Last night Scott and I went out for a walk (at 7:30, I'm not 35, after all). It had been days since I'd gone outside. This "vacation" has been punctuated by long stretches of in-home activity - sorting, going to the dump (that's the extremely appreciated friend-with-a-car part of our experience), trying to find a place to live (do not get me started), getting party-wall permit letters done... I could go on.
And while I really needed some fresh air, alas, it was raining last night (sometimes freezing, sometimes regular). Not good weather for pain. (Apparently, it's really bad weather for osteoarthritis - which my husband has in his right large toe - to a rather extensive degree. We were out for 90 minutes and, by the time we got back, he was all but hobbled. I reviewed his foot with shock. I made him drink cherry juice and I rubbed it (yoga therapy style).) This morning when we woke up, it was way improved - far less inflamed. The sun is out in force today, miraculously for this time of year. It's dry and cold again.
I too began very stiff and sore today, particularly in my hips (the original seat of my pain, starting 20 years ago - but much less painful than the rest of my back most of the time, these days).
I swigged a ginger shot. Went into the yoga room, wherein I sat for a while, wondering what would come of my session. Some days are very fortunate. Some days I realize things (big and important, small and intriguing, part of a larger, emerging whole). My mind drifted first to self-inquiry. The stream of my consciousness: Why am I in pain, in my hips, of all places? and then Ah, Kristin, remember when you hated standing poses? (Ed. note: In the old days, during the first week of every month - the standing pose focus week in the Iyengar system - I'd be in semi-regular hip misery.) Then I thought about how so many yoga practitioners believe that being able to do a pose automatically imparts the benefits of that pose. I could do any damn standing pose proficiently - and I really believed I was feeling its benefit - but it would hurt me a good 50 per cent of the time (to say nothing of potential micro injuries).
Then it struck me. Standing poses are the way of the future.* But, as I know (and have been reflecting in my practice methods), sometimes I cannot do the full physical expressions of some of those asanas (the more weight bearing ones) without producing joint and myofascial pain thereafter. Sure, sometimes I'm fine, after the fact, but I often feel on the edge (which is unsettling and not the point of bodywork, IMO).
Increasingly, I've been doing standing poses at my rope wall. I can happily manage bearing @ 75% of my body weight on my hips, without running risk of causing pain, as long as I can keep my back hip open and as long as I can defer about 25 per cent of the weight of the front leg to the wall-attached rope at which I'm perched (traction allows for this).
I did many side-angle standing poses this way today. Because I could control the minutest of actions, I was able to have a really rich experience. I felt my musculature from foot to head on a number of occasions. I moved things around from the inside which allows for a lot of shifting, very little of which expresses itself in movement of the muscles and bones. When I did a supported backbend, instead of keeping my legs in my "regular" position, I extended them slowly in different directions, lengthened them to straight and observed how the movement (and limiters of that movement) interacted. My brain talked to my body. Increasingly I wonder if this sensation is straight-up neurochemical or meta. You know, energetic, for the Californians among us. I happen to feel that it matters not and, either way, I am privileged to have this awareness.
And then I went to my next thought wave: What is the relationship between pain and mobility?
Hear me out. In yoga, we talk a lot about quantifying pain as a mechanism by which we can ascertain safety in the pose. That's a post in itself, so I won't dwell here, but today I want to consider this question through the prism of myofascial and/or arthritic pain. All you need to do is pull up a website and you'll see pretty pictures articulating the simple (and hurtful) mechanism of joint and bone degeneration which drags muscles and nerves along for the ride. People with arthritis experience pain at a most interior (amorphous) level, sometimes extremely and relentlessly. I posit that, when the arthritic person doesn't engage the affected area(s) in very frequent targeted activity, inflammation catalyses a decrease in one's mobility as pertains to one's previous full range of motion. But to move, except very consciously, can also bring pain. The less refined one's movement (and this is defined entirely by the individual), the more the muscles and bones have to work with brute strength - and if they misfunction just slightly - nerve compression can be the result.
Sort of sounds like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
But I believe that's a flawed perspective. What careful movement does is maintain mobility. And stability is in mobility. Incremental improvement and the delayed onset of serious symptomology are prime features of mobility. Mobility isn't a "nice to have" - it's core.
Yoga is the most profoundly personal thing I have ever experienced. I am a constant
student in that I am always learning and in that I am sincere. Mind
you, I spent a very long time being sincere and yet I couldn't
quantify what was happening in my body. Ironically, though I was
probably seeking contentment, pain has been the self-awareness tipping point for me -
particularly given its phased onset. It's compelled me to move my practice
out of my extrinsic body and into the crevices.
So, if I must sometimes incur pain to be agile (and I speak of this as an intermittent outcome of a mindful practice) that's a trade-off I'm willing to make. Strangely, it's empowering. Because it makes me feel like my pain is meaningful, maybe even slightly volitional. It makes me feel like it's for the greater good.
*In truth, one doesn't need a degree in yoga to know that standing poses are indicated for arthritis / musculoskeletal conditions. But, really, it eventually becomes very clear that any number of poses which might, theoretically, be good, can actually be very harmful (likely because of how they're being performed but sometimes because a pose is not warranted).
Showing posts with label Yoga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yoga. Show all posts
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Friday, December 23, 2016
Full Wheel
Today I went into the sewga room (really, it's the single-purpose yoga room these days, cuz for how long can one ride on past activity?). I couldn't decide what to do. I'm recovering from an eye infection (but it's almost gone, thankfully, as it made me look like I'd been hit in the face and it hurt like hell). I'm not in a high-pain moment but it's really damp outside (which can be tricky for me). I'm also very tired. I know it's important to be active, to lift weight, but right about now I feel it's even more important to retain some perspective on movement.
As a sidebar, you know I've had some time to consider the nature of mobility. I've also had a lot of time to consider what it means to gauge everything by one or 2 indicators. So often, I think about how perhaps I've lost pose X, or my ability to do Y, instead of being super fucking grateful for how much extraneous flexibility and strength I actually possess. I mean, how much do I need? What is it that I'm searching for when my time to regenerate is focused on abstract loss? It's no new question, natch, but what would practice be like for everyone if, as a society, we started to laud the stiffness and weakness of which we are all, to some extent, comprised?
You've heard it again and again - I mean, I've said it again and again - one's practice is in no way dictated by how a pose looks. I wish I had been able to understand this in my youth, though youth is rarely wise. I wish I'd spent more time engaging subtly to gain awareness about how a microscopic movement can produce transformation, sometimes merely for a moment, other times forever. But evolution is on its own timeline.
When I say my practice is random, I'm both entirely serious and probably wrong. I walk into the room and I intuit what to do next. I ask my body the question. I listen intently for the answer. I push aside what I want to hear. I listen again. And I'm continually amazed by what craziness I get up to. Sometime I do whack interpretive dance without music (?!) Sometimes it's MELT and body rolling. Sometime it's lying in therapeutic poses, doing pranayama, for an hour. Sometimes I hang in ropes - I do every pose using some sort of prop for traction. I rarely practice with online classes in the winter, but I have a bunch of them. I prefer restorative and alignment classes (though I do vinyasa too).
Today was a strange day. Today I did active back bends. Ah, these used to be my prized poses, the ones that made me lively and flushed. They gave me access to the the dark flip side, as it were. These, and the inversions, were my go-tos. I haven't done urdhva danurasana (full wheel) in a long time - maybe a year - and I really don't know how the impulse came but I gave it ample opportunity to wander away, and it didn't. First, I worked on thoracic and sacral opening in a variety of traditional Iyengar set-ups (using chairs and belts and blocks). Then I did some rope work for traction. Then I got on the floor, with one belt around my upper arms and another around my upper legs (not regular practice for me but I'm not doing backbends on a daily basis and I wanted to be stable). I spent about 30 seconds fighting with my anxiety (not of doing the pose but of not being able to do the pose or of causing myself pain). Then I smacked myself metaphorically, like any good Iyengar teacher of the 90s, and I lifted up. Cuz thinking more about it wasn't going to get me anywhere.
A minute or so later, when I came out of the pose - which didn't cause pain - I lay on the floor and argued with myself. Should I do it again? Did I want to do it again?
I did not repeat the pose, though I wondered if it would have been fun the second time. I did not repeat that pose because it only needed to be done once. I used my muscles. I flexed my flexibility. I bore weight (all these things that are important for my spinal health). And the person I am, right now, needs to expend the minimum amount of effort for the maximum gain. It would have been hard to keep going. I would have achieved more. And in that achievement, I may have brought on pain.
How many times have I caused myself injury because my desire to achieve outweighed my better judgement? How many times will I do it in the future? No sense in worrying. Today my body and mind got it together and we came up with a viable plan. Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.
As a sidebar, you know I've had some time to consider the nature of mobility. I've also had a lot of time to consider what it means to gauge everything by one or 2 indicators. So often, I think about how perhaps I've lost pose X, or my ability to do Y, instead of being super fucking grateful for how much extraneous flexibility and strength I actually possess. I mean, how much do I need? What is it that I'm searching for when my time to regenerate is focused on abstract loss? It's no new question, natch, but what would practice be like for everyone if, as a society, we started to laud the stiffness and weakness of which we are all, to some extent, comprised?
You've heard it again and again - I mean, I've said it again and again - one's practice is in no way dictated by how a pose looks. I wish I had been able to understand this in my youth, though youth is rarely wise. I wish I'd spent more time engaging subtly to gain awareness about how a microscopic movement can produce transformation, sometimes merely for a moment, other times forever. But evolution is on its own timeline.
When I say my practice is random, I'm both entirely serious and probably wrong. I walk into the room and I intuit what to do next. I ask my body the question. I listen intently for the answer. I push aside what I want to hear. I listen again. And I'm continually amazed by what craziness I get up to. Sometime I do whack interpretive dance without music (?!) Sometimes it's MELT and body rolling. Sometime it's lying in therapeutic poses, doing pranayama, for an hour. Sometimes I hang in ropes - I do every pose using some sort of prop for traction. I rarely practice with online classes in the winter, but I have a bunch of them. I prefer restorative and alignment classes (though I do vinyasa too).
Today was a strange day. Today I did active back bends. Ah, these used to be my prized poses, the ones that made me lively and flushed. They gave me access to the the dark flip side, as it were. These, and the inversions, were my go-tos. I haven't done urdhva danurasana (full wheel) in a long time - maybe a year - and I really don't know how the impulse came but I gave it ample opportunity to wander away, and it didn't. First, I worked on thoracic and sacral opening in a variety of traditional Iyengar set-ups (using chairs and belts and blocks). Then I did some rope work for traction. Then I got on the floor, with one belt around my upper arms and another around my upper legs (not regular practice for me but I'm not doing backbends on a daily basis and I wanted to be stable). I spent about 30 seconds fighting with my anxiety (not of doing the pose but of not being able to do the pose or of causing myself pain). Then I smacked myself metaphorically, like any good Iyengar teacher of the 90s, and I lifted up. Cuz thinking more about it wasn't going to get me anywhere.
A minute or so later, when I came out of the pose - which didn't cause pain - I lay on the floor and argued with myself. Should I do it again? Did I want to do it again?
I did not repeat the pose, though I wondered if it would have been fun the second time. I did not repeat that pose because it only needed to be done once. I used my muscles. I flexed my flexibility. I bore weight (all these things that are important for my spinal health). And the person I am, right now, needs to expend the minimum amount of effort for the maximum gain. It would have been hard to keep going. I would have achieved more. And in that achievement, I may have brought on pain.
How many times have I caused myself injury because my desire to achieve outweighed my better judgement? How many times will I do it in the future? No sense in worrying. Today my body and mind got it together and we came up with a viable plan. Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Yoga Therapy
People have asked me about the trajectory of my yoga practice these days and, I've got to say, it is like nothing I've done since I was in my early 20s (back in my hardcore Iyengar days when I was training to teach).
Brief side bar: For those of you who are unfamiliar with Iyengar teacher training, it is unlike any other. This is not gym-yoga teacher certification. I trained (seemingly endlessly) for 2 years before I took my "exam" and gained level 1 certification. Senior teachers have decades of training and certification behind them. Many of the Iyengar teachers I have known are infinitely more knowledgeable about functional anatomy than other rehab therapists - not that I'm dissing anyone. What I mean to say is that, for chronic structural and systemic issues, I'll start with Iyengar yoga pretty well every time because it requires specified, active and focused engagement on the part of the person receiving treatment. And a senior teacher is generally phenomenally capable (though not always). Plus, the nature of the relationship between the teacher, the student and the practice is highly refined. This is a questioner's modality.
Having said that, for years I moved away from technical extremism of the method in favour of others - the lively, adrenaline-filled, highly aerobic forms. I was young, and youth doesn't generally favour "deep technique" at the peril of all else. Don't misunderstand, I've always been more of an Iyengar practitioner than any other sort, but I went "fusion" for a while - and likely will again. After all, variety is the spice of life, etc.
Let me say this now, and loud, and clear: I am profoundly grateful for my Iyengar training and my decades of regular practice. They have saved me time and time again - through chronic pain, acute injury, exhaustion, illness, anxiety and plain-old daily living. Furthermore, I know, with every practice that I undertake: I am capable because asana, increasingly, is second-nature. The more taxed my body has become, the more reliant I've become on the confidence imparted by body-memory. Because getting into many of the poses indicated in the Iyengar therapeutic practice*, is not something that most infirm or inexperienced persons can accomplish alone. It can be scary to invert, to tie oneself up, to trust a prop (or 10). Moreover, until you know what you're doing, it can be dangerous.
I think it's important to note the regrettable fact that, even with impetus, most people do not have the space, the (sometimes) pricey props or the knowledge to benefit from this practice at home. And those who don't live in major urban centres may not have access to the requisite studios and teachers to learn. Not to mention, the best time to learn something complicated is when you are young and healthy. Sometimes people come to the therapeutic Iyengar practice only after chronic illness has set in. A good teacher and commitment are CRITICAL, under those circumstances, but also challenging - and this scenario doesn't lend itself to one being able to benefit from therapeutic home practice in the short run. This is in no way to dissuade anyone from Iyengar therapy. I just want to qualify that the benefits come with sincere application and effort. It's not passive in any way.
Below is a sample practice that I might do on any given day. Most mornings I do about 20 minutes of traction work but I wouldn't call that a practice so much as maintenance. My average time in a therapeutic session is about 75 minutes but, given how batshit busy my life is right now, I'm only doing that 2x per week.
I don't know when I'll return to standard-issue, active practice on a regular basis but I've decided not to give it undue consideration. Right now this is where I'm at and I'm so grateful to be able to accomplish what I need to in order to heal. When I get to the next phase, I'm sure I'll know it...
Kristin Sample Iyengar Therapeutic Practice**
* The supported or therapeutic practice is only one form of the Iyengar methodology, but is central to the philosophy of structural and endocrine/nervous system health. When you do "regular" Iyengar practice, it looks much more like any other sort of yoga you'd find at any studio though it does make use of more props than other styles and it holds poses, statically, for LONG periods of time. 5-10 min in headstand is not unusual. Of course, you'll never be encouraged to undertake long holdings of complex poses until you have achieved a level of ability and awareness via less comple poses and modified versions of the complex pose.
** Note: For interest, I've provided the English pose names as well as Sanskrit but, really, if you are not familiar with the Sanskrit names, you probably don't know enough about the method be trying this outside of a classroom environment.
