So obvious it makes me want to slap myself
Posted in ashtanga yoga, work on 03/05/2010 09:30 am by karenOkay, so I have been going along practicing practicing practicing. Every day. La la la. Saturdays off.
Simple.
Except I have this weird thing in my back. It’s been around for months and it hurts in back bends. Some days not so bad (only hurts in UD when I walk my hands in close), and some days pretty annoying (hurts in every up dog and any other back bend in the entire practice).
Quadratus lumborum, I thought. Ice. Heat. Stretch. Epsom salt baths. Arnica oil. Wintergreen oil. Capsaicin lotion. Mind control. Hypnagogic suggestion. Visualization.
Nothing.
Went to a chiropractor. He diagnosed a tight psoas. Okay.
Adjustments. Ultrasound. Heat. Ice. More adjustments.
Nothing.
Decided it doesn’t freaking matter WHAT it is, it just needs to go away.
Practice. Stretching on the chair, the bed, the couch, the kitchen counter, the office. Tightened bandhas, loosened bandhas. Breathed deeper, breathed more lightly. More raw food, more grains, add some dairy, subtract dairy, ditch soy, add hemp, grow suspicious of nightshades, consider dropping — once and for all — my Tootsie Pop habit.
Damn! Still here.
Okay, so here I am sitting in the office. It’s Friday, so I have on jeans and clogs. Which means I can kick off the clogs and sit cross legged in my chair.
What do I feel? A pully-stretchy feeling in *exactly* that spot. “Oh, that feels good,” I think, and then it hits me: I do not sit cross legged in my chair all day every day any more because I now wear skirts and high heels every day. (Stupid high, by the way — because my shoe aesthetic is in direct conflict with my foot health.) Over the past 6 months, it’s been more and more skirts and higher and higher heels.
Duh!
I believe I will be shopping for some pants and flat shoes this weekend. I need to sit the right way for a week and see if it corrects this back krink.
***
The experiment will be thrown off by one variable that’ll get tossed into the mix as soon as it gets delivered to the house and The Cop can install it:
03/05/2010 at 3:31 pm
Hi Karen
Look after that back of yours, modify, rest or whatever you have to do!
Take care.
03/05/2010 at 5:48 pm
hi Karen
oh yes, there where two of those installed in a studio in San Francisco (open door, now closed) and there where some students that used it, with the encouragement of the teacher, Devorah, who sometimes used it. the difference is that the one in SF did not have a seat; everything was a strap. the video is great. those look like great stretches.
hugs,
Arturo
03/05/2010 at 6:52 pm
I just took an Anti-gravity yoga class that used something very similar to this “contraption.” It’s amazing, and so so so FUN (seriously, total yogasm). The hammock definitely put weird pressure on my psoas and sacrum in certain poses (like, if I hadn’t been in class,I would have bailed on the pose, but wanted to soldier on…), but the teacher kept insisting that it gets better with use.
So, anyway, enjoy.
03/05/2010 at 6:59 pm
Hmmm!
I wore Earth shoes for 2 years while the hamstrings were stretching. Then heels for years. Have thrown Earth sandals back in the mix this winter, and subtracted the heels. Maybe good to cycle these things?
03/05/2010 at 7:49 pm
Was delayed getting back to you all, ’cause I was hanging like a bat.
It feels really good!
The heels are one issue, I think, but I think sitting in a chair with my feet on the floor is actually the greater problem. I sit crosslegged at home, always, and had pretty much spent the past 5 years at work crosslegged. The everyday-dress-wearing has been this past year, and that’s got me sitting with my feet on the floor. Just spending 8 hours sitting crosslegged at my desk today feels like it’s unknotting the spot already.
Anyhow, I think it’s just my mindless body mechanics/habits working themselves out.
03/05/2010 at 7:51 pm
I want a sling toooooooo!!!!!!
03/05/2010 at 7:54 pm
You’ve got India. Quit complaining!
03/05/2010 at 8:19 pm
Hahahah! It’s a breezy 80 degrees in mysore at the moment and I’m blogging cross-legged on the floor. There are about a hundred ways that having a body is just easier here.
I know you like the pencil skirts, and must say you’d look killer in them. But yes… too high a price for now. Maybe a couple of days a week though…
03/05/2010 at 8:24 pm
Oops, just checked. Make that 85 degrees at 9:00 am. It’ll get into the mid-90s by 1. And NOBODY’s putting in days in the office or even having to engage the brain for more than the duration of a Sanskrit class or (in my case) a couple of 3-hour daily writing sessions. Shala shakti aside, no wonder the body goes through dramatic openings here. In a way, it’s more interesting to work them out in the context of having a real life.
But hanging upside down for extended periods might have important similarities…
03/07/2010 at 11:36 am
Good luck with your cross legged therapy. I totally believe it’s the trick… I’m a squater, cross-legged sitter pretty much all the time and feel totally trapped and uneasy if I have to sit “normal” for long periods of time (I squirm relentlessly in the theater). The only way I can handle it is when I’m sewing and that’s because I’m so preoccupied with making things, I don’t notice as much (but then need a stretch!).
Maybe you can switch to some cute, springy, fuller skirts where you can kick off the heels and sit cross legged under them!
03/09/2010 at 6:48 am
Hi Karen,
I ended up getting the company to buy me a foot rest, as I noticed how stiff everything, particularly the backs of my legs and lower back become when I sit with my feet on the floor for 8 hours. Is it a yogis thing though, because of the way we “train” our body’s by doing practice, my coleague doesnt do yoga or anything and is older than me, but also doesnt get the tightness that I get from sitting.
I love the look of that yoga swing!