Wednesday 22nd February
I spent the first half of practice worrying about the ache in my right hip. Moving ever so carefully and slowly, I then started thinking that I wasn’t actually doing Ashtanga – yes I was doing the primary sequence of poses in their proper order, yes I was in the shala surrounded by other people doing their practice, yes it was before sunrise. The similarities stopped there.
My breath was oh so long and smooth, not a fiery breath to stoke the intensity and ‘burn up the impurities’, but a very soothing Ujjiyi breath to cool the fiery intensity of deep aches. I cut the breath count down to 4 so that practice wouldn’t drag on for four hours. these days I’m not so anal about the “correct” way to practice. It’s a beautiful sequence and a good template, the rewards only coming after years of repetition, but you have to trust your intuition as much as trusting “the method” and sometimes that means practicing differently.
I was glad to be between Simi and another teacher in the softly lit shala. They were also moving slowly and intelligently, trusting and following invisible inner promptings, feeling their way through their own private landscapes.
If I’d been next to sweaty, hard-core A-type Ashtangis I may have felt injured, feeble, inadequate, but the energy in the room was nurturing…female…lunar, it gave me permission to practise intuitively.
A few people are still away in India so only a small gathering of dedicated yogis were there again this morning. I got a good dose of attention from David today. His verbal instructions are sometimes complex, but my body actually responded appropriately on a couple of occasions leaving me looking surprised instead of blank and perplexed.
So the first half of practice was tentative and slightly painful, but I was able to move steadily and joyfully, watching the pain in my hip joint, investigating what aggravated it and what eased it. Trying to step my right leg forward from Dog Pose caused my right hip to shriek with the pain of bearing weight.
I wondered if I should be practising at all, if I was making it worse by moving (pain is a warning), but I couldn’t stop the momentum of practise once it started.
This is always a test…do I really have faith in this practice to purify all my body/mind imbalances, injuries and samskaras? Do I just keep doing the practice, reciting the mantra "all is coming"?
Approaching Supta Kurmasana I recalled David adjusting me into the full ankles-behind-the-head pose on Monday. Maybe that set off this incident of hip pain? As I straightened my legs in Kurmasana, the hip protested. David approached and put me into full Supta Kurmasana before I could say anything (I should have mentioned my recent history of injuries to him by now, but I haven’t - probably something to do my discomfort with talking about myself).
Anyway today's pain isn't a new injury, just a crusty old friend reminding me that they haven't quite disappeared off the scene.
The Upward Dog stretch after SK was excruciating. I skipped Garbha Pindasana and headed straight for the solace of Baddha Konasana – lovely nurturing soft female pose that it is. David approached again, splayed open my thighs mercilessly til my knees met the floor then laid on my back. Everything changed. The instant I was pinned down, I dived in to find my core, drew up the bandhas, breathed prana energy through my core channel and my consciousness ignited.
The rest of practice was deeply peaceful and connected. The hip pain was still there but all the fear and all the stories around it faded into the background. I calmly got up for dropbacks, having not even attempted them for months. David tried to correct my preparation - the way I tuck my tail in, lift my sternum and raise my arms (a la Iyengar) is all wrong - but old habits die hard.
My hip and lumbar will probably ache tomorrow, but something tells me the old injury needs to be prodded into the open to heal it, otherwise it will stay buried and calcify in that hip forever.
Now I have to wait until next Monday before I can get back to the shala again.
Patience . . . is a virtue.
Sub-Conjunctival Haemorrhage
Sounds dramatic – it’s the medical term for ruptured blood vessels in the eye.
I forgot to make a diary note that I woke up with an eye full last Friday so I had to miss Darrin’s led class.
This blog is handy for keeping track of the frequency of these recurring incidents.
I usually don’t know the blood vessels have ruptured until someone gasps at the sight of my red eye. Normally there are no sensations associated with it. But this time there was an intense ache behind my left eye, it was watering and was very light sensitive.