Brief side bar: For those of you who are unfamiliar with Iyengar teacher training, it is unlike any other. This is not gym-yoga teacher certification. I trained (seemingly endlessly) for 2 years before I took my "exam" and gained level 1 certification. Senior teachers have decades of training and certification behind them. Many of the Iyengar teachers I have known are infinitely more knowledgeable about functional anatomy than other rehab therapists - not that I'm dissing anyone. What I mean to say is that, for chronic structural and systemic issues, I'll start with Iyengar yoga pretty well every time because it requires specified, active and focused engagement on the part of the person receiving treatment. And a senior teacher is generally phenomenally capable (though not always). Plus, the nature of the relationship between the teacher, the student and the practice is highly refined. This is a questioner's modality.
Having said that, for years I moved away from technical extremism of the method in favour of others - the lively, adrenaline-filled, highly aerobic forms. I was young, and youth doesn't generally favour "deep technique" at the peril of all else. Don't misunderstand, I've always been more of an Iyengar practitioner than any other sort, but I went "fusion" for a while - and likely will again. After all, variety is the spice of life, etc.
Let me say this now, and loud, and clear: I am profoundly grateful for my Iyengar training and my decades of regular practice. They have saved me time and time again - through chronic pain, acute injury, exhaustion, illness, anxiety and plain-old daily living. Furthermore, I know, with every practice that I undertake: I am capable because asana, increasingly, is second-nature. The more taxed my body has become, the more reliant I've become on the confidence imparted by body-memory. Because getting into many of the poses indicated in the Iyengar therapeutic practice*, is not something that most infirm or inexperienced persons can accomplish alone. It can be scary to invert, to tie oneself up, to trust a prop (or 10). Moreover, until you know what you're doing, it can be dangerous.
I think it's important to note the regrettable fact that, even with impetus, most people do not have the space, the (sometimes) pricey props or the knowledge to benefit from this practice at home. And those who don't live in major urban centres may not have access to the requisite studios and teachers to learn. Not to mention, the best time to learn something complicated is when you are young and healthy. Sometimes people come to the therapeutic Iyengar practice only after chronic illness has set in. A good teacher and commitment are CRITICAL, under those circumstances, but also challenging - and this scenario doesn't lend itself to one being able to benefit from therapeutic home practice in the short run. This is in no way to dissuade anyone from Iyengar therapy. I just want to qualify that the benefits come with sincere application and effort. It's not passive in any way.
Below is a sample practice that I might do on any given day. Most mornings I do about 20 minutes of traction work but I wouldn't call that a practice so much as maintenance. My average time in a therapeutic session is about 75 minutes but, given how batshit busy my life is right now, I'm only doing that 2x per week.
I don't know when I'll return to standard-issue, active practice on a regular basis but I've decided not to give it undue consideration. Right now this is where I'm at and I'm so grateful to be able to accomplish what I need to in order to heal. When I get to the next phase, I'm sure I'll know it...
Kristin Sample Iyengar Therapeutic Practice**
- Savasana 2 over wooden blocks / Corpse pose back bend over wooden blocks to open the thoracic spine (@5 minutes)
- Tractional Uttanasana (Standing forward bend) with wall ropes at groin and then at upper thigh. Head rests on blocks. (@5 minutes).
- Tractional Adho Mukha Svanasana (Dog Pose) with wall ropes at groin and then at upper thigh. Head rests on block. (@10 minutes) This is probably the single most useful thing I do for pain management. It allows the spine to lengthen while the hips are stabilized. Gives intensive traction at the hips too.
- Tractional Adho Mukha Svanasana - Twist variation (Dog Pose Twist). Ropes hold hips in place to allow for arms and torso to twist while hands and torso move right or left of the mat. (@5 minutes). I often hear numerous pops throughout my spine and neck in this pose.
- Tractional Rope Sirsasana (Headstand) with hips supported by a rope sling. (@5 minutes) Awesome for balancing endocrine and nervous systems. Plus, extreme spinal traction, esp. at hips. To get out of this I bring my hands to the floor, straighten out of the ropes into Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand) at the wall (@2 minutes). Then rest in Adho Mukha Virasana (Childs Pose) (@3 minutes).
- Virasana (Hero Pose) followed by Adho Mukha Virasana (Reclined / Backbend Hero Pose) over bolster with upper legs supported by belt. This is weight-bearing on hip, knee and foot joints. It opens the psoas and moves deeply into the mid-thoracic, lumbar and sacral spine. (@5 minutes)
- Tractional Sarvangasana, Setu Bandha Sarvangasana and Halasana sequence using a chair (Shoulderstand, Backbend and Plow Pose) (@10 minutes) This is a power-triumvirate allowing for long stay in a deep inversion, inverted backbend and inverted forward bend. Also stabilizing for the nervous and endocrine systems.
- Upavistha Konasana (Wide Angled Forward Bend) with Twist Variations (@10 minutes). With adequate flexibility, this pose provides excellent spinal traction in a very sustainable fashion. The twists are terrific for moving into the hips, side body and lateral thoracic spine. Rest afterwards in Savasana for a couple of minutes to ensure that the hip joints are balanced. Sometimes my hip joint and sacrum click massively after this sequence.
- Viparita Karani (Legs Up the Wall over Bolster) (@10 minutes) This provides cervical traction and is a supported inversion. It's very good for promoting cardiovascular and ciruculatory health.
- Supine Upavistha Konasana, Legs supported by ropes. (@5 minutes). This provides an opportunity for my sacrum and the muscles around it to release. Very calming.
* The supported or therapeutic practice is only one form of the Iyengar methodology, but is central to the philosophy of structural and endocrine/nervous system health. When you do "regular" Iyengar practice, it looks much more like any other sort of yoga you'd find at any studio though it does make use of more props than other styles and it holds poses, statically, for LONG periods of time. 5-10 min in headstand is not unusual. Of course, you'll never be encouraged to undertake long holdings of complex poses until you have achieved a level of ability and awareness via less comple poses and modified versions of the complex pose.
** Note: For interest, I've provided the English pose names as well as Sanskrit but, really, if you are not familiar with the Sanskrit names, you probably don't know enough about the method be trying this outside of a classroom environment.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
It's Relative
I've spent much of my yoga-doing time engaged in a battle of self-accomplishment. It's not surprising, on balance. I'm a competitive self-improver. Sure, I only lock horns with myself, but you'd be surprised by how far you can descend into that paradigm.
One of my most entrenched obsessive loops is about surpassing. Today, I can do X. Tomorrow, I will be able to do X+1. Tick the box. Move on. And the thing is, most of the time I do achieve because I apply steely logic and effort and the truest, best intentions. Also there's some good fortune involved. And then there's the fact that I torture myself if I don't meet my expectations. I'll go to any extreme to avoid that outcome...
You might wonder how it is that I ever managed to instruct anyone effectively. I assure you that the human mind is adaptive enough to apply insanity to oneself and good sense to others. Not to mention that we attract those who can learn, one way or another, from what we show them. Furthermore, I'm a pretty fun teacher.
But never mind how light-heartedly I apply myself to others, in my own mind and body I've been relentless. Which is why, over the past few years, as they have changed in all the ways, I have become increasingly confused. Strength turned to weakness, as I saw it. Lively courage came to cower. Energy became lethargy. Lightness sank. I have always been steady - mentally and physically - but as I've observed flexibility (and to a lesser extent, strength) taper, I've been beside myself. Not to mention that there's always a certain tension in my fascia. It's not that I seem stiffer but I have to work actively to stay agile. When I go from stillness to motion, everything teeters to find its keel. I know this is what age feels like - though how, I can't tell you because I'm not old, much less old enough to be feeling this way. How does one spend close to 30 years practicing a skill with dedication only to decline? Don't answer that.
Because even that question is rhetorical at this point. What the last couple of years have shown me is that yoga is about proprioception at the micro level. It's never been helpful to judge the look of the pose - and, oh, how I regret the upsurge of yoga as lifestyle if only because, back in the day, we were all taught that yoga is how it feels and then there were no pretzely, sexy creatures, gracing the cover of magazines, convincing us that this is how awareness feels. It's not even helpful, particularly, to judge how the moving parts intersect in a given pose (how the bones abut, how the muscles pull at their end points) because often the data is flawed.
In the end, it really is about withdrawal of the senses (that 5th limb I never really understood - it always seemed so vague). It's only when you can become every part of yourself, at every level, that you can see the macro in the micro. And damn, that's a worthy goal. Alas, too bad you can only find it when you stop turning everything into a goal. (It would appear I have my work cut out for me.)
So, under these circumstances, how do I continue to achieve? Well, aside from the fact that I really should get the compulsion under control, I think that achievement is in the life-long maintenance - in doing what allows me to align at the most discrete level, which I hope will enable me to eschew physical pain (after all, it's just one of millions of chemical strings) and to feel the grace of ease. My very mobility is fostered and improved by all of the work I do. Achievement for me is now is a lightness of being that I find, occasionally, when I allow my body to become my mind. Achievement is about abandoning my preset expectations. It's about feeling a tremendous gratitude for how I exist.
These are the things that Yoga Journal doesn't tell you.
*FYI, I'm very happy I was not a credible case - and I'm not suggesting that his call was incorrect, just that it seemed reflexive and based on a base-line that didn't necessarily take me into account.
One of my most entrenched obsessive loops is about surpassing. Today, I can do X. Tomorrow, I will be able to do X+1. Tick the box. Move on. And the thing is, most of the time I do achieve because I apply steely logic and effort and the truest, best intentions. Also there's some good fortune involved. And then there's the fact that I torture myself if I don't meet my expectations. I'll go to any extreme to avoid that outcome...
You might wonder how it is that I ever managed to instruct anyone effectively. I assure you that the human mind is adaptive enough to apply insanity to oneself and good sense to others. Not to mention that we attract those who can learn, one way or another, from what we show them. Furthermore, I'm a pretty fun teacher.
But never mind how light-heartedly I apply myself to others, in my own mind and body I've been relentless. Which is why, over the past few years, as they have changed in all the ways, I have become increasingly confused. Strength turned to weakness, as I saw it. Lively courage came to cower. Energy became lethargy. Lightness sank. I have always been steady - mentally and physically - but as I've observed flexibility (and to a lesser extent, strength) taper, I've been beside myself. Not to mention that there's always a certain tension in my fascia. It's not that I seem stiffer but I have to work actively to stay agile. When I go from stillness to motion, everything teeters to find its keel. I know this is what age feels like - though how, I can't tell you because I'm not old, much less old enough to be feeling this way. How does one spend close to 30 years practicing a skill with dedication only to decline? Don't answer that.
Because even that question is rhetorical at this point. What the last couple of years have shown me is that yoga is about proprioception at the micro level. It's never been helpful to judge the look of the pose - and, oh, how I regret the upsurge of yoga as lifestyle if only because, back in the day, we were all taught that yoga is how it feels and then there were no pretzely, sexy creatures, gracing the cover of magazines, convincing us that this is how awareness feels. It's not even helpful, particularly, to judge how the moving parts intersect in a given pose (how the bones abut, how the muscles pull at their end points) because often the data is flawed.
In the end, it really is about withdrawal of the senses (that 5th limb I never really understood - it always seemed so vague). It's only when you can become every part of yourself, at every level, that you can see the macro in the micro. And damn, that's a worthy goal. Alas, too bad you can only find it when you stop turning everything into a goal. (It would appear I have my work cut out for me.)
So, under these circumstances, how do I continue to achieve? Well, aside from the fact that I really should get the compulsion under control, I think that achievement is in the life-long maintenance - in doing what allows me to align at the most discrete level, which I hope will enable me to eschew physical pain (after all, it's just one of millions of chemical strings) and to feel the grace of ease. My very mobility is fostered and improved by all of the work I do. Achievement for me is now is a lightness of being that I find, occasionally, when I allow my body to become my mind. Achievement is about abandoning my preset expectations. It's about feeling a tremendous gratitude for how I exist.
These are the things that Yoga Journal doesn't tell you.
*FYI, I'm very happy I was not a credible case - and I'm not suggesting that his call was incorrect, just that it seemed reflexive and based on a base-line that didn't necessarily take me into account.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Gaining Some Traction
What's this?
That, my friends, is a yoga wall. You know, one of these (except mine is being constructed rather differently):
You can do EVERYTHING fun with this prop. It's really like multiple props... As you may know, there are entire classes devoted to hanging yoga or traction yoga, as it's sometimes called. As you may also know, I loathe the crowded studio scene but I might need to attend a couple of classes to remind myself about the most creative ways to use the wall and ropes for traction.
Scott is constructing the wall as we speak. (Don't worry. He's very carpenterish when it comes to building things. He's made houses.) It's a fairly low-risk proposition because, even if we don't like what we come up with, they're tearing down this room in 6 months. So we can learn from this proof-of-concept go-round and apply any lessons learned to the new set up, once the reno is complete. I know I'm sounding so chill. In truth, one of the eyelets just missed the centre of the stud, which likely split, and now there's a hole in the wall and I can barely stand it. No way am I repainting something I'm about to tear down. But how will I look at glaring imperfection for months?? I hang out in that room constantly (and soon literally!) I know. First-world problem. But I do wish I had people to fix everything at my whim and I'm not confident that my husband falls into that category :-) The fact is that my life is too full for me to prioritize fixing holes in walls without wanting to hurl myself from a bridge. I need to find a way to truly accept that I am unwilling to do certain things and that this doesn't require me - or behoove me - to ruminate on them with every fiber of my being. My compulsiveness is a lesson I may finally be ready to learn. I must put this side of myself behind me because it's destructive. Everything is on a trajectory of decay but it cannot be the only thing I observe.
On notification of early onset of spinal arthritis, I knew immediately that I would be wise - and happy - to hang daily to allow gravity to reset compression. I also want to ensure that my discs are enabled to replump with compression-free inversion. They are, after all, the skeleton's shock absorption system. (A headstander - though wonderful for many - doesn't accomplish this, fyi. To gain traction when inverting, you need support from above the hang, not from below.) Not to mention that I've wanted one of these walls for years - pretty well ever since I stopped venturing to my Iyengar studio. For a couple of years now, often at night, I feel a desperate need to lengthen, which I do using various props and strange methods, but nothing quite does the trick. And, if my pain is being caused by nerve compression, I've got to give those nerves a fighting chance to release as the musculature and skeleton around them extend completely.
So that's where I'm at today. Note: I cannot recommend that anyone install a hanging rope wall unless she is a) capable with construction or able to find a qualified installer and b) knowledgeable about how these ropes work in the yogic context. You do NOT want to try this at home without having had a lot of instruction in a classroom setting first or you may put yourself in danger.
For those who have emailed or commented with health-oriented suggestions - thank you so much. I have been taking highly bio-available curcumin capsules - and I drink turmeric shots as often as I can find them. I'm also starting up with the fish oil again. I did stop all supplements a while ago, in a moment of apathy, but I'm back to taking these two. Furthermore, while cutting out all potentially inflammatory foods (gluten, sugar and dairy) is really not in the cards right this minute - as I work 2 jobs for 2 weeks (1 week down!) and then segue into a, frankly, serious new role in a totally new ministry having much new responsibility and a steep learning curve - I have cut way back on foods from all 3 of these groups. I do use food and drink to manage my stress (as most people do) and I think it would be placing ridiculous additional pressure on me to instigate binary change in yet another major aspect of my life, while I settle. But I'm easing my way in. Note: I will not give up booze or dairy unless they're observably problematic, and I'm not convinced they are. Wine and cheese are too beautiful to forego without utter necessity.
PS: I've been working on some very prelim neuroplastic techniques to manage pain (actually, I use many neuroplastic techniques already - I just didn't realize that's what they are). My latest method is to tell the pain that it's an illusion, a perception, and to ignore it by doing other things which use the parts of my brain that are generally associated with processing that sort of pain. It's actually somewhat effective. So far, I haven't stopped feeling the pain but now I can separate the sensation from my consciousness' interpretation of it. BTW - what's an awesome way to occupy the brain (specifically the implicated visual cortex)? KNITTING. Who knew?
