Cursing Yogini’s blog

So, I have been at my studio for a little over two years.  The instructors are generally very good, and there are many with long years of yoga teaching.  (Not that new teachers can't be good, but old teachers have, as one teacher put it, more tricks in their bag.  Which is handy if the first modification suggested doesn't work for you.)  But my favorite teacher (the one with 20+ years of experience) left a while back (it was too painful to blog about until now!), and, I'm not sure what to do. 

I have been attending various classes by various teachers.  And don't get me wrong, they're not bad teachers.  And I have learned things from all of them - my favorite is a trick I learned for a pigeon modification that works hip stability rather than hip openness.  But overall, I feel like I'm not getting a whole lot out of the classes. 

Part of this is timing - it's inconvenient for me to go to the classes that are labeled most advanced.  (I counted, of 31 classes offered, only 8 even claim to include their top rating.  And of the ones labeled level 3 that I've been to (that's none of the three that finish before 9 AM), I have seldom been challenged.) 

So...what's a yogini to do?  Several members of the class I affectionately call the "little old lady" class told me I should take up a new sport when I mentioned not feeling challenged.  Private lessons are right out at the moment for economic reasons.  How does anyone else invigorate their practice?  Studio-hopping?  DVDs?  Taking up running?

Had started an entry on another topic, but the computer ate it, so feh. 

Anyway, so, I have determined that absent acute trauma (like, the time I popped it back out) leaving the rib alone doesn't actually cause much improvement.  If it's askew, it doesn't seem to go back into place.  My massage therapist *will* put it back into place (so I can't feel it poking out), but I can re-knock it out. 

This week it's been feeling good enough that I have been (cautiously) expanding my yoga practice.  And while backbends are probably still right out, I just feel really sore, and that goes away by the next day.  So, yay, sort of?

So I've been out of class again, this time for a particularly nasty cold which turned into a sinus infection.  Which makes the second time illness has knocked me out of class for over a week in the past four years.  Maybe it's just not a good yoga year. 

But it was good to get back to class...although apparently 10 days with no movement has *not* caused my rib to heal sufficiently to stretch my left arm/side.  *sigh*  And I got through class fine, although I had a coughing attack during shavasana.  (I left the room, thought I had it under control, came back in, and promptly started coughing again.  Sorry, classmates.)  So I guess I will try class again tomorrow, and see how it goes.  And then things will promptly get messed up with the holiday, but, oh well.

Oh, but!  I learned a new-to-me Sanskrit name for something I didn't even know was an asana: Apanasana.  Which was neat. 

So, as I currently have tons of time to use my yoga pass, I have more or less determined just to do the 10 AM class every day.  Which on Tuesdays is pranayama.  It turns out that if I go to a pranayama class on purpose, instead of having it sprung upon me, I don't mind it nearly so much.  I actually kind of enjoy it, the twice I've gone.  (It is particularly nice the morning after I manage to reinjure myself.  Sweeping.  But...we did at least win the game...)

Having made my peace with pranayama, there is now yoga nidra that I think I don't like, although the time it happened I survived.  (Although...I shouldn't have done it in virasana.  And wouldn't have, had I known it was going to be half an hour!  Ah, well, you can bet I felt that later.)

But, right, so in various classes we've been doing different visualizations, and...I have to say, some of them are so foreign to me they pop me right out of whatever we were doing.  Like, mountains are problematic for me.  Mountains to me are the Andes, from my time in South America; the platonic ideal of American consciousness seems to be somewhere in the Rockies, but...man, that's not what I think of.  So if you have me envision a mountain, I see verdant greenery, and the description of barren rocks will pop my eyes open and make me go !!!  Sometimes I can get back into it, but...I'm not a meditative girl, so, not usually.

The other week, in a regular class, we were visualizing hands pressing on our backs, with the intent of getting us to open our chests.  Sure, okay.  But, then the teacher had to embellish it.  "These are hands of someone who loves and adores you completely."  Which...was sufficient to break my spinster-self.  I couldn't get back into it for most of class,  until I managed to conjure up a nice Fantasy Boy.  But...bah. 

I suppose what I'm getting at is it would be nice if yoga were more inclusive...but given the price tag and way it's been marketed in the US, it's going to attract a fairly narrow demographic...and I'm probably one of the few who doesn't share the same postulates.  :(

I just got back from a class in which they were doing a photo shoot for the studio.  Which was ... sort of bitterly ironic for me, as I was just at a point where I was happy in a lot of my poses, and then I broke myself, which keeps me out of my best poses, and full expression of a lot of poses, and, you know, wah wah.  But I think I was in a few pictures.  We'll see. 

