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Uh oh, I thought when I woke up in the middle of the night last night, it’s not *just* the hamstring. No, I seem to have an ache in the left hip area. Hmmm.

Went to practice this morning and discussed with MM. Explained to him that I have had all kinds of sports injuries, which I am perfectly fine with — I don’t mind getting hurt as a by-product of my physical entertainments. I mean, I don’t love it, but it’s just part of the deal sometimes. That said, I am super vigilant about sacrum and neck. I do NOT want to injure myself in those places.

When I did taekwondo, I was totally fine with getting beat up in a sparring match, but would NOT go along with hard kicks to the head. There was one woman who was a total headhunter. I could watch her eyes trying to time a kick to my head. She was so focused, in fact, that it was easy for me to time her and punch her in the face (not too hard), which I did to distract her. Until one day when I was so fed up with it that I punched her in the nose HARD. She ended up with a bloody nose and her contacts came out from how much her eyes watered. I felt bad — I’d never really tried to hurt anyone when sparring. I just wanted her to quit trying to kick me in the head.

Luckily, I don’t think I can get sufficient leverage for an angry punch during the eka pada sirsasana assist.

Anyhow, I can’t quite tell what’s happening yet. At first I thought it was IT band irritation, but no, I can do IT band stretches without any pain. Now I’m wondering if it’s the piriformis. Crap. I worked out the piriformis on the right, and now it’s fussing on the left? Sigh. Okay. Must stretch it!

Here’s what I found online:

What Causes Piriformis Syndrome?

Treatment

Piriformis syndrome is a soft tissue injury of the piriformis muscle and therefore should be treated like any other soft tissue injury. Immediately following an injury, or at the onset of pain, the R.I.C.E.R. S.Y.L.B.Y.H.B.C.R. regime should be employed. This involves Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation Sticking Your Leg Behind Your Head, But Carefully, and Referral to an appropriate professional for an accurate diagnosis a careful adjustment.

The rehab pictures include this:

And this:

And then it says this:

Stretching is one of the most under-utilized techniques for improving athletic performance and getting rid of those annoying sports injuries. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that something as simple as stretching won’t be effective.

Okay, apparently I have to practice in running clothes. I wonder if Muscle Man will be amused by my sneakers.

***

For all of my whining, practice was quite good. Before eka pada I did pigeon, akarna dhanurasana, and agnistambasana.

“Are you preparing for eka pada?” Muscle Man asked.

“Mostly just avoiding,” I replied.

During eka pada, I had mula bandha turned up to 11, and tried to really keep length in my back. Okay, this length in the back thing is all well and good, but I actually find it counterintuitive in strenuous poses. I think I default to the body mechanics of weightlifting: when you are doing a heavy squat, you contract around the abdominal cavity to stabilize the core. Now I have to remember to l-e-n-g-t-h-e-n. Seriously, if you did that when squatting heavy, you’d probably snap in half. Hey, maybe I should wear a weightlifting belt with my running clothes and sneakers during practice!

Okay, enough silliness. This morning’s practice was fine, backbends felt terrific, and I got to my early Monday meeting on time.

Oh, but there was this one other thing. Yesterday I decided to remove some of the color in my hair. I got a product that essentially leeches out the old hair color molecules. Cool, right? Also kind of scary (What if my hair turns orange? What if it falls out?). It all came out okay, but the chemicals smell like fart. I washed my hair a bunch of times and it was fine. But guess what happens when you sweat up your hair the next day? Oh yeah, super fart smell.

I guess that counts as another advantage to home practice.