I cannot recommend Norman Doidge's book enough: The Brain that Changes Itself. Honestly, peeps. If regular people can recover from pervasive strokes and catastrophic mental or physical injury by utilizing parts of the brain that generally have nothing to do with those damaged areas, there is hope for everyone.
That, my friends, is a yoga wall. You know, one of these (except mine is being constructed rather differently):
 |
| Photo courtesy of Winnipeg Fitness Explorer |
Scott is constructing the wall as we speak. (Don't worry. He's very carpenterish when it comes to building things. He's made houses.) It's a fairly low-risk proposition because, even if we don't like what we come up with, they're tearing down this room in 6 months. So we can learn from this proof-of-concept go-round and apply any lessons learned to the new set up, once the reno is complete. I know I'm sounding so chill. In truth, one of the eyelets just missed the centre of the stud, which likely split, and now there's a hole in the wall and I can barely stand it. No way am I repainting something I'm about to tear down. But how will I look at glaring imperfection for months?? I hang out in that room constantly (and soon literally!) I know. First-world problem. But I do wish I had people to fix everything at my whim and I'm not confident that my husband falls into that category :-) The fact is that my life is too full for me to prioritize fixing holes in walls without wanting to hurl myself from a bridge. I need to find a way to truly accept that I am unwilling to do certain things and that this doesn't require me - or behoove me - to ruminate on them with every fiber of my being. My compulsiveness is a lesson I may finally be ready to learn. I must put this side of myself behind me because it's destructive. Everything is on a trajectory of decay but it cannot be the only thing I observe.
On notification of early onset of spinal arthritis, I knew immediately that I would be wise - and happy - to hang daily to allow gravity to reset compression. I also want to ensure that my discs are enabled to replump with compression-free inversion. They are, after all, the skeleton's shock absorption system. (A headstander - though wonderful for many - doesn't accomplish this, fyi. To gain traction when inverting, you need support from above the hang, not from below.) Not to mention that I've wanted one of these walls for years - pretty well ever since I stopped venturing to my Iyengar studio. For a couple of years now, often at night, I feel a desperate need to lengthen, which I do using various props and strange methods, but nothing quite does the trick. And, if my pain is being caused by nerve compression, I've got to give those nerves a fighting chance to release as the musculature and skeleton around them extend completely.
So that's where I'm at today. Note: I cannot recommend that anyone install a hanging rope wall unless she is a) capable with construction or able to find a qualified installer and b) knowledgeable about how these ropes work in the yogic context. You do NOT want to try this at home without having had a lot of instruction in a classroom setting first or you may put yourself in danger.
For those who have emailed or commented with health-oriented suggestions - thank you so much. I have been taking highly bio-available curcumin capsules - and I drink turmeric shots as often as I can find them. I'm also starting up with the fish oil again. I did stop all supplements a while ago, in a moment of apathy, but I'm back to taking these two. Furthermore, while cutting out all potentially inflammatory foods (gluten, sugar and dairy) is really not in the cards right this minute - as I work 2 jobs for 2 weeks (1 week down!) and then segue into a, frankly, serious new role in a totally new ministry having much new responsibility and a steep learning curve - I have cut way back on foods from all 3 of these groups. I do use food and drink to manage my stress (as most people do) and I think it would be placing ridiculous additional pressure on me to instigate binary change in yet another major aspect of my life, while I settle. But I'm easing my way in. Note: I will not give up booze or dairy unless they're observably problematic, and I'm not convinced they are. Wine and cheese are too beautiful to forego without utter necessity.
PS: I've been working on some very prelim neuroplastic techniques to manage pain (actually, I use many neuroplastic techniques already - I just didn't realize that's what they are). My latest method is to tell the pain that it's an illusion, a perception, and to ignore it by doing other things which use the parts of my brain that are generally associated with processing that sort of pain. It's actually somewhat effective. So far, I haven't stopped feeling the pain but now I can separate the sensation from my consciousness' interpretation of it. BTW - what's an awesome way to occupy the brain (specifically the implicated visual cortex)? KNITTING. Who knew?
I cannot recommend Norman Doidge's book enough: The Brain that Changes Itself. Honestly, peeps. If regular people can recover from pervasive strokes and catastrophic mental or physical injury by utilizing parts of the brain that generally have nothing to do with those damaged areas, there is hope for everyone.
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Finished Object: Color Blocked Bias Wrap
Yo peeps. While I could do 10 of a zillion things, I've decided to spend this (hormonally replete) weekend on my couch and in my yoga space a) knit swatching for a bunch of new projects, b) reading 3 new health-related books which were recently recommended*, c) lengthening the bits of my body that are scrunched into pain and d) trying out my latest online yoga discovery (you know how I love finding new home-based yoga sites).
That site would be Yoga International online. You may recall it was a well-respected paper mag for a good couple of decades. In the death-throes of that industry, it modernized with an online articles-meets-workshops-meets-yoga classes platform. While I cannot speak of this as yet (I'm still in the early stages of discovery), I sense that this may be my fave version yet. There's much more emphasis on alignment-based yoga here - and much less of that facile fusion everyone seems to be doing. Also, the people look just like those you'd see in your yoga class (real, if excessively competent).
I do have an exciting adventure on the horizon, which I'll speak more about soon. But in the meanwhile, let's look at one of the most satisfying knits I've encountered in a very long time:
This is the yarn my parents bought for me in Charlotte this spring. I love it even more knitted than in the hank. These pictures really do not do it justice. The colours are delicious. The hand is awesome. The finished garment is the perfect size to keep you very warm all winter - even if your pre-renoed, century-home is a sieve. This is not skimpy, nor is it unweildy. When well-knit, it looks like an expensive thing you've bought in a fancy shop.
Who should make this? Everyone who likes shawls who's got at least 3 projects under his or her belt. You need to know how to cast on and bind off (but only in the most minimal way), knit, purl, increase stitches, decrease stitches, do clean colour-switch up (at the ends of each ball of yarn) and, natch, fix dropped stitches or other issues should they emerge. It also helps to block this with wires (found in any knitting store) because it will turn your finished project into a thing of professional standard.
What I Recommend:
*In case you're curious, the books are My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel, Ending Back Pain by Jack Stern, MD, PhD and (my mother's fave) How Not to Die by Michael Greger, MD...
That site would be Yoga International online. You may recall it was a well-respected paper mag for a good couple of decades. In the death-throes of that industry, it modernized with an online articles-meets-workshops-meets-yoga classes platform. While I cannot speak of this as yet (I'm still in the early stages of discovery), I sense that this may be my fave version yet. There's much more emphasis on alignment-based yoga here - and much less of that facile fusion everyone seems to be doing. Also, the people look just like those you'd see in your yoga class (real, if excessively competent).
I do have an exciting adventure on the horizon, which I'll speak more about soon. But in the meanwhile, let's look at one of the most satisfying knits I've encountered in a very long time:
 |
| Color Block Bias Wrap by Suzanne Shaw. I won't lie, spelling "colour" without the "u" is disturbing to me! |
This is the yarn my parents bought for me in Charlotte this spring. I love it even more knitted than in the hank. These pictures really do not do it justice. The colours are delicious. The hand is awesome. The finished garment is the perfect size to keep you very warm all winter - even if your pre-renoed, century-home is a sieve. This is not skimpy, nor is it unweildy. When well-knit, it looks like an expensive thing you've bought in a fancy shop.
Who should make this? Everyone who likes shawls who's got at least 3 projects under his or her belt. You need to know how to cast on and bind off (but only in the most minimal way), knit, purl, increase stitches, decrease stitches, do clean colour-switch up (at the ends of each ball of yarn) and, natch, fix dropped stitches or other issues should they emerge. It also helps to block this with wires (found in any knitting store) because it will turn your finished project into a thing of professional standard.
What I Recommend:
- Knit it with the prescribed yarn - Classic Elite Chateau (or Chalet, if you like colours). There's a tonal beige colour-way and this grey one (and a few other neutrals to substitute if you prefer). This chainette, bulky-weight yarn knits up exceedingly fast. I knit at a fair clip and I got through this in 4 days without trying, particularly. Even a nervous newbie could do it in a month. Sure, other yarns will work - but this yarn has the PERFECT hand and drape for a shawl of these proportions. You will not regret it - and the yarn is easily found and well-priced.
- I won't lie, consistent tension is a must. That may become increasingly challenging for some as the needle size increases (and the project grows) because ergonomics erodes. When knitting in stockinette, consistent tension is always important but given the quality of this yarn, your project will not look optimal if the tension slips. That's why my point below is key.
- Swatch to ensure that your fabric isn't too open / loose. This yarn will grow with blocking and under its own weight - given its drapey fiber composition of bamboo and alpaca. Seriously consider going down a needle-size unless you are a super-tight knitter. I hate knitting with a needle of the recommended size, US13 (or anything above a US9, though I can force myself to use up to a US11 if the project entices me adequately). I swatched with a US11 to ensure that I would be happy with the fabric, and I knew how my decreased gauge would impact the finished size. I'm very happy with it but I wouldn't have been if I'd used the recommended needle size.
- Wet-block and use blocking-wires when drying.
- With appetite and budget, starting now you could easily pump out 5 of these as Xmas presents.
*In case you're curious, the books are My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel, Ending Back Pain by Jack Stern, MD, PhD and (my mother's fave) How Not to Die by Michael Greger, MD...
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Finished Object: Yes, I have Made Another Kielo...
It's hotter than hell outside and I LOVE it! So easy (if sticky). I went for breakfast on a patio, natch, then for espresso on another patio. Then walking to the grocery store. When we got home, Scott and I did a really lively yoga practice - the kind where you sweat so much that you have to be careful.
Brief side-note: I find that yoga is most exuberant when it's hot out, even though I'm not into classes where the temp is artificially raised. Natural heat is organic - as one's body adjusts to the temp in the outside world. Piped in heat, when it's freezing and/or damp outside, is quite another - and it's not good for my biochemistry. Makes me feel sick. The kind of energy you generate in a hot class, because it's actually hot outside, is distinct from that which is foisted upon you. Never mind that fake heat is dry and often includes undesirable particulate matter (in older buildings). This is why I can get with the "hot" nature of Ashtanga or fast vinyasa - you make that heat for yourself - and not with Bikram. (Well, there are so many reasons why I can't get with Birkram...) Every summer I'm reminded of how easy it is to be a yogi in a warm climate.
Yesterday I did make my latest version of the Kielo Wrap dress, tie-free:
It's an interesting story: I did not have enough of this bamboo fabric to cut it on the grain (so that the little knit stitches form vertical wales). Having said that, I had more than enough to cut it against the grain. Given that it's a 4-way stretch fabric with good recovery (and of good quality), I figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a go and cut against the grain. And, except for the fact that the back on this version is hanging differently and slightly longer than the front (I fixed it while hemming), it's ok. Whether this dress keeps it shape in the long-run remains to be seen.
Of course, I'm driven by order so the fact that this fabric sits horizontally, rather than vertically, drives me a bit nuts. I suspect, no one else will be able to tell and, natch, it's a design choice. But I'm still rule-bound.
It's a bit observable below, if you know what you're looking for, mainly because of the slightly marled nature of the fabric.
On the plus side, I do think my top stitching is improving - largely because I've slowed the fuck down. I used a single needle on my sewing machine for the neck and armholes, but I did coverstitch the hem. Ever since I started coverstitching "correctly" my stitches seem to want to fall out when I finish, despite my careful stitching over the stitches made at the beginning of the hem. Gotta look up ways to avoid that because re-sewing over those stitches, with a sewing machine, to secure them, is time-consuming, a bit ugly and perhaps not the most stable technique. I should also get one of those clear presser-feet but I'm not spending money on gear 3 seconds before a reno and, really, the coverstitch accessories are not cheap.
I lowered the neckline (and next time, I think I might go a bit lower still). The arms fit better since I scooped them out slightly, to account for the bound armholes, but I think I can go scoopier still.
This was not a quick process and I did encounter a few blips, albethey fixable. Took me 5 hours to make the dress, though that was from start to finish - threading my machines with the right colours, altering the pattern again slightly, cutting and marking the fabric and then sewing. Just hemming takes a good 30 minutes when you want to achieve a really nice finish.
I wore it out this morning and it works quite well. And it'll be perfectly fine for the office too.
What do you think of my off-the-grain strategy? Would it drive you nuts? Do you think I'm merely practical and not crazy? Whatcha think of the latest version? I swear, I won't inflict any new versions of this on you any time soon. :-)
Brief side-note: I find that yoga is most exuberant when it's hot out, even though I'm not into classes where the temp is artificially raised. Natural heat is organic - as one's body adjusts to the temp in the outside world. Piped in heat, when it's freezing and/or damp outside, is quite another - and it's not good for my biochemistry. Makes me feel sick. The kind of energy you generate in a hot class, because it's actually hot outside, is distinct from that which is foisted upon you. Never mind that fake heat is dry and often includes undesirable particulate matter (in older buildings). This is why I can get with the "hot" nature of Ashtanga or fast vinyasa - you make that heat for yourself - and not with Bikram. (Well, there are so many reasons why I can't get with Birkram...) Every summer I'm reminded of how easy it is to be a yogi in a warm climate.
Yesterday I did make my latest version of the Kielo Wrap dress, tie-free:
It's an interesting story: I did not have enough of this bamboo fabric to cut it on the grain (so that the little knit stitches form vertical wales). Having said that, I had more than enough to cut it against the grain. Given that it's a 4-way stretch fabric with good recovery (and of good quality), I figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a go and cut against the grain. And, except for the fact that the back on this version is hanging differently and slightly longer than the front (I fixed it while hemming), it's ok. Whether this dress keeps it shape in the long-run remains to be seen.
Of course, I'm driven by order so the fact that this fabric sits horizontally, rather than vertically, drives me a bit nuts. I suspect, no one else will be able to tell and, natch, it's a design choice. But I'm still rule-bound.
It's a bit observable below, if you know what you're looking for, mainly because of the slightly marled nature of the fabric.
On the plus side, I do think my top stitching is improving - largely because I've slowed the fuck down. I used a single needle on my sewing machine for the neck and armholes, but I did coverstitch the hem. Ever since I started coverstitching "correctly" my stitches seem to want to fall out when I finish, despite my careful stitching over the stitches made at the beginning of the hem. Gotta look up ways to avoid that because re-sewing over those stitches, with a sewing machine, to secure them, is time-consuming, a bit ugly and perhaps not the most stable technique. I should also get one of those clear presser-feet but I'm not spending money on gear 3 seconds before a reno and, really, the coverstitch accessories are not cheap.
I lowered the neckline (and next time, I think I might go a bit lower still). The arms fit better since I scooped them out slightly, to account for the bound armholes, but I think I can go scoopier still.
 |
| You can see my Hudson pant fabric cut out in the background. I've got 2 pairs ready to go but I cannot bring myself to sew them in a heatwave! |
I wore it out this morning and it works quite well. And it'll be perfectly fine for the office too.
What do you think of my off-the-grain strategy? Would it drive you nuts? Do you think I'm merely practical and not crazy? Whatcha think of the latest version? I swear, I won't inflict any new versions of this on you any time soon. :-)
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Transition as Transformation
The last year has been incredibly formative from the perspective of my yoga practice. Since last September (when I hit the nadir of my pain condition - we hope), I've been required to reframe my experience of my body through a variety of different methodologies, some of which I've written about (MELT method, Roll Model, active release chiropractic, yin yoga - amongst others). Really, there's been nothing outside the scope of my exploration. I do mean to write about as-yet-undocumented, life-changing bodywork things I've discovered but really, there are only so many hours in a day. At a certain point, I can research and do it or write about it.
