When Yoga Hurts – No, Helps – No, Hurts…
The Dichotomy Of My Yoga Practice…
I have used my yoga practice many times in my life to both hurt myself as well as help myself.
I’ve always been very flexible… double-jointed, hypermobile… able to stretch my joints much further than I should – which has led to many sprains and strains beginning when I was a child. What I didn’t learn until much later in life, was just how important it was to engage the muscles surrounding my joints, offering stability and support so that I could focus on stretching my muscles and not my ligaments and tendons.
I had mild scoliosis as a child, so this wasn’t treated (and certainly not helped by playing what seemed like my favorite game at times – pack mule – carrying bags wayyy too heavy, causing me to stand completely lopsided), and I have one vertebra in my lower back that never quite fused – the two parts of the bone just missed each other (I think because of one or more falls down the stairs as a child)… over the years, motor vehicle accidents and poor decisions (like standing in ‘attitude-asana’ on too frequent a basis) led my neck and back conditions to worsen. After a motor vehicle accident in 1997, I began treatment with a chiropractor – three times per week. I felt better following each visit, but if I missed an appointment, I was in trouble! I can clearly remember sitting in my chiropractor’s office discussing my x-ray, hearing (with a very baffled tone), “how are you even walking around?” I knew something needed to change. Wrist issues, carpal tunnel (then, years later, no carpal tunnel), tendinosis… it’s been real!
I used to love building strength while toning muscles following recorded instruction on pilates DVDs. After several years of a regular pilates practice at home, I followed a friend’s advice and tried yoga. I loved the way yoga complimented my pilates practice, allowing me to stretch so much more deeply… and I was hooked! My at home practice quickly became more centered around yoga and less around pilates, but I still viewed these sessions as ‘exercise’… and I hurt. I was all ego during this time and I would push myself to my limits, continuing to move through, regardless of what my body felt like, and almost always stopping the recording before savasana (the final resting portion of a yoga class). I thought that if I could just build enough strength, I wouldn’t hurt so much. I may have been right, but only partially…
It wasn’t until years later, when I attended my first studio yoga class that I realized not only the mindfulness benefit yoga could offer, but how my misalignment in poses and transitions was causing so much of my pain. The ability to avoid distraction and quiet my mind for a full 60 – 75 minutes was positively blissful(no anxiety for an entire hour!!) and wow! to learn how I could realign so yoga would actually help me feel better was absolutely priceless! I swore off a home practice and was convinced a studio practice was the way to go so there was always someone watching who could tell me if something I was doing was going to put me at risk for injury.
My first studio classes were based in the Iyengar tradition… very slow moving, with the use of many props to ensure correct alignment. My ego just needed to be still for a time while I figured out how to ‘get back to’ my exercise routine. Once I could learn enough to stop hurting, I could go back to what I was doing, right? Not so right…
Anyway, my ego couldn’t sit still for very long and I began taking vinyasa style classes. I had learned ‘enough’ about alignment and it was time to hit the ground running! Years of hearing the same cues from the same instructors, but only half listening, and not absorbing enough of the information to what these cues meant to my body led me down the path of injury again and again. Instructors would cue muscle engagements, but I didn’t have enough mind-body awareness at the time to understand what these meant… until one day it clicked. I was in a class and heard a cue I had heard countless times before, but suddenly, I felt the muscle engagement my instructor was talking about! I understood what she meant all those times before. My practice changed radically.
Looking back, there were a number of times I can reflect on major shifts in my practice:
- Learning correct alignment of the hands in downward dog (pressing down and forward using the base of each finger, especially the space between the index finger and thumb, not cupping the hands or putting pressure on the pinky side of the hands or the heels of the hands was huge!),
- understanding mula bandha (root lock – a squeeze and lift of the muscles in the pelvic floor to draw energy up in many poses),
- spinal movement initiating with a tilt of the pelvis,
- focusing on muscle engagements in poses – working a pose from the inside out -letting go of attachment to what a pose is ‘supposed to look like’, and
- changing my yoga mat to one that doesn’t cause me to slide,to name just a few! Another huge one for me, was (again, putting my ego aside), finally listening to what my instructors recommended for a long time,
- dropping my knees from a plank pose, practicing yogi pushups for quite some time (monthsss), teaching my muscles in my upper body what I wanted them to do to learn how to move through a vinyasa flow including chaturanga dandasana correctly, without jamming my wrists, without focusing on using my biceps instead of my triceps, and effectively using more of the larger muscles in my back instead of dumping weight into my smaller shoulder muscles.HUGE!
More than 18 years of practice, classes, workshops, and 500 hours of yoga teacher trainings later, I feel a mix of a home practice and a studio practice is perfect for allowing creative time to explore the many aspects of asana (postures) as well as the opportunity to explore what poses mean within your body and how you can incorporate your yoga practice into daily life – both on and off the mat. The body awareness you can develop from a regular yoga practice can help you become so much more mindful of how you carry yourself throughout your day, how you can correct poor postural patterns, and how you can use your strengthening muscles to support skeletal issues which may be less than comfortable.
I love to vary my practice by taking a variety of classes and I always recommend trying different classes with different instructors because you never know when someone is going to cue the same pose you’ve done hundreds of times just a little bit differently and you’ll have that “AHA!” moment where you understand how this pose can serve your body better. I am an absolute believer yoga is for every body. If you haven’t found a yoga class you like, just keep searching for a style of yoga and/or an instructor that meshes with your needs. There are so many different styles of yoga out there and there are so many instructors willing to share their valuable knowledge.
You can feel better!
*Sheri Craze, E-RYT 200, RYT 500, YACEP is not a medical doctor and nothing contained on this site is intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. The information provided is purely for educational purposes. Please consult with a physician before beginning this or any other exercise program.
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