Day 4 in Pune - Bump on the head and fall on the back- Reality check!

April 15th 2008 : Tax Day

Jet lag can be great for early morning starts. I have been up since 230 am working with staff back home. At 6 am I get ready for my walk and then class at 7 am. The walk in the park is nice, and its much more packed with residents of the area, many drive to it I wonder why? The walk around the area is so quiet and peaceful. I get to class early. Upto level II hall. No one is there. Hmm.. what happened to the pump it up guy. Its nearly 7 and only a handful of unfamiliar faces show up. Then the teacher arrives. He is a young guy named "Raya" an upcoming prodigy. He is lean, fit and looks like a young indian sadhu. He immediately asks why I am in this class - I am puzzled. I explain and he says that this is a beginners class not intermediate, which starts at 8 am, so I should leave and wait for that class. I say in mind so whats the big deal let me just stay... well before I could say anything he allows me to stay.

Beginners' class it was not. Since we are at the tail end of the semester the students were already doing more advanced stuff such as head stand. He was rattling off instructions - this would be seriously a level 2-3 class in the states. And of course my ego came in the way today. I didnt balance on the head stand properly and bruised the head. Then came chair sarvangasana - my mind was definitly not on chair sarvangasana as I put my legs through the chair vs above the chair and down I crashed flat on my back on hard cemented floor. Yes folks this is not wood and soft and comfortable. I was still in one piece.

While doing some chair twists Raya commented on how doctors (there was one in class) and executives have such bad postures and are so stiff. Apparently he is one of the few fortunate ones to be part of the medical classes with Geeta Iyengar. I nodded my head in agreement - my posture is bad as I am constantly on a chair typing or leaning back. Then came the ultimate comment about computer software professionals "they are stiff in the head". Voila ! that hit the nail in the head being an ex-programmer myself. We had a short discussion about it. It made sense that when they are in front of a computer all day long, thinking and typing, nothing else much moves and it can lead to physical problems. I will need to re-educate my Pune staff who a year ago were doing iyengar yoga in the office once a week. Now its all stopped as transitions to newer employees diminished interest.

The class concluded 30 minutes early - beginners is only 1 hour. Prashant's class downstairs was still in full swing. I sat on the stairwell and listened mesmerized by his discources in between poses on yoga technology, breathing, kriyas and philosphy. He is a true yogi. I was inspired.

Supta padangusthasana - Sciatic and Gluteal Muscle Pain Killer

"The pain" - it don't go away, but pain it coming down, and it did in a remarkable way this Friday after the yoga therapy session with Nuvana. We tried a wall and belt supported suptapadangusthasan for nearly an hour and the pain subsided signficantly. Every week a different pose has a different effect. Two weeks ago I couldnt even lift up the left leg. So it seems like as you progress through this journey of pain, different poses create the impact of lessening the pain. What a concept! I observe, I bear and I understand my body more and more... So with some help I created a video for you to watch. There is some raw footage of another pose I did two weeks ago with Nuvana that had made an impact. Some kid yogini videos for fun. Enjoy the music and may love and peace be the center of your life.

Namaste

The Yogi

Yoga Therapy Video:

Yoga Therapy - the gluteus muscle saga continues

It was back to yoga therapy yesterday evening with Nuvana as I continue my journey of pain. First we tried supported supta=padangagushthasana, dandasana on the stairs and half uttanasana on the wall. They were all very painful. We finally settled on supported chair twists that brought some immediate relief. Then two straps around a pillar, one below the waist and covering the painful area, one around the upper back for support, left (painful) leg straight and right leg bent, raised and pushing agains the pillar, hands on the pillar pushing back... 15 minutes of this action brought some badly needed relief. This position seems to bring the most relief. I went a second time with the same action. I will be practicing this all day today. Pain -- It does a body good!

Journey of pain -- Sciatic, Gluteal Muscle.....Ever tried accupuncture?