I don't think of myself as one of those silver-lining people. I've been through some dark night of the soul moments vis a vis pain (and acute illness) over the last few years. You know that. I mean, this blog is a litany of fear and complaints (amongst other things). But I'm frankly amazed by the way my completely unpalatable experiences have deepened my awareness of myself and my body-mind.
Before you reach to vomit at that last sentence, let me contextualize. I'm a woman who's deep in the middle of hormonal transition. For better or worse, this has precipitated (or sharpened) many health issues. I'm also a person who contracted an acute illness 3 years ago (right at a critical juncture of hormonal transition, I suspect) who's never really felt the same since. I know there are many who've experienced pertussis in adulthood. Some of them recovered easily. Some of them were unpleasantly ill for a while, but it wasn't decimating. I can't speak for those people.
My own experience of pertussis was life-changing - and not to my physical betterment. It was a premature opportunity to come up against the margins of my mortality. For weeks, in the depth of sickness, I woke (after struggling to sleep) horrified, unable to breathe for what would seem like minutes at a time. I couldn't eat for a month. I couldn't muster the energy to walk down a block, by the end of it (and I have walked a minimum of 8 km a day for my entire adult life). I'm still afraid to touch door handles (not that this is necessarily the way I got sick in the first place). If I watch a TV show wherein someone has a breathing issue, I actually experience extreme anxiety and I must change the channel or leave the room.
Maybe if I'd contracted this illness earlier in my life, I would have had an easier ride. Maybe if I'd been farther along in my transition to midlife there wouldn't have been so much disequilibrium to maneuver around. I will never know. What I can say is that, since that illness, I am existentially fatigued. Since that illness, I have experienced chronic pain to some extent or another. My fingers are always swollen. I've experienced physical injury more frequently. My vision has taken a hit. There are very occasional moments when I revert to my previous body-state, and it's stunning to me. I have always been so young - so lively - in my body. Now when I stand up after periods of sitting, the bones in my feet hurt. I can't eat food as I did before (which is to say, always without issue).*
I realize it doesn't sound like we're moving in a fun direction with this post. Bear with me. It's going to be long because I can't devalue my evolution in sound bites. And really, necessity is the mother of invention.
I went to a rheumatologist recently. I didn't think I had a big-ticket autoimmune condition but, at a certain point, one must rule things out. I'm happy to report that (in the words of the doctor): I can't say what you do have going on, and it's apparent that you're experiencing periods of intense chronic pain, but it's not being caused lupus, scleroderma or rheumatoid arthritis. Intriguingly, he also told me that my flexibility is off the charts (though I've witnessed its regression) and that, while my joints may hurt, there's no evidence of arthritis in my body. How he can know that without an MRI (which I didn't have) is beyond me, but I'll take it.
I don't expect someone to fix this issue for me. I'm on a journey, with my body and we're the only ones in the car. Sometimes it's lonely. I'd really like a map, I think. And then I remember that I have one, in the form of my asana practice.
I've spent so much time in the last 5 years, considering the trajectory of yoga asana. When I became a teacher, I was by far the youngest practitioner in the room - like by 10 years. Generally the Iyengar method won't permit one to train as a teacher before the age of 30 (that's how it was back then). I convinced them that I was up to it. I think of myself as being part of a yogic silent generation - that between the first-generation, Western masters and today, wherein a naturally acrobatic 26-year old learns the Ashtanga 5th series and calls it a teaching and media career.
When I first learned asana (do you sense something about walking barefoot for 3 miles in the snow?), there was no disconnect between the pranic elements of the practice and the movement. I truly can't believe how many people do 2 hours of yoga, 6 times a week as some sort of misguided physical fitness. As an Iyengar practitioner, I have always been exceedingly aware of the relationship between physical movement and potential injury. That's what we do really well in that methodology. I was also excellently taught.
Don't kid yourself. The asana you do healthfully at the age of 26 will hurt you when you're 45 if you're not adapting to the evolutionary landscape of your body (which may include elements of "falling apart" after a certain age - perhaps for a certain reason - or not). We can view yoga as a metaphor for the Self (which I do) but it is also a biomechanical practice. I have no idea why so many people feel that they can do extremely acrobatic postures, simply because they have natural strength and flexibility, without considering their intrinsic biomechanical abilities and potential limiters.
There's a truly ground-breaking series I found recently, written by Toronto yoga teacher, Matthew Remski, called What Are We Actually Doing in Asana (WAWDIA). He's also writing a book on the topic. As an early-adopter, and a practitioner who has broken from the broader Toronto "yoga community" (for various reasons - not what this post is about), this is what I've been waiting on for years. The deliciously, in-depth articles (and I can almost assure you that they will not appeal to the casual yoga-doer), illuminate topics such as prominent, Toronto (former) Ashtangi, Diane Bruni's life-changing injury (which led her to leave Ashtanga altogether). Diane was the teacher I took my first Ashtanga classes with in the Fashion District 20-plus years ago.
Between my own propensity to view the biomechanical element of yoga practice (you know I'm a technician by nature) and my recent physical "set backs", I've come to see my practice in an entirely new light. The joy of youth is in its expansive potential - particularly physical. But as one ages - a slow process of punctuated moments - one's yoga becomes about adapting to the new normal. As one simple example, how do I find the endocrine balance (best provided by inversions), when a headstand may now cause me days of back pain, after the fact? How do I adapt to being someone who could do that headstand with joyful abandon (and no small amount of ego, as I now understand), who knows that what was once healthful is, right now, potentially harmful?
Well, first off, I recognize that what's harmful right now, for certain reasons, may not always be that way. I'm open to the notion that this transition may propel me into a new state that is closer to my former one than the one in which I currently find myself. And then, I adjust. It's not rocket science (though it is some beautiful physics). One day, this body will fail me - I will leave it. Until then, I'll use yoga to maintain it, to find my own deepest awareness with breath and movement. My practice is as beautiful today as it was 25 years ago, for entirely different reasons. For one thing, I don't spend every moment wondering why I cannot move further into a pose. Now I know that the pose is always where I am. Striving is such a waste of energy but only experience and constancy will teach you that. Secondly, one's practice becomes ever more elegant with time. One learns how to transition from pose to pose with subtle efficiency, to be in poses with the appropriate props or un-propped enhancements (increasing awareness of muscular contraction vs length).
Practically, the way I have adapted headstand (cuz that pose is bananas delicious) is with my fancy headstander (scroll down to mid post). I will never regret having spent on this baby and I recommend it for many intermediate / advanced practitioners who want the benefits of headstand without the potential joint compression. (Note: There are some peeps who shouldn't ever do unsupported headstand for any number of reasons. Neck compression is no joking matter.) FWIW, when I use the headstander (and I do lots of variations using it), I do put a block under my head because a) for me that's not an issue - my issue is in my shoulders and upper back and b) yogic perspective is that the endocrine benefits of headstand are augmented by weight on the head. Mind you, by using the prop, I can control the amount of weight on my head without compromising the softness I must maintain in my shoulder area to avoid triggering pain.
I could write a long post about the ways I've adjusted the postural elements of my practice - in fact, I think I might!
But I do want to leave this endless diatribe with one other thought: What I have learned about aging and pain that comes and goes is that this isn't the time to overdo (see above) but it's also not the time to underdo. I know that I must maintain my momentum, my strength, my flexibility and balance - and to increase them, to the best of my ability. For a while, I was afraid of active practice because I knew less about the origin and nature of my pain than I do now (not that I have it all figured out). I may be in pain if I practice. I may be in pain if I don't. I may not be in pain in either scenario. But I must do yoga, not only for my mind and spirit (because it is my connection to my understanding of "God" and universal energy, because it is my second language) - but also because it is a physical practice to encourage biomechanical health. And now that I'm doing it rather actively again, without fear (but with modifications, as necessary), I feel the expansiveness it provides.
So that's today's book. I realize that these yoga posts have limited appeal, especially given their interminable length and subject-matter, but I would so love to hear your perspectives on your own practice. Do you have chronic or frequent pain? How does yoga (or your yoga equivalent) intersect with it? Do you modify? How does your ego muddle through aging as it pertains, not to wrinkles, but to physical ability in your method of fitness? Or to the expansiveness of your mindfulness, more to the point. Let's talk.
*Just want to add, that even though this is how I often feel, people are always shocked if I discuss this with them because I "seem perfectly normal". Just goes to show how you can never tell a book by its cover.
I don't think of myself as one of those silver-lining people. I've been through some dark night of the soul moments vis a vis pain (and acute illness) over the last few years. You know that. I mean, this blog is a litany of fear and complaints (amongst other things). But I'm frankly amazed by the way my completely unpalatable experiences have deepened my awareness of myself and my body-mind.
Before you reach to vomit at that last sentence, let me contextualize. I'm a woman who's deep in the middle of hormonal transition. For better or worse, this has precipitated (or sharpened) many health issues. I'm also a person who contracted an acute illness 3 years ago (right at a critical juncture of hormonal transition, I suspect) who's never really felt the same since. I know there are many who've experienced pertussis in adulthood. Some of them recovered easily. Some of them were unpleasantly ill for a while, but it wasn't decimating. I can't speak for those people.
My own experience of pertussis was life-changing - and not to my physical betterment. It was a premature opportunity to come up against the margins of my mortality. For weeks, in the depth of sickness, I woke (after struggling to sleep) horrified, unable to breathe for what would seem like minutes at a time. I couldn't eat for a month. I couldn't muster the energy to walk down a block, by the end of it (and I have walked a minimum of 8 km a day for my entire adult life). I'm still afraid to touch door handles (not that this is necessarily the way I got sick in the first place). If I watch a TV show wherein someone has a breathing issue, I actually experience extreme anxiety and I must change the channel or leave the room.
Maybe if I'd contracted this illness earlier in my life, I would have had an easier ride. Maybe if I'd been farther along in my transition to midlife there wouldn't have been so much disequilibrium to maneuver around. I will never know. What I can say is that, since that illness, I am existentially fatigued. Since that illness, I have experienced chronic pain to some extent or another. My fingers are always swollen. I've experienced physical injury more frequently. My vision has taken a hit. There are very occasional moments when I revert to my previous body-state, and it's stunning to me. I have always been so young - so lively - in my body. Now when I stand up after periods of sitting, the bones in my feet hurt. I can't eat food as I did before (which is to say, always without issue).*
I realize it doesn't sound like we're moving in a fun direction with this post. Bear with me. It's going to be long because I can't devalue my evolution in sound bites. And really, necessity is the mother of invention.
I went to a rheumatologist recently. I didn't think I had a big-ticket autoimmune condition but, at a certain point, one must rule things out. I'm happy to report that (in the words of the doctor): I can't say what you do have going on, and it's apparent that you're experiencing periods of intense chronic pain, but it's not being caused lupus, scleroderma or rheumatoid arthritis. Intriguingly, he also told me that my flexibility is off the charts (though I've witnessed its regression) and that, while my joints may hurt, there's no evidence of arthritis in my body. How he can know that without an MRI (which I didn't have) is beyond me, but I'll take it.
I don't expect someone to fix this issue for me. I'm on a journey, with my body and we're the only ones in the car. Sometimes it's lonely. I'd really like a map, I think. And then I remember that I have one, in the form of my asana practice.
I've spent so much time in the last 5 years, considering the trajectory of yoga asana. When I became a teacher, I was by far the youngest practitioner in the room - like by 10 years. Generally the Iyengar method won't permit one to train as a teacher before the age of 30 (that's how it was back then). I convinced them that I was up to it. I think of myself as being part of a yogic silent generation - that between the first-generation, Western masters and today, wherein a naturally acrobatic 26-year old learns the Ashtanga 5th series and calls it a teaching and media career.
When I first learned asana (do you sense something about walking barefoot for 3 miles in the snow?), there was no disconnect between the pranic elements of the practice and the movement. I truly can't believe how many people do 2 hours of yoga, 6 times a week as some sort of misguided physical fitness. As an Iyengar practitioner, I have always been exceedingly aware of the relationship between physical movement and potential injury. That's what we do really well in that methodology. I was also excellently taught.
Don't kid yourself. The asana you do healthfully at the age of 26 will hurt you when you're 45 if you're not adapting to the evolutionary landscape of your body (which may include elements of "falling apart" after a certain age - perhaps for a certain reason - or not). We can view yoga as a metaphor for the Self (which I do) but it is also a biomechanical practice. I have no idea why so many people feel that they can do extremely acrobatic postures, simply because they have natural strength and flexibility, without considering their intrinsic biomechanical abilities and potential limiters.
There's a truly ground-breaking series I found recently, written by Toronto yoga teacher, Matthew Remski, called What Are We Actually Doing in Asana (WAWDIA). He's also writing a book on the topic. As an early-adopter, and a practitioner who has broken from the broader Toronto "yoga community" (for various reasons - not what this post is about), this is what I've been waiting on for years. The deliciously, in-depth articles (and I can almost assure you that they will not appeal to the casual yoga-doer), illuminate topics such as prominent, Toronto (former) Ashtangi, Diane Bruni's life-changing injury (which led her to leave Ashtanga altogether). Diane was the teacher I took my first Ashtanga classes with in the Fashion District 20-plus years ago.
Between my own propensity to view the biomechanical element of yoga practice (you know I'm a technician by nature) and my recent physical "set backs", I've come to see my practice in an entirely new light. The joy of youth is in its expansive potential - particularly physical. But as one ages - a slow process of punctuated moments - one's yoga becomes about adapting to the new normal. As one simple example, how do I find the endocrine balance (best provided by inversions), when a headstand may now cause me days of back pain, after the fact? How do I adapt to being someone who could do that headstand with joyful abandon (and no small amount of ego, as I now understand), who knows that what was once healthful is, right now, potentially harmful?
Well, first off, I recognize that what's harmful right now, for certain reasons, may not always be that way. I'm open to the notion that this transition may propel me into a new state that is closer to my former one than the one in which I currently find myself. And then, I adjust. It's not rocket science (though it is some beautiful physics). One day, this body will fail me - I will leave it. Until then, I'll use yoga to maintain it, to find my own deepest awareness with breath and movement. My practice is as beautiful today as it was 25 years ago, for entirely different reasons. For one thing, I don't spend every moment wondering why I cannot move further into a pose. Now I know that the pose is always where I am. Striving is such a waste of energy but only experience and constancy will teach you that. Secondly, one's practice becomes ever more elegant with time. One learns how to transition from pose to pose with subtle efficiency, to be in poses with the appropriate props or un-propped enhancements (increasing awareness of muscular contraction vs length).
Practically, the way I have adapted headstand (cuz that pose is bananas delicious) is with my fancy headstander (scroll down to mid post). I will never regret having spent on this baby and I recommend it for many intermediate / advanced practitioners who want the benefits of headstand without the potential joint compression. (Note: There are some peeps who shouldn't ever do unsupported headstand for any number of reasons. Neck compression is no joking matter.) FWIW, when I use the headstander (and I do lots of variations using it), I do put a block under my head because a) for me that's not an issue - my issue is in my shoulders and upper back and b) yogic perspective is that the endocrine benefits of headstand are augmented by weight on the head. Mind you, by using the prop, I can control the amount of weight on my head without compromising the softness I must maintain in my shoulder area to avoid triggering pain.
I could write a long post about the ways I've adjusted the postural elements of my practice - in fact, I think I might!
