I used to love yoga. Did it all the time…almost everyday. Now I do bodywork, cialis and believe me, view my body needs it. Why? Because I used to do yoga.
Bad Back
A few years ago, I developed a twinge in my back. The twinge turned into a sharp pain deep in my left side that radiated down my left leg. It felt like I had a basketball with a knife blade lodged into it sitting next to my hipbone. Then my left foot went numb. I knew this was a bad sign. I went to my gynecologist thinking I was a goner. My gyno, Dean is a friend, and I always go to him first if I think I’m dying. I wouldn’t want a stranger delivering the bad news. Anyway, Dean sent me straight to the hospital for a whole shebang of tests (MRI’s, CAT scans, blood tests etc.) I wasn’t going to die. Whew. Instead, I was going to be in the worst pain of my life. I had a herniated disk sitting on a nerve in my back…!@#$}(%^&*){
I could not walk, lie down, sleep or live. But I was determined not to have back surgery. I heard too many horror stories about back surgeries gone wrong. Nightmarish dreams invaded the little sleep I managed to get. So, I downed the drugs the doc prescribed. I don’t like drugs and these were bad drugs. Really bad drugs. Finally, the only thing that helped was a spinal injection that alleviated the inflammation. I know, TMI. But I wanted to give you a context of why I don’t do yoga anymore.
Yoga Done Wrong
I was reminded of this dreadful health experience when I read the New York Times article last week, How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body. Like the Times author, William J. Broad, I believed, “yoga was a source only of healing and never harm.” The yoga teacher Broad interviewed for the article, Glenn Black claims that “the vast majority of people should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.”
According to Black, those of us who sit in chairs all day strain ourselves when we try to be like the yoga Indian practitioners who typically squat and sit cross-legged in their daily lives. The yoga poses, or asanas, are an outgrowth of these types of sitting postures. Not the sitting in chairs in front of the computer type of postures.
When yoga teachers come to Black for bodywork after suffering major traumas, he tells them, “Don’t do yoga.”
The article is truly fascinating. It includes supporting medical evidence and bad, bad stories like mine.
Yoga Done Right
This was just my little story of why I don’t take yoga classes anymore. I do a few yoga postures with the guidance of a highly trained bodywork teacher.
So, let me be clear, I’m not advocating not doing yoga if it makes your body and heart sing, especially if you can do this…
http://youtu.be/loszrEZvS_k
Credits: Thank you, Liza Donnelly for the cartoon from When Do They Serve The Wine?, Elaine Colandrea for Moving For Health, and Jordyn Cormier for the video inspiration.
I follow a lot of online happenings. It’s a big part of my world. This rosy red morning, a poster made its appearance all over my world.
Many of you have told me that you enjoy the words I post. That makes me feel happy and loved. Thank you. I am a devoted writer, and I don't write for free (except here).
As we flip the calendar page to a new year, it’s nice to mark its beginnings in a meaningful way. Each time I sit down to write a New Year’s post, I bump up against what I am beginning to consider a highly overused word, Resolutions. Believe me, I’ve used and abused the “r” word, and its derivative, resolve, many times. In my mind, committing to resolutions seems…well, so 2011ish.