I took the day off work and happily went blackberry picking instead.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
I spent the first half of practice worrying about the ache in my right hip. Moving ever so carefully and slowly, I then started thinking that I wasn’t actually doing Ashtanga – yes I was doing the primary sequence of poses in their proper order, yes I was in the shala surrounded by other people doing their practice, yes it was before sunrise. The similarities stopped there.
My breath was oh so long and smooth, not a fiery breath to stoke the intensity and ‘burn up the impurities’, but a very soothing Ujjiyi breath to cool the fiery intensity of deep aches. I cut the breath count down to 4 so that practice wouldn’t drag on for four hours. these days I’m not so anal about the “correct” way to practice. It’s a beautiful sequence and a good template, the rewards only coming after years of repetition, but you have to trust your intuition as much as trusting “the method” and sometimes that means practicing differently.
I was glad to be between Simi and another teacher in the softly lit shala. They were also moving slowly and intelligently, trusting and following invisible inner promptings, feeling their way through their own private landscapes.
If I’d been next to sweaty, hard-core A-type Ashtangis I may have felt injured, feeble, inadequate, but the energy in the room was nurturing…female…lunar, it gave me permission to practise intuitively.
A few people are still away in India so only a small gathering of dedicated yogis were there again this morning. I got a good dose of attention from David today. His verbal instructions are sometimes complex, but my body actually responded appropriately on a couple of occasions leaving me looking surprised instead of blank and perplexed.
So the first half of practice was tentative and slightly painful, but I was able to move steadily and joyfully, watching the pain in my hip joint, investigating what aggravated it and what eased it. Trying to step my right leg forward from Dog Pose caused my right hip to shriek with the pain of bearing weight.
I wondered if I should be practising at all, if I was making it worse by moving (pain is a warning), but I couldn’t stop the momentum of practise once it started.
This is always a test…do I really have faith in this practice to purify all my body/mind imbalances, injuries and samskaras? Do I just keep doing the practice, reciting the mantra "all is coming"?
Approaching Supta Kurmasana I recalled David adjusting me into the full ankles-behind-the-head pose on Monday. Maybe that set off this incident of hip pain? As I straightened my legs in Kurmasana, the hip protested. David approached and put me into full Supta Kurmasana before I could say anything (I should have mentioned my recent history of injuries to him by now, but I haven’t - probably something to do my discomfort with talking about myself).
Anyway today's pain isn't a new injury, just a crusty old friend reminding me that they haven't quite disappeared off the scene.
The Upward Dog stretch after SK was excruciating. I skipped Garbha Pindasana and headed straight for the solace of Baddha Konasana – lovely nurturing soft female pose that it is. David approached again, splayed open my thighs mercilessly til my knees met the floor then laid on my back. Everything changed. The instant I was pinned down, I dived in to find my core, drew up the bandhas, breathed prana energy through my core channel and my consciousness ignited.
The rest of practice was deeply peaceful and connected. The hip pain was still there but all the fear and all the stories around it faded into the background. I calmly got up for dropbacks, having not even attempted them for months. David tried to correct my preparation - the way I tuck my tail in, lift my sternum and raise my arms (a la Iyengar) is all wrong - but old habits die hard.
My hip and lumbar will probably ache tomorrow, but something tells me the old injury needs to be prodded into the open to heal it, otherwise it will stay buried and calcify in that hip forever.
Now I have to wait until next Monday before I can get back to the shala again.
Patience . . . is a virtue.
Sub-Conjunctival Haemorrhage
Sounds dramatic – it’s the medical term for ruptured blood vessels in the eye.
I forgot to make a diary note that I woke up with an eye full last Friday so I had to miss Darrin’s led class.
This blog is handy for keeping track of the frequency of these recurring incidents.
I usually don’t know the blood vessels have ruptured until someone gasps at the sight of my red eye. Normally there are no sensations associated with it. But this time there was an intense ache behind my left eye, it was watering and was very light sensitive.
I took the day off work and happily went blackberry picking instead.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