But I do want to leave this endless diatribe with one other thought: What I have learned about aging and pain that comes and goes is that this isn't the time to overdo (see above) but it's also not the time to underdo. I know that I must maintain my momentum, my strength, my flexibility and balance - and to increase them, to the best of my ability. For a while, I was afraid of active practice because I knew less about the origin and nature of my pain than I do now (not that I have it all figured out). I may be in pain if I practice. I may be in pain if I don't. I may not be in pain in either scenario. But I must do yoga, not only for my mind and spirit (because it is my connection to my understanding of "God" and universal energy, because it is my second language) - but also because it is a physical practice to encourage biomechanical health. And now that I'm doing it rather actively again, without fear (but with modifications, as necessary), I feel the expansiveness it provides.
So that's today's book. I realize that these yoga posts have limited appeal, especially given their interminable length and subject-matter, but I would so love to hear your perspectives on your own practice. Do you have chronic or frequent pain? How does yoga (or your yoga equivalent) intersect with it? Do you modify? How does your ego muddle through aging as it pertains, not to wrinkles, but to physical ability in your method of fitness? Or to the expansiveness of your mindfulness, more to the point. Let's talk.
*Just want to add, that even though this is how I often feel, people are always shocked if I discuss this with them because I "seem perfectly normal". Just goes to show how you can never tell a book by its cover.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Blue Sky Thinking
I have officially descended into summer slug mode. Part of me prefers to think of this as ascension because, really, this is the the first quarter of the only 4 months of the year during which I'm in a good mood.
I'm sure I've said this every summer (once the weather gets good) for the almost-9 years I've been blogging, but I am inexorably affected by climate, and only moreso as I get older and wiser. It's really too bad that I live in a place with horrid weather much of the year because, honestly, I wake up every blue-skied, sunny, cloudless, warm/hot/humid day feeling so content.
Look, I'm pretty well allergic to full sun. I get welts and itchy and the direct heat gives me headaches. I'm also one of the more light-sensitive people you'll meet. I've been known to wear my sunglasses inside for days at a time.
But put me in the shade, meditating on a cotton-ball cloud that ambles by, and I am nothing short of transfixed. Add a great glass of wine, some olives and cheese and it makes me want to cry at the joy of being alive and truly relaxed. It's taken me many years to understand that I am most happy when I walk from beautiful locale and restorative meal to meal but I can finally own it. If you include friends and thoughtful conversation, all's right in the world for me.
You know I'm participating in this Conscious Cleanse right now - it lasts till the end of Monday - so I've been experiencing the world through a new prism. The food's been rather clean (though I haven't given up a fraction of what the cleanse directs). I have fallen off the booze-free wagon over the past couple of days because I've had occasion to dine with friends in town for a short while and to go to an amazing cocktail party wherein this was one of the treats:
I've seen many a phenomenal raspberry tart in my day, but this was the most beautiful ever. No, I didn't taste it. It contained gluten. (I would have happily forgotten about my commitment to eschew white sugar but I'm going hardcore with the gluten cuz, really, it's an easy cut in the scheme of things.) I preferred to drink some wine, which lasts longer. And I enjoyed the gleeful expressions of those who partook of its deliciousness. There were also macarons from Nadege, pretty hard to resist. And some gorgeous savoury things - a perfectly cooked steak which I tried a slice of, colourful salads, great cheese...
I have in no way been self-sacrificing while participating in this cleanse. I've had wine, meat, dairy. Mind you, knowing myself, I didn't commit to giving them up - only to eating them with consciousness. The things I've given up full-scale are gluten and processed food. And I've persisted with those commitments. I've also been very successful (if we can even refer to this as success) when it comes to drinking 70 oz of water per day, eating many more fruits and vegetables than usual, drinking a green smoothie daily and doing a daily, pre-determined yoga practice.
I've been SO impressed with the format of this cleanse - the way it's conceptualized and organized to be gradual and thoughtful. I will definitely do it again (even as I'm totally ready for it to be done), and I may well do it differently (more strictly) next time. I want to gradually come to understand my limitations. I feel that doing this 3 times per year would be really helpful and pretty workable. And I've decided to come out of it as I went in - gradually over 2 weeks. So I'll take 3 months of the year to eat notably cleanly. And then I can eat - should I choose to go in this direction - with conscious abandonment the rest of the time :-)
One of the more interesting elements - though really, this cleanse has been awareness-motivating in small but meaningful ways on many fronts - has been the yoga. It's been a long time since I've done 12 days in a row of "full" yoga practice (not merely poses here and there on some of those days) - never mind via classes which are not devised by me to meet my self-determined needs. I'm a yoga loner, seriously self-directed, so doing 14 classes devised by someone else, to suit the aims of a cleanse, is very strange.
For starters, I can't see what's going on without my glasses no matter what time of day (so usually I just practice while listening to the teacher). Then there's the fact that I've had to do some of these practices first thing in the am, due to scheduling conflicts. I am NOT a morning yogi, morning being when my brain is most disengaged and my body at its least accommodating. So I've had to really hone my inner-focus because these practices are cross-methodological (many different styles are employed, some of which I am less familiar with than others i.e. Kundalini) and my regular resources - vision, flexibility, wakefulness, knowledge of variations - have been removed. This is to say nothing of my connectedness to the teaching style of some of the teachers who've led these classes.
For all of this, the yoga has been the easiest part for me, in that it's been the most knowable. I'm sure that's because I've had many years to acclimate to "yoga challenges", for example Sadhana (a 40 day, daily practice I've undertaken a couple of times). Sadhana was horrid for me, fwiw, because I had to travel each morning to a 6 am hour-long practice (took me 30 minutes to get there) and one of these sadhanas was during the late fall. It was like waking up to do yoga in the middle of the night. Talk about self-awareness building. Furthermore, I've had a long time to adapt to what "daily-practice-as-cleanse" means. In these instances, it really is NOT about the poses, but about the intention, the breath (tremendously) and the kriya.
I most definitely subscribe to the perspective that regular practice is devised to develop, in addition to spiritual awareness, physical skill and precision through asana. But that's not the gist of a cleanse practice. Cleanse yoga is when you call on the skills you've developed to test your limits on all the levels.
My, this post has bounced around! I began with the intention of advising you about why there's very little creative activity going on in these parts, due to the excellent weather. I've finished it by wondering if that's true :-)
At any rate, how's it going with your summer? Have you turned off the computer in favour of a patio? Are you all the more structured in your creativity right now? Doing any cleanses while the food is fresh? Let's talk!
I'm sure I've said this every summer (once the weather gets good) for the almost-9 years I've been blogging, but I am inexorably affected by climate, and only moreso as I get older and wiser. It's really too bad that I live in a place with horrid weather much of the year because, honestly, I wake up every blue-skied, sunny, cloudless, warm/hot/humid day feeling so content.
Look, I'm pretty well allergic to full sun. I get welts and itchy and the direct heat gives me headaches. I'm also one of the more light-sensitive people you'll meet. I've been known to wear my sunglasses inside for days at a time.
But put me in the shade, meditating on a cotton-ball cloud that ambles by, and I am nothing short of transfixed. Add a great glass of wine, some olives and cheese and it makes me want to cry at the joy of being alive and truly relaxed. It's taken me many years to understand that I am most happy when I walk from beautiful locale and restorative meal to meal but I can finally own it. If you include friends and thoughtful conversation, all's right in the world for me.
You know I'm participating in this Conscious Cleanse right now - it lasts till the end of Monday - so I've been experiencing the world through a new prism. The food's been rather clean (though I haven't given up a fraction of what the cleanse directs). I have fallen off the booze-free wagon over the past couple of days because I've had occasion to dine with friends in town for a short while and to go to an amazing cocktail party wherein this was one of the treats:
I've seen many a phenomenal raspberry tart in my day, but this was the most beautiful ever. No, I didn't taste it. It contained gluten. (I would have happily forgotten about my commitment to eschew white sugar but I'm going hardcore with the gluten cuz, really, it's an easy cut in the scheme of things.) I preferred to drink some wine, which lasts longer. And I enjoyed the gleeful expressions of those who partook of its deliciousness. There were also macarons from Nadege, pretty hard to resist. And some gorgeous savoury things - a perfectly cooked steak which I tried a slice of, colourful salads, great cheese...
I have in no way been self-sacrificing while participating in this cleanse. I've had wine, meat, dairy. Mind you, knowing myself, I didn't commit to giving them up - only to eating them with consciousness. The things I've given up full-scale are gluten and processed food. And I've persisted with those commitments. I've also been very successful (if we can even refer to this as success) when it comes to drinking 70 oz of water per day, eating many more fruits and vegetables than usual, drinking a green smoothie daily and doing a daily, pre-determined yoga practice.
I've been SO impressed with the format of this cleanse - the way it's conceptualized and organized to be gradual and thoughtful. I will definitely do it again (even as I'm totally ready for it to be done), and I may well do it differently (more strictly) next time. I want to gradually come to understand my limitations. I feel that doing this 3 times per year would be really helpful and pretty workable. And I've decided to come out of it as I went in - gradually over 2 weeks. So I'll take 3 months of the year to eat notably cleanly. And then I can eat - should I choose to go in this direction - with conscious abandonment the rest of the time :-)
One of the more interesting elements - though really, this cleanse has been awareness-motivating in small but meaningful ways on many fronts - has been the yoga. It's been a long time since I've done 12 days in a row of "full" yoga practice (not merely poses here and there on some of those days) - never mind via classes which are not devised by me to meet my self-determined needs. I'm a yoga loner, seriously self-directed, so doing 14 classes devised by someone else, to suit the aims of a cleanse, is very strange.
For starters, I can't see what's going on without my glasses no matter what time of day (so usually I just practice while listening to the teacher). Then there's the fact that I've had to do some of these practices first thing in the am, due to scheduling conflicts. I am NOT a morning yogi, morning being when my brain is most disengaged and my body at its least accommodating. So I've had to really hone my inner-focus because these practices are cross-methodological (many different styles are employed, some of which I am less familiar with than others i.e. Kundalini) and my regular resources - vision, flexibility, wakefulness, knowledge of variations - have been removed. This is to say nothing of my connectedness to the teaching style of some of the teachers who've led these classes.
For all of this, the yoga has been the easiest part for me, in that it's been the most knowable. I'm sure that's because I've had many years to acclimate to "yoga challenges", for example Sadhana (a 40 day, daily practice I've undertaken a couple of times). Sadhana was horrid for me, fwiw, because I had to travel each morning to a 6 am hour-long practice (took me 30 minutes to get there) and one of these sadhanas was during the late fall. It was like waking up to do yoga in the middle of the night. Talk about self-awareness building. Furthermore, I've had a long time to adapt to what "daily-practice-as-cleanse" means. In these instances, it really is NOT about the poses, but about the intention, the breath (tremendously) and the kriya.
I most definitely subscribe to the perspective that regular practice is devised to develop, in addition to spiritual awareness, physical skill and precision through asana. But that's not the gist of a cleanse practice. Cleanse yoga is when you call on the skills you've developed to test your limits on all the levels.
My, this post has bounced around! I began with the intention of advising you about why there's very little creative activity going on in these parts, due to the excellent weather. I've finished it by wondering if that's true :-)
At any rate, how's it going with your summer? Have you turned off the computer in favour of a patio? Are you all the more structured in your creativity right now? Doing any cleanses while the food is fresh? Let's talk!
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Mid-Summer Cleanse
Yesterday I wrote about MyYoga.com and about how it's working for me at this point in my life. In addition to being a useful resource when I'm tired or feeling uncreative, it's also mercifully convenient. I have a yoga room (well, technically it's a sewga room) with all the bells and whistles so it's very easy to grab my laptop, shut the door and practice. I find it difficult to conform to studio class times because they aren't necessarily aligned with my schedule and I hate waiting around for a late class. I'm pretty-well couch-bound by 7:30 pm and I have to eat something before (light) and immediately after I practice, especially if it's moving into the dinner hour. Futhermore, and I can only speak for downtown studios in TO, but I'm fairly horrified by how they consistently overfill classes - with latecomers, no less. I do not like crowds and I particularly hate being shoved into an over-crowded corner because I am respectful enough to arrive at a class before it starts. Finally, as mentioned yesterday, I'm enjoying shorter, frequent practices lately. 90 minutes of hardcore vinyasa, starting at 7 pm, is just not doing it for me.
No doubt there are detractors to online yoga platforms: If you don't know what you're doing, you're not really going to learn the way you would in a class environment. There's not much teaching going on - it's more about class leading. This increases the opportunity for injury. MyYoga, specifically, under-represents certain methodologies (Iyengar), and over-represents others (Ashtanga). The teachers are not exactly relatable. They're generally buff and excessively photogenic - which may inspire or irritate. There's no class-energy to benefit from. It's an isolated medium.
I've been asked how I've continued to practice yoga regularly lo these many years. The answer is that I've adapted it to the life I'm living and I prioritize the activity. Mr. Iyengar used to say that you don't live to do yoga, you do yoga to live. Life comes first and yoga facilitates it. But that doesn't mean that I haven't had to draw some deep lines in the sand. When my kid was young, I'd pick her up from daycare, we'd walk home - I'd change and make her something to eat (or my husband would) and then I'd go straight to my mat. I couldn't wait till 9 pm (at which point I was effectively comatose from fatigue). I'm sure that one of M's enduring memories will be of me saying: Could you turn down that sound?? Mummy's practicing. (She's always listening to something on the computer / radio / TV.) I cannot allow myself to settle in before I do yoga or it doesn't happen. Sure, I've been known to bring my props to the living room, at 9:30 pm, while my husband watches TV - especially if I'm in a pain loop. But I don't really consider that yoga. (Mind you - it's better than nothing and it reinforces my commitment to my practice, even when things conspire to keep me out of the yoga room proper. BTW, there is nothing in my house that I haven't used as a prop :-))
I've also gone through phases when, frankly, yoga has taken a back seat. 25 years is a long time. I've rarely gone more than 2 weeks without it, but there have been times (when my kid was an infant, when I became apathetic in my early 30s) where I'd go through a couple of months without yoga (and even when I did practice, my head wasn't in it). Whatcha gonna do?
Intriguingly, at the moment, MyYoga is conspiring to facilitate a summer goal - and just by dumb luck. See, it semi-regularly hosts these things called "challenges" which are like mini-programs you can sign up for to learn, for example, how to develop elements of your practice. A new one started 3 days ago (though I believe anyone who's a member can start doing it at any time), called "Conscious Cleanse". Two of the MyYoga teachers have written a book by the same name and this challenge is pure cross-promotion. The format and hosts are a definitely plastic but there are very good resource materials and it's organized to bring one gradually into cleanse-mode over 2 weeks. There's nothing abrupt about it and one eats daily. This isn't a juice fast.
Basically, the program indicates that one does a pre-determined, cleanse-oriented yoga class daily, drinks a 32 oz green smoothie (ingredients and recipes suggested) and removes all the processed foods, gluten and refined sugar from the diet. One is also advised to drink water at the number of ounces equivalent to at least half of one's body-weight, daily. There's a heavy emphasis on overcoming functional dehydration which, as I like to harp, has really negative long-term implications.
Natch, I am modifying the rules to suit myself because there's no way I'm living without eggs, meat, dairy and caffeine (in the form of 2 shots of espresso per day). I also reserve the right to drink a glass of wine if I feel like it - but I haven't much felt like it cuz I'm drinking so much freakin' water (and smoothies) that I have no more space left for booze. Plus I eat dark chocolate as often as I like because really, if you don't, you're doing it wrong.
