Crim Week, Day 3: Overadjusted

Posted in ashtanga yoga, work on 09/10/2008 06:46 pm by karen

Had to be in the office by 7 AM. Egads, this is ridiculous. Got up at 3:30 with Tyler. Fed him and amused him until he keeled over for his morning nap. Then I did a crim Ashtanga practice. To navasana, then intermediate to ustrasana. Then closing.

Here’s the deal: I have to face the fact that I have been systematically overadjusted over the past few weeks and am now feeling the effects. None of this is the teacher’s fault, the system’s fault, or my fault. Everyone was just being enthusiastic and devoted.

Nevertheless, I’ve had too many deep adjustments and my body is pretty tweaked.

Piriformis = shot. T12 = shot.

Ah, well.

The crim week is well-timed, and has been useful. I was being adjusted so much that I started to think my practice sucked. Which made me work harder. Which brought more adjustments. Which… blah blah blah.

It’s been nice to go to classes I have no investment in and just see myself in a mirror. Everything is fine, I don’t need to try so hard. All the striving is “working,” if being the flexible person in class is the goal. It’s not working if being balanced and free of pain is the goal.

I am going to take some time to be even MORE crim. I am going to get a mirror in the yoga room so I can assess my alignment, and I’m going to spend some time doing awareness work, and if I go to Mysore practice, I am going to request spoken adjustments rather than hands-on adjustments.

 

2 Comments

  1. Oy! It’s so hard not to be focused on “progress”. A couple months ago, I tweaked my upper back , causing muscle spasms and shooting pain down my arm. Eventually (a few weeks of getting worse), I went to my dr and she asked, what did you do when it started to hurt? To which I had to reply, “Uh, I kept doing the same thing, and it got worse.” Doh! I felt a little silly… Sounds like you have a more sensible course of action in mind.

    The daily practice is tricky. It takes discipline, which some days feels like making yourself do something you don’t feel like doing. I sometimes find it hard to distinguish “I don’t feel like it” from “my body is telling me that I shouldn’t do this”.

  2. Sorry about the tweaks, that sucks. Yes to focus, and I really love the idea of just verbal adjustments. A different discipline, but one all the same.

    Good things!

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