I can't believe I even showed up for it (which I did more because the class time was better for me) - I am ... not a photo-seeker.  Well, if they're good, that'll be neat.  If not, I'll just never mention them again.

After the two classes in mid-October, I managed to make the rib hurt via trying on jackets.  Really.  So I skipped class for another week, but I seemed to be as likely to hurt it staying home as at yoga (for one thing, in yoga I'm a lot more mindful of my movements), so I've been going back this week. 

I have determined that I can't do big twists.  I mourn for my beautiful backbends, as I currently can't go past a sort of baby sphinx pose.  I can't raise my left arm over my head straight up.  Which means that even when I go to class, I only half participate.  (And shavasana on my back kills me; luckily Sensei showed me a forward position over a bolster that feels good.)   But, I feel better now that I'm going than when I wasn't.  Hopefully I'll get through this without getting too out of practice...or too lopsided.

My injured rib was apparently "subluxated", which is apparently doctor-speak for dislocated.  Apparently it's like a sprain, so, try to not reinjure it.  (Which I was doing daily, via about one cough a day.)  Got that under control and spent 3 weeks doing No Yoga (and not a lot else), the longest break I've had since I got serious about yoga.  But it had stopped popping out and had felt pretty okay (sore-ish, but not actively bad), so I decided to give yoga a shot last night.  Sensei claimed I hadn't been to her class in 3 months, (which isn't true!) and gave me a hug and got the rib story.  So we didn't do any backbends (and did about half pranayama), which was fine.  (It just takes an injury for me to appreciate pranayama, apparently.)  Although even the few poses we did were enough to make me sore.  And Sensei suggested a front pose for shavasana, which was fine.  (I ended up trying the other, later, and OMFG, that *hurt*.) 

Since that went so well, I decided to go to class today.  A different teacher, and I was late because I forgot when class was.  (It's been a while!)  I did the most mindful practice I've ever done, I think, and didn't do some of the stuff, but whether from that or, uh, buying a jacket my side is very, very sore. 

Gah.  I guess I'll have to take it slow.  But, man, I'm already tired of being injured...

AKA "Bad Idea Theatre"

If you think you might have pulled a chest muscle, say, by falling off your bike, it might be a good time to skip yoga class.  Also?  You might have cracked a rib.  Or pulled a ligament.  Or something.  In any case, it will <i>hurt, and is probably a bad idea. 

So I'm off yoga for a while, at least until I can cough without it causing an intense pain.  *sigh*  (Deep breaths hurt, so...not even pranayama.)

Since I was at Monday class, I realized that through sheer inertia I would be at class most of the days this week, so I figured I'd go for all of them, because, why not?  (I'm working reduced hours, so time is something I have in spades.) 

Tuesday, by the way, was great - something we did Monday loosened me up so I could do a a wide-legged forward bend and put my torso on the floor, something I haven't been able to do in ages.  I wish I knew what it was.

Wednesday I went to the Little Old Lady class, which was fun, but I ended up spending a lot of class helping one of the women.  Which turned my practice a little less narcissistic than usual.  I'm sure that's good for me.  Thursday was sort of a disaster - I honestly thought class started 15 minutes later than it did, so I showed up super late but didn't realize it.  While I'm sure no one else cared, I was mortally embarrassed, which definitely made my practice a lot more restrained than usual. 

And today was a n00b class, which was fine.  How much of a n00b class?  That I got pointed out as doing a good ardha chandrasana.  Admittedly, I have gotten to the point where I can usually hold that pose, but my version usually isn't something people praise. 

Aaaaand...I think that was a fun experiment, but I'm not going to push myself to make it to class tomorrow.

Not having any exciting out-of-town-plans, I consulted the studio schedule and went to a class this morning.  (Have I mentioned lately how happy I am with my yoga pass?)  When the new-to-me teacher asked if there were requests of what people wanted to work on, someone said, "Stability".  Which...really, is a better way to phrase that.  It's not that I have an inner ear problem, it's just my ligaments are loose and my muscles can't hold me together the way unstretchy people's can.  And, yeah, this was a little epiphany for me.  (I don't have bad balance, I'm just unstable!  Oh, wait...)

And OMG, this hurt.  Whatever muscle goes down the outer hip (I'm guessing the tensor fascia latae, based on googling "hip muscles") is obviously not something that I use often.  But...well, that might be the problem.