Ouch, ITB Syndrome?

It sounded like a slight tearing and then a loud, strong, deep pop.  That was my right knee yesterday, about half way through my practice as I was getting into bhujapidasana.  We'll see what tomorrow brings and I'm hopeful that I'm not looking at 6 months of major modifications or on-again, off-again practice as a result of this injury.  So frustrating to be faced with a setback like this after months of hard work and breakthroughs.  My good friend and teacher David Kiel believes it could very well be my IT Band.  I explained the injury and we discussed what I was feeling in the knee.  He told me to get back to practice immediately and then laughed for about 60 seconds.  Now I practice a yoga different from the daily asanas.    


This is not what I look like (it just gives you an idea of the IT Band and where it attaches at the outside of the knee):

I very much look like this (except you can't see my face which is frozen in a WTF? kind of grimace):

Whosasana?

Ok, last weekend while I was in the beautiful Pocono mountains (where you don't see a huge number of people who look like they are still living in 1987, really you don't) I managed to go on two hikes and sit around for 72 hours.  (I did do one practice on Sunday but that was pretty much it.)  Now, I think the hikes and the laziness really helped in getting my hip to tighten up like a vise-grip.  Thinking that yesterday's practice was an opportunity to get it all back to normal again, I did "something" that resulted in fairly significant pain in my right knee (I think that "something" was walk into the shala and practice.)   It wasn't, "I think I'm going to vomit pain" but it was enough pain that sitting in lotus hurt like a mo-fo.  What to do, what to do.  I did what any practicing Ashtangi would do, I went home and started a strict regimen of Advil.  By the time Wednesday morning rolled around, my knee was right as rain.  Well, not quite right as rain, more like just ok.  Like sleet.

Cut to Wednesday morning practice.  I'm feeling pretty good.  The knee hurts a little but with some slight modification it's ok.  My practice felt pretty good and I was steadily making my way to backbends.  That's when it happened.  My teacher walked over to me and said: "Craig, you take pashasana.  Every day.  Not Friday."  Ok I get it.  Friday is primary only and I know I haven't been keeping up my part of the deal by practicing pashasana everyday.  So I quickly get into the best pashasana I can muster.  Once again, it does not look like this:

Just when I think I'm out of the woods, David says: "Now krounchasana."  To that I say: "whosasana"? Much to my dismay, he was not amused.  He quickly explained the posture, the picture of which poured into my memory from the depths of my brain where I stored it 5/6 years ago.  (In the process, A couple of traumatic memories from that time came up too.  Apparently I keep a good deal of information in that part of my brain, but I digress.)  Anyway, I dutifully executed the posture.  It looked nothing like this:

Reliving the practice on the walk/cab ride home was something special (thanks Mariana).  It just goes to show you that you never really can tell what will come out of your practice.  I was anticipating a slow, painful practice expecting a majority of focus going to me knee.  Instead, it was wonderful, with a new second series posture thrown in for good measure.  I think I better go and take some more advil.

Ashtanga in the Poconos

Cold, snowy, windy and beautifully bright here in the Poconos.  It's been a fun and relaxing weekend.  Yesterday morning I practiced in a room overlooking the frozen, snow covered lake.  It was very peaceful and smooth.  A fireplace raging behind me made the room warm enough that I managed to work up a nice sweat.  As I closed my eyes and chanted the opening prayer, I imaged my friends standing around me preparing themselves for the practice ahead.  My breath seemed stronger than ever as I moved through the series.  It was a nice change to the daily routine but there is no doubt in my mind that the thought of my yoga community pulled me through to the end.

It's been a wonderful weekend of food, drink, laughs and activities (in fact perhaps it had been too much weekend).  I'm excited about getting on my mat in the early morning darkness tomorrow.  Excited to see my friends, my teacher and myself back in a familiar setting.

Peace.  

