donutszenmom.com

One of my very favorite songs ever.

This morning as I stood in tadasana, I realized I had a numb spot in my left foot. In the space between my pinkie and penultimate(!) toe. Hey, no wonder my left-footed UHP is so much worse than my right!

I kept flexing & releasing my pinkie toe, trying to get that area to wake up. Which made me notice, Hey! My little toes aren’t on the ground in chaturanga! What’s going on here? When did I start leaving my little toes out of chaturanga??

I reinstalled the pinkies on the floor during all chaturangas and had a practice that was super-aware of waking up that little spot in my foot. How could something like this happen?

Oh. Right.

I’ve been reading a terrific book recommended by my Forrest friend: The Body Has a Mind of Its Own.

The book looks at the body maps in our brains. Think homunculus. (In Seattle, within minutes of my launching into practice, The Diver saw evidence of the enormous eye that rules my cortical homunculus. Hence his little dance at the periphery of my vision during UHP.) Anyhow, last night I was reading about an experiment where the researcher sewed two of a monkey’s fingers together. After a few days, the brain was mapping the two fingers as one. (Yes, pause for a moment and be horrified by the sewing a creature’s fingers together thing.) Then the researcher removed a monkey’s middle finger. Within days, the brain map had adjusted to no longer contain a middle finger. (Yes, “removed.” Interesting euphemism.)

Nevertheless, the discussion about brain plasticity is fascinating, and the fact that I’ve been reading about it helped me understand what was going on with my toes. I would have taken the numbness as a physical problem (e.g., pinched nerve, etc.) except it dawned on me pretty quickly that it was a brain map issue. I flexed throughout practice, and then when I got to work, stuck a pencil between those two toes to remind them they were separate. They’re awake now, but still kinda sluggish.

Now I’m longing for some of those Yoga Toes things.