For me this is more of a state of mind than a hard reboot. And, because the challenge is heavily yoga-oriented, of course it's big on "intention setting". Gist is that participants are urged to determine their conscious or unconscious motivations before they undertake the cleanse. I can do that.
For what it's worth, my intention is two-fold: Improvement of my health to continue to reduce pain (my omnipresent goal, which is going pretty well, btw) and using optimal health as a means by which I can reframe my current body-image. I will not continue to reinforce body-criticism simply because I don't look as I did 2 years ago. That's such a waste of time and energy - not to mention that I have a very palatable figure, even if it isn't the one of my youth. One of my biggest struggles for the past year has been with bloating (nature's perfect way to make you feel fat!), partly because my digestive system is in a really strange place, partly because of overindulgence in sugar and salt and partly because of stress (predominantly of the work variety but life's thrown some curveballs).
The best way to feel good about how I look is to know that it's the product of my healthiest, sustainable lifestyle. This cleanse lasts only 2 weeks but that's long enough to modify some deleterious habits. Most certainly, part of my best lifestyle is indulging my well-developed hedonism so I won't be fucking with that. But it's once again time to refine things (ain't it always?), and I'm hopeful that this challenge will motivate moderate change.
Today's questions: What are your thoughts on fitness challenges or cleanses? Have you done an online challenge such as this or something similar? What were your intentions in taking it on? Let's talk!
No doubt there are detractors to online yoga platforms: If you don't know what you're doing, you're not really going to learn the way you would in a class environment. There's not much teaching going on - it's more about class leading. This increases the opportunity for injury. MyYoga, specifically, under-represents certain methodologies (Iyengar), and over-represents others (Ashtanga). The teachers are not exactly relatable. They're generally buff and excessively photogenic - which may inspire or irritate. There's no class-energy to benefit from. It's an isolated medium.
I've been asked how I've continued to practice yoga regularly lo these many years. The answer is that I've adapted it to the life I'm living and I prioritize the activity. Mr. Iyengar used to say that you don't live to do yoga, you do yoga to live. Life comes first and yoga facilitates it. But that doesn't mean that I haven't had to draw some deep lines in the sand. When my kid was young, I'd pick her up from daycare, we'd walk home - I'd change and make her something to eat (or my husband would) and then I'd go straight to my mat. I couldn't wait till 9 pm (at which point I was effectively comatose from fatigue). I'm sure that one of M's enduring memories will be of me saying: Could you turn down that sound?? Mummy's practicing. (She's always listening to something on the computer / radio / TV.) I cannot allow myself to settle in before I do yoga or it doesn't happen. Sure, I've been known to bring my props to the living room, at 9:30 pm, while my husband watches TV - especially if I'm in a pain loop. But I don't really consider that yoga. (Mind you - it's better than nothing and it reinforces my commitment to my practice, even when things conspire to keep me out of the yoga room proper. BTW, there is nothing in my house that I haven't used as a prop :-))
I've also gone through phases when, frankly, yoga has taken a back seat. 25 years is a long time. I've rarely gone more than 2 weeks without it, but there have been times (when my kid was an infant, when I became apathetic in my early 30s) where I'd go through a couple of months without yoga (and even when I did practice, my head wasn't in it). Whatcha gonna do?
Intriguingly, at the moment, MyYoga is conspiring to facilitate a summer goal - and just by dumb luck. See, it semi-regularly hosts these things called "challenges" which are like mini-programs you can sign up for to learn, for example, how to develop elements of your practice. A new one started 3 days ago (though I believe anyone who's a member can start doing it at any time), called "Conscious Cleanse". Two of the MyYoga teachers have written a book by the same name and this challenge is pure cross-promotion. The format and hosts are a definitely plastic but there are very good resource materials and it's organized to bring one gradually into cleanse-mode over 2 weeks. There's nothing abrupt about it and one eats daily. This isn't a juice fast.
Basically, the program indicates that one does a pre-determined, cleanse-oriented yoga class daily, drinks a 32 oz green smoothie (ingredients and recipes suggested) and removes all the processed foods, gluten and refined sugar from the diet. One is also advised to drink water at the number of ounces equivalent to at least half of one's body-weight, daily. There's a heavy emphasis on overcoming functional dehydration which, as I like to harp, has really negative long-term implications.
Natch, I am modifying the rules to suit myself because there's no way I'm living without eggs, meat, dairy and caffeine (in the form of 2 shots of espresso per day). I also reserve the right to drink a glass of wine if I feel like it - but I haven't much felt like it cuz I'm drinking so much freakin' water (and smoothies) that I have no more space left for booze. Plus I eat dark chocolate as often as I like because really, if you don't, you're doing it wrong.
For me this is more of a state of mind than a hard reboot. And, because the challenge is heavily yoga-oriented, of course it's big on "intention setting". Gist is that participants are urged to determine their conscious or unconscious motivations before they undertake the cleanse. I can do that.
For what it's worth, my intention is two-fold: Improvement of my health to continue to reduce pain (my omnipresent goal, which is going pretty well, btw) and using optimal health as a means by which I can reframe my current body-image. I will not continue to reinforce body-criticism simply because I don't look as I did 2 years ago. That's such a waste of time and energy - not to mention that I have a very palatable figure, even if it isn't the one of my youth. One of my biggest struggles for the past year has been with bloating (nature's perfect way to make you feel fat!), partly because my digestive system is in a really strange place, partly because of overindulgence in sugar and salt and partly because of stress (predominantly of the work variety but life's thrown some curveballs).
The best way to feel good about how I look is to know that it's the product of my healthiest, sustainable lifestyle. This cleanse lasts only 2 weeks but that's long enough to modify some deleterious habits. Most certainly, part of my best lifestyle is indulging my well-developed hedonism so I won't be fucking with that. But it's once again time to refine things (ain't it always?), and I'm hopeful that this challenge will motivate moderate change.
Today's questions: What are your thoughts on fitness challenges or cleanses? Have you done an online challenge such as this or something similar? What were your intentions in taking it on? Let's talk!
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Form Factor
Y'all know I use MyYoga.com (now part of GaiamTV). It's an online yoga platform that I recommend for a wide variety of online yoga classes (of all levels and durations) taught by numerous teachers of numerous schools (though not so much Iyengar). It's one of the ways I motivate myself to engage on days when I'm either very tired or feeling uncreative. (More on My Yoga - with which I am in no way affliliated btw, except as a paying client, next post...)
One of the things I've realized lately (and trust me, it's taken 25 years to decide to stop hitting my head against the wall when it comes to this) is that you don't need to do yoga for 2 hours (or 90 minutes or even 60 minutes) every time you step on your mat. My nature predisposes me to feel that 30 minutes is the practical minimum, at least for myself - but I've always recommended to newbies, who struggle to develop a practice, that the three-pose rule* is where it's at. FWIW, there are those who will tell you that any amount of yoga is a practice.
I'm sure it doesn't surprise you to know that I'm pedantic and goal-driven. I'm a freakin' civil servant, after all. I came by the Iyengar method honestly, while searching for fitness in my teens, because it's utterly akin to my personality: driving, specific, practical and intensely technical. Partly I'm this way because peeps be who they are, and all that. Partly, I'm this way because I've spent my entire life managing clinical anxiety and obsessive compulsiveness and the imposition of order is the way I come to terms with the vast amount of sensory input to which I am excessively sensitive.
Here's the thing, spending 2 hours per session, doing yoga 3 times a week, doesn't work for me right now. (There's an argument to be made that it doesn't work optimally, physically, for lots of people. But let's not dwell on them - this is about me.) Right now, I feel best on every level when I do 30-45 minutes of yoga 5 times a week. That's about half the amount that my old-school, orderly self feels is "doing real yoga". These days I also often feel better when someone else is telling me what to do because it's easy for me to ruminate on my (in)abilities - on my level of asana "consciousness" - when I'm directing myself.
I've been doing the same poses for decades. I've come up against the same physical (to say nothing of mental) sensations and challenges thousands and thousands of times. And nearly every time I've come up against them - last year or two notwithstanding - I've fought them. I've fought my perceived inabilities, my competitive (with myself) strain, my urge for improvement (which never became my joy of refinement). Certainly, I've experienced tremendous pleasure in yoga or, trust me, I wouldn't do it. But when one actions a pose it's always the same: The only barrier one ever encounters is oneself.
Teachers spend a lot of time telling students that, if they want to change themselves, they need to take the journey in the practice. I'm here to tell you, if you want to change your practice (how you live within it, how you benefit from it), you also have to change yourself.
And that's why I'm doing it all differently. My urge for perfection (which isn't abstract perfectionism, btw, it's an actual drive for order in the physical form) is painful. It has actually contributed to my experience of physical pain. Yin yoga recently helped me to take the edge off my form-centred, Iyengar-sensibility. MELT and other forms of myofascial bodywork have reinforced for me - outside of the spectrum of yoga - that it's really not about how it looks while you're doing it but how it feels when you're done.
On that rabbit-holey topic - let me clarify my perspective: The impact of yoga is never about how it looks and always about how it feels (in the context of physically safe asana). That's not to say that beautifully executed poses (in that Yoga Journal fashion) aren't a concurrent aim for many yogis. In fact, for most long-standing practitioners I've come across, I sense it's equally important. Not that anyone talks about this.
I do yoga, in part, because it brings me health, self-awareness and vibrancy. I also do it because it's a way for me to express my physical ability and my perceived beauty in that ability. Is that yoga? No way. Is it egotism? Sort of. Is it harmful? Well, when it gets out of hand it is.
I'm ageing, as are we all, and I'm moving through a physically challenging phase of life at the moment. How long this phase will last is unknown. How it will end is unknown. Arguably the purview of yoga is in age because, while I cannot satisfy my ego through my practice at this moment, I should never have been trying to do so in the first place. Nothing like a period to end a sentence.
At any rate, that's my deep thought for Wednesday. Fellow yogis (or runners or rowers or cross-fitters), what's your take on this? Do you express your ego in your activity? (Think twice before you answer.) And if you're a yoga-doer with a long-standing practice, how has it changed as you've gone from one life phase to the next? Let's talk!
*The three pose rule is just that: Get on your mat and do 3 poses in the style of practice you'd optimally like to accomplish (i.e. active, supported or pose-family focused). If at the end of doing those 3 poses, you're still feeling utterly disinterested, just put that mat away and move on with your day. If, however, you find even a glimmer of engagement having done those first 3 poses, do 3 more. If you're still there after 6 poses, chances are, you're in it for a full practice (however you define that).
One of the things I've realized lately (and trust me, it's taken 25 years to decide to stop hitting my head against the wall when it comes to this) is that you don't need to do yoga for 2 hours (or 90 minutes or even 60 minutes) every time you step on your mat. My nature predisposes me to feel that 30 minutes is the practical minimum, at least for myself - but I've always recommended to newbies, who struggle to develop a practice, that the three-pose rule* is where it's at. FWIW, there are those who will tell you that any amount of yoga is a practice.
I'm sure it doesn't surprise you to know that I'm pedantic and goal-driven. I'm a freakin' civil servant, after all. I came by the Iyengar method honestly, while searching for fitness in my teens, because it's utterly akin to my personality: driving, specific, practical and intensely technical. Partly I'm this way because peeps be who they are, and all that. Partly, I'm this way because I've spent my entire life managing clinical anxiety and obsessive compulsiveness and the imposition of order is the way I come to terms with the vast amount of sensory input to which I am excessively sensitive.
Here's the thing, spending 2 hours per session, doing yoga 3 times a week, doesn't work for me right now. (There's an argument to be made that it doesn't work optimally, physically, for lots of people. But let's not dwell on them - this is about me.) Right now, I feel best on every level when I do 30-45 minutes of yoga 5 times a week. That's about half the amount that my old-school, orderly self feels is "doing real yoga". These days I also often feel better when someone else is telling me what to do because it's easy for me to ruminate on my (in)abilities - on my level of asana "consciousness" - when I'm directing myself.
I've been doing the same poses for decades. I've come up against the same physical (to say nothing of mental) sensations and challenges thousands and thousands of times. And nearly every time I've come up against them - last year or two notwithstanding - I've fought them. I've fought my perceived inabilities, my competitive (with myself) strain, my urge for improvement (which never became my joy of refinement). Certainly, I've experienced tremendous pleasure in yoga or, trust me, I wouldn't do it. But when one actions a pose it's always the same: The only barrier one ever encounters is oneself.
Teachers spend a lot of time telling students that, if they want to change themselves, they need to take the journey in the practice. I'm here to tell you, if you want to change your practice (how you live within it, how you benefit from it), you also have to change yourself.
And that's why I'm doing it all differently. My urge for perfection (which isn't abstract perfectionism, btw, it's an actual drive for order in the physical form) is painful. It has actually contributed to my experience of physical pain. Yin yoga recently helped me to take the edge off my form-centred, Iyengar-sensibility. MELT and other forms of myofascial bodywork have reinforced for me - outside of the spectrum of yoga - that it's really not about how it looks while you're doing it but how it feels when you're done.
On that rabbit-holey topic - let me clarify my perspective: The impact of yoga is never about how it looks and always about how it feels (in the context of physically safe asana). That's not to say that beautifully executed poses (in that Yoga Journal fashion) aren't a concurrent aim for many yogis. In fact, for most long-standing practitioners I've come across, I sense it's equally important. Not that anyone talks about this.
I do yoga, in part, because it brings me health, self-awareness and vibrancy. I also do it because it's a way for me to express my physical ability and my perceived beauty in that ability. Is that yoga? No way. Is it egotism? Sort of. Is it harmful? Well, when it gets out of hand it is.
I'm ageing, as are we all, and I'm moving through a physically challenging phase of life at the moment. How long this phase will last is unknown. How it will end is unknown. Arguably the purview of yoga is in age because, while I cannot satisfy my ego through my practice at this moment, I should never have been trying to do so in the first place. Nothing like a period to end a sentence.
At any rate, that's my deep thought for Wednesday. Fellow yogis (or runners or rowers or cross-fitters), what's your take on this? Do you express your ego in your activity? (Think twice before you answer.) And if you're a yoga-doer with a long-standing practice, how has it changed as you've gone from one life phase to the next? Let's talk!
*The three pose rule is just that: Get on your mat and do 3 poses in the style of practice you'd optimally like to accomplish (i.e. active, supported or pose-family focused). If at the end of doing those 3 poses, you're still feeling utterly disinterested, just put that mat away and move on with your day. If, however, you find even a glimmer of engagement having done those first 3 poses, do 3 more. If you're still there after 6 poses, chances are, you're in it for a full practice (however you define that).
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Yoga and Myofascial Pain
I should start this post by saying that, in the last month, I've learned enough about "yoga for myofascial pain" to write a book. This is somewhat concerning, if you think about it, as both have been a huge part of my life for 25 years.
I'll also add in the obligatory disclaimer about how the degree of complexity involved in understanding and managing chronic pain is matched only by the degree of complexity when it comes to understanding yoga and how it works to heal and strengthen the body/mind.
This post ain't out to change the world, peeps, but to share some of the more mind blowing things that have influenced me lately. And when I say "influenced" I really mean "deeply experienced" because I've been locked in some cult-like therapy session with my pain lo these past 6 weeks.
On the plus side, we're finally talking.
I don't even know where to begin. In the same way my pain is a huge loop that, when it flares, sucks everything into its grip, my increasing awareness of it is circular, like the ripple produced by a stone skipped into water.
How about starting with the elephant in the room: How does a woman (whose fitness, health and spiritual life paths centre around a practice based on listening to the body) develop debilitating pain - likely produced by years of not listening to her body? I cannot tell you how many classes I've taught over the years wherein I've cautioned my students to listen. I cannot tell you how many more classes I've been to (and personal practices I've done), wherein that's the mantra.