What happens to us? (Go to the light little girl)

I was raised catholic.  I attended catholic school as a child and then a catholic jesuit prep high school.  I think I was about 12 when it all started to feel strange to me.  (Not a priest asking me to attend the theatre with him and then join him for a nightcap kind of strange, but strange.) The things I was taught seemed more ridiculous to me as I grew older.  Now I have nothing against the catholic church (except of course their stance on abortion, their propensity to start and encourage war, their hypocritical views toward sexuality and, well maybe I do have some things against the catholic church because this list can go on and on) however I wanted out.  Today, I'm not really sure what I believe in.  Certainly not heaven and hell.  I can't image there is one "being" who has some master plan for us all.

I think I'm more comfortable believing that we are all made of energy and when we die that energy simply moves on to something else or someplace else or maybe even someone else.  Perhaps we are reincarnated or maybe our energy joins the universe and we become something bigger than we can fathom in our current form.  It's a romantic idea to think our loved ones pass on and then become another being.  Is my son the reincarnated soul of my father, my wife's grandfather, my aunt?  Will I become someone that makes  a difference in the life of a relative or friend in the future?

So why am I babbling on about this?  Religion and life after death can be debate, as we all know, until the end of time.  It's just something that I've always thought about and as a practicing ashtangi spirituality comes up a lot.  Sometimes it's all very confusing.

Two days ago my sister was telling me about her good friend (who she works with every day) whose son believed (for a long time) that something was going on in his house.  His small daughter, a 5 year old claimed to be talking to someone in her room.  She gave a number of details about her multiple conversations.  Although the child's parents were pretty scared they certainly didn't show it to their daughter.  Hanging out in their living room two days ago the little girl was sitting on a chair playing with a doll.  Her father had his digital camera right next to him and took a picture.  As he was pressing the button and snapping the picture his daughter jumped up and ran out of the room.  He didn't give it a second thought but the picture shows something very strange.  When he saw it he couldn't believe what he was seeing.  Look at the faint image on the left side of this picture......................

It helped me to pull back from the monitor when I first opened the picture.  You can clearly see the image of a small child in a very old fashioned dress.  Now this isn't a friend of a friend or a whisper down the lane situation.  It's coming directly from this guy's mother.  It's a digital image, it's not some weird issue with an old fashion film camera.

So what is it?  Is it this little girl's energy, her spirit?  I know most people know someone with a ghost story (I can tell you one about my house if you're interested) but seeing something like this truly makes me wonder what happens to us.  I know if and when I die I hope I'm wearing a hip outfit.

Bandhas, Drishti and Snot.........

In addition to a slight twang, it looks like I picked up something else while in Dallas last week, a new cold!  I thought I had completely recovered from the last head cold this little gem of a winter has handed me, now as fate would have it my fight must go on.  It's awesome when I'm in down dog and my chin is tucked, bandhas locked, my drishti set, ujjayi breath strong and my nose dripping.  Love it.

I was talking with a friend after practice about how frustrating it is for me sometimes to struggle with postures that at one time (not so long ago) seemed to come so easy to me.  He was nice enough to remind me that I am old now and it's much harder to wind back that which has been unwound.  It's true but I don't think I'll stop winding anytime soon.  I did buy a new pair of gloves in advance of this impending snow storm.  I almost went with the mittens but I figured I really couldn't dial my phone with those babies on.  The same friend was encouraging me to move on the mittens.  (They were super warm and very soft.  It was sort of like slipping your hand into a, well, never mind.)  I might have to re-evaluate this friendship.  First he calls me old then he's encouraging me to walk around the city with mittens on my hands.  A grown man, wearing mittens.  Something strange is going on here.  Just kidding, I love the guy.

Ok so to recap: Dallas sucks, bandhas good / snot bad, practice hurts (my ego as much as my body) and, lastly, gloves over mittens if you are a 41 year old man.  Oh yea, don't eat high fructose corn syrup.

Ouch, organic linoleum!

