the exception of one pose: Vira (Warrior) 1.  I don't know what it is about that pose, I just don't like it.  It's almost like I feel very...exposed?  I think that's the right word.  Which doesn't make too much sense because it's the same arm position as one of my favorite standing poses: Utkatasana.  That's right, I discovered during this past week of home practice that Utkatasana is one of my favorite standing poses.  I've never felt that in a studio class or when I practice in the Mysore room.  But when I was practicing at home, I swear I could feel the energy from the work in my legs slowly travel up my body and just energize the whole pose. 

It feels like the biggest difference between practicing at home and practicing at the studio is that I am more relaxed at home, so everything feels a lot better.  I'm learning a lot about where I hold most of the tension in my body--my shoulders.  I swear that part of my body doesn't know how to relax when I'm around people.  Again, not a new concept but without the home practice to compare it to I don't think I would have known exactly how much that tension is blocking the energy from moving freely around my body.

On a related note, the other gift I got from this injury, and as a result of my home practice, was really getting to appreciate the genius of the Ashtanga Series.  After getting injured while practicing it, it kind of felt like I got to fall deeper in love with it.  Corny, right?  :-)  But I don't think I ever really felt what the Ashtanga was doing in my body and the effect it was having on my mind until I practiced it at home.  I could actually feel the ujjayi breath helping to warm up and open my body.  I have never actually felt it do that before!  And as I progressed through the series, I was actually able to witness my mind gradually growing steadier and quieter and feel when it actually "dropped in."  Funny thing about practicing at home, there are less distractions.  No other people to watch and listen to, no teacher.  Just you.  So, there are less outside distractions which makes it easier to see how many internal distractions there are.  At the studio, it always feels like it's super easy for me to just "drop in" to the practice.  Might be true, but it's more likely that my mind has just found some external thing to attach itself to--the teacher's voice, the music (if I'm in a class that plays it), other people, outside sounds, etc.  At home--there's none of that (I didn't play any music).  Just you and what's going on in your head.  Takes the practice to a whole other level.  That being said, the most important thing for me to do during that time, and the hardest, was just to start.  It didn't matter if I just layed on my back on the mat for a little while and just started with deepening my breathing, the most important thing was to get out of bed and get on the mat--if I didn't, I would stay asleep ;-)  Oh, that's another reason the dristhi is so important at that time of day, if I didn't focus my eyes on something, I could feel my body being resistant to waking up.  But once I actually got going...it was so good.  It was really hard to get myself to stop when I knew I needed to in order to get to work on time.  It was really sweet, it felt like I could keep practicing for hours and not get tired.

I have a handful of people who live at the condo building where I work at that I chat with about yoga whenever we see each other.  I was talking to one of them who mostly practices yoga at home about my recent exploration of a home practice and some of the best benefits of practicing at home: not having to carry multiple bags, being more relaxed, more room/opportunity to explore things in the practice, getting to eat breakfast at home, getting to ice the injured body parts directly after practice, the body not getting all cold and tight before practicing because of having to travel outside in the cold with multiple bags, and all of the other things I discovered during this last week.  What's really cool is that after our talk she said that she was inspired to start setting aside a dedicated time to do her practice at home, as opposed to the sporadic "gentle stretching and handful of standing poses" that she usually does (her description, not mine).  And, seeing as how she actually utilizes all of the "yoga tips" that I give her, she probably will :-)

So, going back to the studio after all this was kind of bizarre.  I went to a Forrest Yoga class that ended up fairly crowded and I felt like a deep sea fish that had been brought up to the surface too quickly!  I could feel that I was really on edge, I felt mildly claustrophobic and I couldn't seem to relax even for a moment.  The air in the room even felt scattered!  I almost, almost, just wanted to keep doing my own home practice.  But, I realized another thing after my talk with the resident of the condo.  I was telling her about my experience with Utkatasana and she didn't know what it was (because she didn't know the Sanskrit word for it).  So, I showed her and I described what I was doing, very simply, "bend the knees, weight in the heels, arms up."  That one instruction of "weight in the heels" was a light bulb moment for her!  She always felt like there was too much weight in front and had never been given that instruction before (again, she practices mostly at home) but hearing that one instruction totally changed the pose for her!  And that's why we go to classes--to learn from teachers.  Kate (my teacher) came back from her trip this weekend and she gave me one simple instruction for Trikonasana, "relax the toes (back foot) and put more weight here" "here" being the outside edge of my foot.  That one instruction changed the pose for me, I could feel that one little shift help open up that entire line of my body!