How the fuck did this happen?
Well, the origins of pain are not always clear (and this is the complicated subject of another post) - and one can never discount the nature of the practitioner when it comes to adaptation. I have always been the kind of person who throws herself into things passionately - actually, one might say violently. My mind and body don't really understand moderation. This is no secret - especially on this blog. It's what makes me fun to be around. It gives me scope. It exercises a very fast-moving neuro-chemistry. It makes me incredibly productive. It feeds my ego. I love jumping out of a metaphoric airplane as often as possible (which is strange because, in real life, I'm exceedingly cautious with my actions). Sometimes, all that I can see is the outcome. I'm not naturally adept at interpreting the impact.
I started yoga at a very young age - at a very hard time in my life. My parents were moving to another country. I was in Canada alone. I had just left the fold of my high-school, a small, extremely meaningful place where I'd learned how to relate to everything and to truly be myself. Adulthood had begun, but I wasn't ready. I was, in my mind, cast adrift without family, a crushing emotional experience that I recognized all too keenly: I had lived through it once already, in early childhood. I knew, intuitively (certainly not consciously) that I needed yoga to ground me. I can only say I was very fortunate to have found the Iyengar method right off the bat. It worked for my personality (and against it). It was a "safe" practice focused on structural alignment. It came with a community (albeit one I would eventually eschew).
In retrospect, I remember my teacher constantly smacking me (in the yoga way, to bring awareness to a dull part of the body), telling me not to grip. When I wanted to jump, she made me stand still. When I wanted to go further into a pose, she'd stop me half-way. I had the physical confidence of youth and I felt compelled to move, to achieve. For me, deepening my practice was related to improving my physical ability and form. I could do some fancy poses. Mind you, so can lots of people. Even today, in this ridiculous state, I could warm up my body, move past the pain with some heat and breath work, and do a very active practice in such a way that you wouldn't know - more to the point, neither would I - that I'd distracted myself from dealing with injury produced by chronic pain.
The truth is that you can always work any instruction to suit your unconscious desires.
I realize now, as I meditate, in three different styles - to achieve 3 different states - for about an hour each day (30 min morning, 30 min evening), that my yoga has never been as sincere as it is right now. I do everything with the intention of listening to my body, of incorporating its need for release and extremely precise (almost non-) movement. I learned/practiced these techniques (a pranayama method for quieting the nervous system, a biofeedback method and a method of meditative dialogue) in my late teens. Of course, back then, I thought meditative response was something reserved for the very advanced - or else it was a scam. I was doing it, but I wasn't feeling it.
In one of those fortuitous life-ironies, I turned my attention to yin yoga (to the notion of connective tissue release) at just the time I finally began to understand that my pain is based on its utter restriction. It's possible that my return to active yoga practice in the summer led me, 6 weeks ago, to this particular pain "crisis" - a variation on my semi-regular pain bouts (about which I've written all too often here). This one isn't willing to go, though. It's digging in its heels. And honestly, while I hate the pain, I am so incredibly grateful for its message. As my mother likes to say: You pay now, or you pay later. Really people, I am ready to settle up this bill.
At this point, my methods for working with pain are numerous (again, the zillions of inter-related processes would require a full post of their own). But in terms of yoga, when I wake up in the morning (feeling like I've been hit by a truck, if you must know, and afraid of how my body will last the day in an incredibly stressful job), I meditate. Then I do about 15 minutes of yoga postures that don't look a damn thing like yoga. I prop my body with, say, my dining room table and other furniture. My goal is to stress connective tissue in my left hip, low back and upper thoracic. Gradually, the ridiculous morning stiffness (I've recently developed) abates.
Cut to the evening. I begin by using props very carefully and lying in poses to undo the physical damage of the day. (Note: Yeah, I do realize I've got to find a way not to take it all into my body. But one fucking thing at a time! This is the topic, not of a post, but of a long conversation over dinner and a bottle of wine.) Depending on what's up - and lately it's been pretty fucking hard core - I do very simple, non-weight-bearing poses which I hold for very long periods. These aren't simply yin asanas, though I bring that awareness into the poses via intention. I also do many of the Iyengar supported poses I loathe. Ah, my latent pain (in the early days) knew even then how to avoid things.
Eventually, for the sake of endorphin-release, I may opt to bring some flow (heat) into the work - but not your average vinyasa. My trapezius and related muscles are SO hair-trigger, that one weight-bearing movement can throw everything into a literally nerve-wracking spasm. I use my head stander (have I mentioned how I love this thing) to allow me to get neck and shoulder traction, while also calming my nervous system and regulating my (ever so taxed) endocrine system. Man, I spend a long time hanging upside down.
I can do this because I have the knowledge and the years of technical experience. I own the (expensive) props. I have a yoga studio. I have access to information. I can only imagine how someone without these resources struggles to function. I'm calling on years of mudra - those poses I've done all my life have been saving my ass for decades. The roots of this pain have been in my body for as long as I can remember.
If you are in terrible chronic pain and you haven't done yoga before - please, find yourself a good teacher. When you most need support, don't try to learn something complex on your own. Of course, practice as often as you can in your home, but invest in private classes or a good Iyengar therapeutics class. The teacher, whatever her method, must be knowledgeable, sensitive, able to communicate - and she must be able to see the pain in your body in order to help you to fix it. You wouldn't go to a mediocre chiropractor or physical therapist. Don't take yoga risks when you're managing pain.
When I look at people with my "yoga eyes", I often see their physical (and mental) pain. The very pain I haven't been able to access in myself is writ large in others and it's much less complicated than my own because I see it objectively. I understand how it can leave. When I teach a person in pain, I tell her to listen to her body, to make her actions minute, to hear the feedback of those actions and to face the untenable.
Now onward.
I'll also add in the obligatory disclaimer about how the degree of complexity involved in understanding and managing chronic pain is matched only by the degree of complexity when it comes to understanding yoga and how it works to heal and strengthen the body/mind.
This post ain't out to change the world, peeps, but to share some of the more mind blowing things that have influenced me lately. And when I say "influenced" I really mean "deeply experienced" because I've been locked in some cult-like therapy session with my pain lo these past 6 weeks.
On the plus side, we're finally talking.
I don't even know where to begin. In the same way my pain is a huge loop that, when it flares, sucks everything into its grip, my increasing awareness of it is circular, like the ripple produced by a stone skipped into water.
How about starting with the elephant in the room: How does a woman (whose fitness, health and spiritual life paths centre around a practice based on listening to the body) develop debilitating pain - likely produced by years of not listening to her body? I cannot tell you how many classes I've taught over the years wherein I've cautioned my students to listen. I cannot tell you how many more classes I've been to (and personal practices I've done), wherein that's the mantra.
How the fuck did this happen?
Well, the origins of pain are not always clear (and this is the complicated subject of another post) - and one can never discount the nature of the practitioner when it comes to adaptation. I have always been the kind of person who throws herself into things passionately - actually, one might say violently. My mind and body don't really understand moderation. This is no secret - especially on this blog. It's what makes me fun to be around. It gives me scope. It exercises a very fast-moving neuro-chemistry. It makes me incredibly productive. It feeds my ego. I love jumping out of a metaphoric airplane as often as possible (which is strange because, in real life, I'm exceedingly cautious with my actions). Sometimes, all that I can see is the outcome. I'm not naturally adept at interpreting the impact.
I started yoga at a very young age - at a very hard time in my life. My parents were moving to another country. I was in Canada alone. I had just left the fold of my high-school, a small, extremely meaningful place where I'd learned how to relate to everything and to truly be myself. Adulthood had begun, but I wasn't ready. I was, in my mind, cast adrift without family, a crushing emotional experience that I recognized all too keenly: I had lived through it once already, in early childhood. I knew, intuitively (certainly not consciously) that I needed yoga to ground me. I can only say I was very fortunate to have found the Iyengar method right off the bat. It worked for my personality (and against it). It was a "safe" practice focused on structural alignment. It came with a community (albeit one I would eventually eschew).
In retrospect, I remember my teacher constantly smacking me (in the yoga way, to bring awareness to a dull part of the body), telling me not to grip. When I wanted to jump, she made me stand still. When I wanted to go further into a pose, she'd stop me half-way. I had the physical confidence of youth and I felt compelled to move, to achieve. For me, deepening my practice was related to improving my physical ability and form. I could do some fancy poses. Mind you, so can lots of people. Even today, in this ridiculous state, I could warm up my body, move past the pain with some heat and breath work, and do a very active practice in such a way that you wouldn't know - more to the point, neither would I - that I'd distracted myself from dealing with injury produced by chronic pain.
The truth is that you can always work any instruction to suit your unconscious desires.
I realize now, as I meditate, in three different styles - to achieve 3 different states - for about an hour each day (30 min morning, 30 min evening), that my yoga has never been as sincere as it is right now. I do everything with the intention of listening to my body, of incorporating its need for release and extremely precise (almost non-) movement. I learned/practiced these techniques (a pranayama method for quieting the nervous system, a biofeedback method and a method of meditative dialogue) in my late teens. Of course, back then, I thought meditative response was something reserved for the very advanced - or else it was a scam. I was doing it, but I wasn't feeling it.
In one of those fortuitous life-ironies, I turned my attention to yin yoga (to the notion of connective tissue release) at just the time I finally began to understand that my pain is based on its utter restriction. It's possible that my return to active yoga practice in the summer led me, 6 weeks ago, to this particular pain "crisis" - a variation on my semi-regular pain bouts (about which I've written all too often here). This one isn't willing to go, though. It's digging in its heels. And honestly, while I hate the pain, I am so incredibly grateful for its message. As my mother likes to say: You pay now, or you pay later. Really people, I am ready to settle up this bill.
At this point, my methods for working with pain are numerous (again, the zillions of inter-related processes would require a full post of their own). But in terms of yoga, when I wake up in the morning (feeling like I've been hit by a truck, if you must know, and afraid of how my body will last the day in an incredibly stressful job), I meditate. Then I do about 15 minutes of yoga postures that don't look a damn thing like yoga. I prop my body with, say, my dining room table and other furniture. My goal is to stress connective tissue in my left hip, low back and upper thoracic. Gradually, the ridiculous morning stiffness (I've recently developed) abates.
Cut to the evening. I begin by using props very carefully and lying in poses to undo the physical damage of the day. (Note: Yeah, I do realize I've got to find a way not to take it all into my body. But one fucking thing at a time! This is the topic, not of a post, but of a long conversation over dinner and a bottle of wine.) Depending on what's up - and lately it's been pretty fucking hard core - I do very simple, non-weight-bearing poses which I hold for very long periods. These aren't simply yin asanas, though I bring that awareness into the poses via intention. I also do many of the Iyengar supported poses I loathe. Ah, my latent pain (in the early days) knew even then how to avoid things.
Eventually, for the sake of endorphin-release, I may opt to bring some flow (heat) into the work - but not your average vinyasa. My trapezius and related muscles are SO hair-trigger, that one weight-bearing movement can throw everything into a literally nerve-wracking spasm. I use my head stander (have I mentioned how I love this thing) to allow me to get neck and shoulder traction, while also calming my nervous system and regulating my (ever so taxed) endocrine system. Man, I spend a long time hanging upside down.
I can do this because I have the knowledge and the years of technical experience. I own the (expensive) props. I have a yoga studio. I have access to information. I can only imagine how someone without these resources struggles to function. I'm calling on years of mudra - those poses I've done all my life have been saving my ass for decades. The roots of this pain have been in my body for as long as I can remember.
If you are in terrible chronic pain and you haven't done yoga before - please, find yourself a good teacher. When you most need support, don't try to learn something complex on your own. Of course, practice as often as you can in your home, but invest in private classes or a good Iyengar therapeutics class. The teacher, whatever her method, must be knowledgeable, sensitive, able to communicate - and she must be able to see the pain in your body in order to help you to fix it. You wouldn't go to a mediocre chiropractor or physical therapist. Don't take yoga risks when you're managing pain.
When I look at people with my "yoga eyes", I often see their physical (and mental) pain. The very pain I haven't been able to access in myself is writ large in others and it's much less complicated than my own because I see it objectively. I understand how it can leave. When I teach a person in pain, I tell her to listen to her body, to make her actions minute, to hear the feedback of those actions and to face the untenable.
Now onward.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Yoga for Pain Management
Here's the deal peeps: The chronic pain bullshit continues. I don't know why I'm all flippy about it right now. It's nothing new. But managing pain takes so much fucking will. There's no pill to fix it. Rather, there's a pill and a potion and supplements and body work and the mindful application heat and cold and exercise and (potentially) diet. Most of all, though, it's about fortitude.
Actually, as of yesterday, it's also about a jaw splint because, on top of everything else, I've been dealing with pretty significant TMJD for most of my life. It's hit a peak of badness lately, unsurprisingly. Life stressors, age and hormonal shifts have contributed to this. But the latest little life glitch to contend with is that my jaw actually dislocates when I open my mouth. (It does click back into the right spot thereafter, but this ain't a good development.)
I don't want to dwell on the bad right now. I have enough opportunity to do that in the wee hours of the night. The measure of a person is not in her ability to handle the fun times, of this I am certain. And, since I don't appear to be living a life of constant fun times, I'm going to focus on the gift that is pain. For example, you never have to wonder about the verity of the mind-body connection when you live with pain. It shows itself to you in every moment.
This is actually a relevant segue to a topic I've been meaning to discuss for a while: the specifics of the yin yoga method. I've discussed it briefly before. It's a system that's gained popularity in the last decade - and mostly in the last 5 years - though it's been around since the 70s.
It combines Daoist principles, elemental constructs of Chinese Traditional Medicine with long-held asana (many analagous to yoga postures you'd be familiar with). The objective is to work the body, in these postures, "cold" because you don't want to engage muscle groups - what active yoga practice aims to do. You want to by-pass muscular response so that you can stress (and thereby tone) connective tissue and fascia.
Yin practice works distinctly from active practice. They are complementary but different physical and meditative activities. Often, long-standing practitioners of active styles (Iyengar, Ashtanga) feel that yin yoga isn't "real yoga" because it functions on the plane of the passive. Yes - yin yoga is unapologetically, deliberately passive. The premise is that you do not want to engage regular physiological feedback loops because they're in opposition to those that stress the connective tissue. In this context, stress is a good thing. It implies new growth of healthy tissues and strengthening of existing structures. You cannot stretch connective tissue. That's the purview of the muscles. To stretch ligaments and fascia would be to damage them. So you stress them instead.
Any yoga can be practiced by any person at any stage of ability - but I warn you against embracing the yin style until you have a well-established active practice. The style assumes a certain amount of muscular flexibility and strength. Regardless of the passive intention re: holding postures for upwards of 5 minutes each, it takes strength and pliancy - both physically and mentally - to do so.
Unlike the Iyengar restorative method (and I'll discuss the distinctions between these in a moment), the yin method doesn't dwell on how to prop the poses to allow for long holds. Some teachers address this better than others - but a strong background in Iyengar yoga is the perfect complement to the yin practice. Iyengar yoga is particularly focused on muscular activity in the context of structural stability. Yin yoga focuses on non-muscular activity in the context of structural stability. Skillful application of props is germane to both of these goals.
Here's what I'll say about the yin style (as a person who is very experienced in the ways of the restorative Iyengar method):
It's taken me years to figure this out. But I was totally shocked to discover that the premise of yin yoga (a method I'd heard about and arrogantly assumed was like "restorative yoga lite") is all about the very thing I cannot contain or work to my will.
Here's another way of looking at things re: yoga as pain management. (Note that yoga is about much more than pain management, of this we are all well aware...)