I'm going to try and keep this one short because I'm so tired that I'm suffering from double vision.  I had a pretty good trip to Dallas.  The people in the corporate office have really made an impression on me.  They were all very kind, smart and welcoming.  I got a lot of work done and our sales group will be a lot more effective as a result of our meetings.

So as I mentioned, I practiced.  I was lucky enough to get the one of the "organic" rooms in the hotel.  I thought to myself, what a wonderful concept as the person at the front desk was explaining it to me with a smile on her face.  Basically the manner in which the "organic" room differed from the standard room was the carpeting.  Or lack there of.   You see apparently it's the carpeting and the cleaning of the carpet that makes a standard room a cesspool of harmful, cancer causing, toxic chemicals.  Thankfully my room was "organic" so I had a linoleum floor.  Now linoleum can be made in an environmentally friendly way:


"Environmentally preferred linoleum is made from natural, raw materials. Linseed oil, which comes from the flax plant, is the primary ingredient."   - Armstrong Flooring 


The crap that was in my room was vinyl.  It was about as environmentally friendly as pop-pop's Lincoln Town Car.

This is my room with the fake environmentally friendly flooring.
(Sorry it's not a better picture.  I was using my blackberry.  Those shoes are really very nice.)


Have you ever practiced yoga on a linoleum floor?  It's not very pretty.  I felt like I was hit by a truck after my short, but vigorous practice.


Anyway, all is well now.  I'm home, my plane landed at 1AM, I slept about 2 hours last night and I practice at Y2 this morning.  Other than the pain I was getting in my left chest (sort of like my lung was collapsing) I think the practice went pretty well.


Can't wait 'til Sunday!

Right back to you

So I am traveling to Dallas tomorrow and, in preparation for the trip I was really excited to get a good long practice in today.  The second I stepped out of bed, I knew my body wasn't going to cooperate.  I've have some really strong practices over the last two weeks with a number of breakthroughs however, since I'm old, my ability to recharge and bounce back is greatly diminished.  My hips and hip-flexors were so sore I found it challenging to walk down the stairs.  Any-who, I managed to get into the studio and practice but it wasn't pretty (unlike the beauty I display on a typical day at Y2).   My teacher actually chuckled during my drop-backs and told me "that's enough for today".  That is the tell tale sign it's time to pack it in.  So I'll travel tomorrow and practice in my hotel room on Thursday (with the smell of bar-b-q rising from the downtown Dallas restaurants).  I let you all know how it goes.

Later in the day, I bumped into a friend who really got me thinking.  I really like this practice.  Although I had a long hiatus from ashtanga and I'm only 8/9 months into a daily practice again, I can't think about leaving or missing practice for any extending period of time without shuddering.  And it's not just the practice itself.  Really.  Of course that's a big part of it but it's not the whole thing.  It's the community.

I will practice in my hotel room instead of sleeping in because Karen, Rob, Christina, Mariana, Josh, Joy, Alex, Adam, Leslie, Rebecca, Victoria and everyone else that gets on their mat will practice too.  It's the community.  It's my teacher, who I'm sure would be practicing in his hotel room so I would bet he would expect me to practice in mine.  I'll be 1300 miles away but I'll be in the mist of my practice the same time all of my friends are working through theirs.  (I'll just be two steps away from my bed and the hotel room coffee pot.  By the way, I never drink coffee before I practice.)  And this is where that friend comes in.

I couldn't leave my practice, my teacher or my friends because we are all doing this together.  We are pushing through this glorious practice, succeeding and failing together.  (Of course it's an individual practice but don't you feel some bit of pride when one of the others in the room has a breakthrough?)  I do.  We are all there, laying it out for everyone else to see, trusting this outstanding teacher with much more than our physical bodies, completely vulnerable but with the support of each other.  I know it sounds strange but the support from our fellow yogis is as much a part of why we are able to drop back as the strength in our legs or the helping hand of our teacher.  So, to my friend I say: come back and re-join your community.  We need you, your strength, support, energy, wit and love.  We'll take it and give ours right back to you.