So, now I feel like it's time to figure out how to combine those two things: home practice and classes at the studio, with my teachers.  They both feel like they're important elements of a full yoga practice.  At home is where you integrate everything you've learned and start teaching yourself things about yoga.  At the studio is not only where you learn from your teachers, but it's also where people can see you and learn from you.  I've had people tell me before that they've learned something just by watching me and I've also learned from watching other people.  It's also one of the places that I get to share all the information that I've learned, both from the training and from my practice, with the people I practice with (when it comes to the subject of yoga, I talk just as much as I write, lol).  So, once I come back from my 2 week vacation back home (that's going to be interesting, but a subject for another time) I feel like I need to pull one day aside for a home practice.  It's weird, even though I know how great a home practice is I can feel that I'm still resistant to it.  But it's definitely time.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Becca! Sorry for the delayed response, I've been out of town with limited computer time--probably a good thing ;-) I'll be writing a follow-up post probably in a few days, but my neck is doing MUCH better, probably at about 95%, thanks for checking in :)

    How's your knee doing?

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  2. Hi Tara!! Sorry for the delayed response here too- been away from the blog-o-sphere for a few days... :) I'm so happy for you that your neck is feeling better! The knee not so much, I'm told it's a 3 month-ish recovery process and if that doesn't work surgery may have to be in the plans! I'm still practicing but really struggling with dropping in and being present and breathing (and I never had problems with this before so it's disconcerting)! Sorry to be a debbie downer on your good news post :) Take care!

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  3. Hi Becca! Don't think for a moment that you're being a Debbie-downer, it's good to hear from you either way :-) That is too bad about your knee. I'm not going to lie, long recoveries are tough, but you will be ok :-)

    When I broke my foot, it was 2 months on crutches, 1 month in a cast boot, 3(ish) months of physical therapy. All that was prior to the start of my yoga practice, so it was not the best of times, though I did learn a lot and surprised myself with how much I was actually capable of doing on my own WITH an injury like that, lol.

    I did end up having surgery a year later on the same foot, but it was pretty minor at that point, just had to remove a bone fragment from the initial fracture. That recovery was 2 weeks of sitting at home and no weight-bearing (which meant that I watched a lot of shows on Hulu, did a little bit of blogging, a little bit of restorative yoga and played with handstands against the wall--hey, I had to keep my foot elevated, lol), 2 months of walking in a cast boot and another 2 months or so of physical therapy. That second time around was much more easeful BECAUSE I had my yoga practice (this is the blog I was writing at during that time: http://taralyndesertrat.wordpress.com/)

    So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it will probably be tough, and there might even be days that you don't even want to get out of bed. But remember that simply getting on your mat, especially during those really rough days, even if it is for nothing more than a handful of restorative poses and a 30 minute savasana, is a huge accomplishment in itself. Yoga is a "practice" which means that not every time is going to be great (something I was shocked to learn myself, lol) but the most important thing is putting forth the effort. And listen to and trust your body, believe me it knows what you need even if your brain doesn't. That's what it's important to just get on your mat and start doing SOMETHING, your body will talk to you and lead you from there ;-)

    Good luck, keep me posted :-)

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  4. I totally want to hug you right now (and trust me, I'm not a touchy feel-y person at all). Thanks, Tara for saying exactly what I needed to hear-

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  5. You are so very welcome Becca :-) Thank YOU for reading my blog, sharing part of your practice with me and giving me the chance to pass on the things that I learned :-)

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