Iyengar restorative practice seeks to ameliorate pain by balancing neurotransmitters (the hormonal precursors in the brain). Talk about taking things back to the studs. It presumes a non-trivial amount of physical and mental self-awareness - and the ability to stay in some serious poses for a long period of time. When effective, biochemical balance leads to a significant decrease in pain.
Yin yoga doesn't go straight to the brain (well, even as it goes straight to the core :-)). It posits that passive stress to a sheath of tissue (which runs throughout the body) can elicit a change in the pain response. Does that go back to the brain? Yeah. But it's a more accessible vehicle for most peeps.
Is one better than the other? I don't think so. In as much as yin yoga and active yoga are different modalities, so is Iyengar restorative practice distinct from the yin method. One may work better for a particular practitioner at a particular moment. The pain loop is not static. Pain comes from and goes to different places depending on a myriad of factors that are so minute it's sometimes impossible to detangle them. In this respect, knowledge is power.
I often modify my yoga sessions (while in a pain moment) to include elements of active, supported and yin practice. I also modify my intention to suit that of the practice I'm doing. When I work actively, my meditation is on slowing breath and moving that breath to the muscle groups (to improve endurance and flexibility). When I work supportedly, my intention is to use inversions (and pressure points) to restore endocrine balance. When I work in the yin practice, my intention is to be entirely passive - which is almost impossible for me. It's to feel the pain I run from much of the time. To integrate it and to make peace with it.
The value of intention cannot be underestimated. I spent years wondering about whether there's any specific correlation between outcome and intention. Trust me, cuz I've done the work. The correlation is significant. You cannot remove your mind from the pain equation. Nor can you remove it from the yogic one.
Today's questions: Do you practice all three types (active, yin and supported)? What is your experience? Do you manage chronic or semi-regular pain? What are your techniques for managing? How does intention alter your experience of yoga practice (if at all)? Let's talk.
Actually, as of yesterday, it's also about a jaw splint because, on top of everything else, I've been dealing with pretty significant TMJD for most of my life. It's hit a peak of badness lately, unsurprisingly. Life stressors, age and hormonal shifts have contributed to this. But the latest little life glitch to contend with is that my jaw actually dislocates when I open my mouth. (It does click back into the right spot thereafter, but this ain't a good development.)
I don't want to dwell on the bad right now. I have enough opportunity to do that in the wee hours of the night. The measure of a person is not in her ability to handle the fun times, of this I am certain. And, since I don't appear to be living a life of constant fun times, I'm going to focus on the gift that is pain. For example, you never have to wonder about the verity of the mind-body connection when you live with pain. It shows itself to you in every moment.
This is actually a relevant segue to a topic I've been meaning to discuss for a while: the specifics of the yin yoga method. I've discussed it briefly before. It's a system that's gained popularity in the last decade - and mostly in the last 5 years - though it's been around since the 70s.
It combines Daoist principles, elemental constructs of Chinese Traditional Medicine with long-held asana (many analagous to yoga postures you'd be familiar with). The objective is to work the body, in these postures, "cold" because you don't want to engage muscle groups - what active yoga practice aims to do. You want to by-pass muscular response so that you can stress (and thereby tone) connective tissue and fascia.
Yin practice works distinctly from active practice. They are complementary but different physical and meditative activities. Often, long-standing practitioners of active styles (Iyengar, Ashtanga) feel that yin yoga isn't "real yoga" because it functions on the plane of the passive. Yes - yin yoga is unapologetically, deliberately passive. The premise is that you do not want to engage regular physiological feedback loops because they're in opposition to those that stress the connective tissue. In this context, stress is a good thing. It implies new growth of healthy tissues and strengthening of existing structures. You cannot stretch connective tissue. That's the purview of the muscles. To stretch ligaments and fascia would be to damage them. So you stress them instead.
Any yoga can be practiced by any person at any stage of ability - but I warn you against embracing the yin style until you have a well-established active practice. The style assumes a certain amount of muscular flexibility and strength. Regardless of the passive intention re: holding postures for upwards of 5 minutes each, it takes strength and pliancy - both physically and mentally - to do so.
Unlike the Iyengar restorative method (and I'll discuss the distinctions between these in a moment), the yin method doesn't dwell on how to prop the poses to allow for long holds. Some teachers address this better than others - but a strong background in Iyengar yoga is the perfect complement to the yin practice. Iyengar yoga is particularly focused on muscular activity in the context of structural stability. Yin yoga focuses on non-muscular activity in the context of structural stability. Skillful application of props is germane to both of these goals.
Here's what I'll say about the yin style (as a person who is very experienced in the ways of the restorative Iyengar method):
- The yin practice is entirely different than restorative practice in its intention. The restorative Iyengar practice focuses on improving health (mental and physical) by taking postures to balance the endocrine system. Those postures, while heavily propped, are not passive. They engage muscles inasmuch as the maintenance of muscular "tone" is inherent to remaining safely in the postures for long periods. The emphasis is on supported back bends and full inversions - which are known for promoting endocrine stability. There is no emphasis on Chinese medical principles. There is an emphasis on the movement of prana.
- By contrast, the yin practice emphasizes complete passivity in the poses. The mantra is: With no expectation, every posture is correct. Time is the only meaningful variable. With long-holdings, comes optimal stress to connective tissues - if you can handle it. These poses focus on the large muscle-groups between the knees and ribcage, particularly the hips and the emphasis is on seated poses, modified standing poses and forward bends. As fascia is interconnected between all muscles in the body, stress on the largest muscles achieves the greatest result. And, as this fascia tones, via stress, one can feel the impact of yin hip openers widely throughout the body. Postures are explored from the vantage point of Chinese medical principles (meridians and elements) and also from the standard yogic vantage point of moving prana.
It's taken me years to figure this out. But I was totally shocked to discover that the premise of yin yoga (a method I'd heard about and arrogantly assumed was like "restorative yoga lite") is all about the very thing I cannot contain or work to my will.
Here's another way of looking at things re: yoga as pain management. (Note that yoga is about much more than pain management, of this we are all well aware...)
Iyengar restorative practice seeks to ameliorate pain by balancing neurotransmitters (the hormonal precursors in the brain). Talk about taking things back to the studs. It presumes a non-trivial amount of physical and mental self-awareness - and the ability to stay in some serious poses for a long period of time. When effective, biochemical balance leads to a significant decrease in pain.
Yin yoga doesn't go straight to the brain (well, even as it goes straight to the core :-)). It posits that passive stress to a sheath of tissue (which runs throughout the body) can elicit a change in the pain response. Does that go back to the brain? Yeah. But it's a more accessible vehicle for most peeps.
Is one better than the other? I don't think so. In as much as yin yoga and active yoga are different modalities, so is Iyengar restorative practice distinct from the yin method. One may work better for a particular practitioner at a particular moment. The pain loop is not static. Pain comes from and goes to different places depending on a myriad of factors that are so minute it's sometimes impossible to detangle them. In this respect, knowledge is power.
I often modify my yoga sessions (while in a pain moment) to include elements of active, supported and yin practice. I also modify my intention to suit that of the practice I'm doing. When I work actively, my meditation is on slowing breath and moving that breath to the muscle groups (to improve endurance and flexibility). When I work supportedly, my intention is to use inversions (and pressure points) to restore endocrine balance. When I work in the yin practice, my intention is to be entirely passive - which is almost impossible for me. It's to feel the pain I run from much of the time. To integrate it and to make peace with it.
The value of intention cannot be underestimated. I spent years wondering about whether there's any specific correlation between outcome and intention. Trust me, cuz I've done the work. The correlation is significant. You cannot remove your mind from the pain equation. Nor can you remove it from the yogic one.
Today's questions: Do you practice all three types (active, yin and supported)? What is your experience? Do you manage chronic or semi-regular pain? What are your techniques for managing? How does intention alter your experience of yoga practice (if at all)? Let's talk.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Yin and Yang
I'm having one of those times in life that's relentlessly busy. It's also stressful, in a certain way that hits me hard - my endurance is being tested, and simultaneously my ability to stand at the precipice of change. Yeah, I know we're all being pushed and none of us knows what's coming next. But for me, that confluence of feelings is tough.
Since I haven't got much to say on the craft front - though I do have some knit-sewing, basic projects up my sleeve - why don't Ibore you delight you with a little update on the New Regime. It's quickly becoming simply "the regime". The shiny sparkle of novelty has faded. Happily though, my commitment has not.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have a practice to support me at this time. That practice isn't always the essence of conscious engagement. It sometimes suffers from my extreme tiredness at the end of the day, or my full-body muscle spasms re: the fun that is hormones. I inevitably follow it up with a glass of wine and, often, a treat. But hey, I'm doing it and I know it's keeping me sane. So let's raise a glass (and eat a bowl of chips) to that.
From the vantage point of shape-evolution, I wouldn't say I've slendered much more in the last month - mind you, I haven't lost any ground. As far as I'm concerned, that's ok. This transformation is a process and I've got time.
Truth is, I've also got a lot of cortisol running through my system lately because my job is flat out. What I do requires the ability to process and analyze large volumes of complex content quickly. Then to provide advice. Thereafter begins the potentially arduous (but worthy) time of negotiation. Simultaneously, I write a lot of documents and brief at a bunch of meetings. There's no acceptable margin of error and the pace is constant.
Those of us prone to the adhesion of fat at the midsection (the apple-shaped for want of a better term) are particularly susceptible to the impacts of cortisol. I can definitely feel, after a week of mega-stress at work, increased puffiness and a decrease in awareness in my abdominal region. No, that's not fat, but it's a warning sign and it's one I'm taking seriously.
As per usual, I walk to and from work daily. Moreover, I'm now practicing yoga 5 times a week. Would it help if I cut back on the nightly glass of wine (and half bottle on weekend days)? Um, sure - from the vantage point of continuing to slim - but I think my mind would be in way worse shape! Wine-drinking is a delicious, sensory experience that improves food and takes me from the stress of the day to the welcome calm of the evening. BTW, I do the yoga first, natch - and while it moves me from the stressed state to one of increasing tranquility, it's no substitute for the mood-alteration technique that is a glass of Chianti. (Note: My bet's on my mother calling me when she reads this post, just to ensure that I'm not descending into alcoholism.)
But let's talk more about the Regime...
Since I haven't got much to say on the craft front - though I do have some knit-sewing, basic projects up my sleeve - why don't I
I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have a practice to support me at this time. That practice isn't always the essence of conscious engagement. It sometimes suffers from my extreme tiredness at the end of the day, or my full-body muscle spasms re: the fun that is hormones. I inevitably follow it up with a glass of wine and, often, a treat. But hey, I'm doing it and I know it's keeping me sane. So let's raise a glass (and eat a bowl of chips) to that.
From the vantage point of shape-evolution, I wouldn't say I've slendered much more in the last month - mind you, I haven't lost any ground. As far as I'm concerned, that's ok. This transformation is a process and I've got time.
Truth is, I've also got a lot of cortisol running through my system lately because my job is flat out. What I do requires the ability to process and analyze large volumes of complex content quickly. Then to provide advice. Thereafter begins the potentially arduous (but worthy) time of negotiation. Simultaneously, I write a lot of documents and brief at a bunch of meetings. There's no acceptable margin of error and the pace is constant.
Those of us prone to the adhesion of fat at the midsection (the apple-shaped for want of a better term) are particularly susceptible to the impacts of cortisol. I can definitely feel, after a week of mega-stress at work, increased puffiness and a decrease in awareness in my abdominal region. No, that's not fat, but it's a warning sign and it's one I'm taking seriously.
As per usual, I walk to and from work daily. Moreover, I'm now practicing yoga 5 times a week. Would it help if I cut back on the nightly glass of wine (and half bottle on weekend days)? Um, sure - from the vantage point of continuing to slim - but I think my mind would be in way worse shape! Wine-drinking is a delicious, sensory experience that improves food and takes me from the stress of the day to the welcome calm of the evening. BTW, I do the yoga first, natch - and while it moves me from the stressed state to one of increasing tranquility, it's no substitute for the mood-alteration technique that is a glass of Chianti. (Note: My bet's on my mother calling me when she reads this post, just to ensure that I'm not descending into alcoholism.)
But let's talk more about the Regime...
- I have stopped doing "gym fitness". I really hate machines and bright lights and weights. I gave it a good try, and I'm sure I'll try it again in the future. But it still doesn't work for me.
- I have also stopped going to yoga classes the gym. Those classes were a means to an end, as I knew from the get go. While they are safe, and social - and while they enforce infrastructure - they are not "taught". They're also not adequately challenging. I sense the need to work more intensively to gain the kind of cardio-fix my body seems to crave. And, truly, my knowledge of yoga asana languishes in those classes. Sure, we're all beginners in the classroom, but I want to explore my body in a wide range of poses - not the 30 one encounters over and over in the average, mid-range vinyasa class.
- So, although the gym is a thing of the past - and thankfully too since it's fucking crowded and you can't swing a dead cat without running into people you know - my practice is happily ever-evolving. I have researched yoga studios that are known for small class sizes and new formats. I've begun to visit a couple of those to take a weekly class.
- I also practice in my home studio on 4 other occasions per week, averaging an hour each time. I either devise my own sequence or, when I'm very tired, and would prefer to be told what to do, I do a My Yoga Online class. This isn't my first foray into My Yoga Online, but the format really has improved dramatically (and it was a good resource to begin with). The site offers hundreds of classes - and new classes are added weekly. (Note: I always try to preview each class I intend to do, once in advance, because I practice without my glasses so I can't see what's happening on the screen. This allows me to weed out the practices that don't suit and to discover new teachers and sequences I prefer). The advanced classes are hardcore. The intermediate ones can be pretty hardcore too. And this platform favours the yin method (in addition to other styles though, alas, Iyengar is not represented). I'm going to do a post on Yin Yoga sometime soon but, in brief it is an excellent adjunct to active practice (which focuses predominantly on the development of muscular strength and balance) to improve flexibility and mindfulness. Especially given the extreme muscle and fascia tension I experience semi-regularly, as a result of hormonal shifts, I find it incredibly useful to practice in this style once or twice a week. Please note: Though it is sometimes classified as "passive", I do not recommend it for beginners. This style is very confrontational and it presumes a baseline of flexibility and structural body awareness. It is also quite distinct - though I didn't realize this before I started practicing the method - from supported practice in the Iyengar style. Both are very useful, btw, but they're not working on the same things in the same ways.
People have asked me lately how I don't get side-lined the minute I walk in my front door. What I'll say is this: I do not make dinner (if Scott doesn't cook, we forage - and that includes my kid). I do not listen to messages. I do not tidy things up. I do not talk to anyone. I wash my face, put on my yoga gear and walk into the yoga room with my computer. If those with whom I live try to talk to me, I answer them monosyllabically. If they ask me to do something, I tell them no.
The only way to prioritize one's practice - at least if you work full-time - is to put on a shield of selfishness. I can only urge you to become comfortable with that construct if you lead the "modern life" and you don't want to fall apart from stress and/or get fat.
On that topic, you'll notice my blogging is less frequent and it may remain this way until December. I LOVE to write, but it takes time. And the less time I have to do the things I love to write about, the less I have to say when I do have time to write. It's a circular scenario, apparently.
So that's where I'm at right now... I'd love to know if you work-out at home and, if yes, how do you keep yourself on track? (I need pointers! Full-time working mothers, your experience is particularly welcome...) Have you tried the Yin Yoga method? If yes, what are your thoughts on it? Do you find that work stress contributes to abdominal puffiness (wine consumption notwithstanding)? Is this my own personal experience? Let's talk!
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