My journey of bearing this gluteal muscle pain continues and it has now become sciatic. At my last massage Jeremy suggested trying accupuncture for relief. So today when the pain became more severe I called up Angelic Healing, http://www.angelichealinghands.com/ and made an appointment with Brett, their resident accupuncturist and herbalist. I was apprehensive at first, but when he started talking about doing the "pigeon pose" and "child pose" I felt immediately at home. The poking of needles was scary at first. He put needles on my right arm, right upper shouler, left and right upper hips, left hand, right foot and then 25 minutes later turned me over and put needles in the back, sacrum, both calves. Every time a needle was inserted I could feel a reaction. That was expected!

I can tell you honestly, it brought immediate relief in the thighs and hamstrings, as they had just tightened up with sciatica pain. I could do the child pose a lot easier after the treatment. I went home a lot more relaxed. I continue to use the strap, do a variety of therapy poses all day long including in my office, so I can manage this horrible pain. Tomorrow is another evening with Nuvana and I look forward to it.



So I have learnt a lot more about pain lately. Both physical and mental. I can say it is just too hard but then rather than succumb to it, I have been trying to deal with it the best I can.

Namaste

The Yogi

Managing the pain in the butt -- Gluteal muscle pain!

So I suffer the butt pain for three days. I miss Nina's yoga class Monday evening. Tuesday afternoon -- I have had it. I have to do something more than just a strap around my butt. So out come my props with support from kids, the two yogini's always there to help. Here is part 1 of the series... enjoy, I would love comments and please don't try this without supervision of a certfied iyengar yoga teacher.

Namaste!

Yoga Therapy for Pain in the Gluteal Muscle

The last three days I have been walking funny with this pain in my butt and the crushing massage from Jeremy on Wednesday made little impact. The pain simply got worse. It didnt help that I have to lug around this 40 pound back pack I carry with me to work. It includes my light weight Sony laptop (yes it recently lost to Apple's new MacBook which now claims to be the lightest in the world) but old electronic relics, papers, files, notebooks, my soon to expire passport, cell phones, batteries.. an accumulation of junk really. I am conditioned to carry weight on me. Oh! I digress again, but I think there is a connection of this bag to my chronic lower back pain. Imagine how much pain the 60 pounds of fat I carried on my body must have caused? Disgusting, self torture, but wait a minute I just had another "eureka" moment! I need to get rid of this back-pack and I need to lose another 10-20 pounds.

I visit Nuvana's house every other Friday evening for a family yoga session. This includes personal one-on-one yoga training from the goddess of iyengar yoga with my 5 and 7 year old and her 3 and 1 year old climbing all over me while I am in practice, using me as a human play structure. She just returned from India after spending 2 months in Mumbai, which included teaching yoga therapy once a week at the center run by Jawahar in Bandra (I have to visit him on my next trip) and 2 days in Pune at the Iyengar center during the recently concluded Annual Day. So with the pain becoming unbearable, I had to call her and she graciously invited me to come over this evening for yoga therapy.

Yoga Therapy?
I had a serious pain that needed immediate fixing. First came the made in india yoga strap just below my waist and around the "gluteus maximus" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttocks#Anatomy for more details). The belt had to be wrapped around so that it could be tightend in the anti-clockwise direction. Yes, the direction makes a huge difference in relieving the pain, so both directions were tried and I settled for the anti-clockwise direction. Then came a "half uttanasana". It hurt to push back and stretch. So we moved to the staircase in the living room, one of the props used in the yoga practice. I was sitting on the end of the stair case with my legs stretched and her feet pushing my feet, with my knees pulled in to stretch the calves. A few minutes of it brought immediate relief.

I then moved on to a badhakonasa, sitting high on 3 blankets, back supported by the wall and one step of straps around each leg to support the thighs. It was followed by strap supported Upavishtakonasana (strap aound the foot and worn around the lower waist above the thighs and then tightened in the opposite direction of each leg). We ended with a highly supported supta padangagusthasana. Within 90 minutes the pain had dissipated significantly. I could perform a highly strechted out Half Uttanasana on her wall ledge (another important prop) with much more ease and a lot less pain.

I came home more relaxed. I have a strap around my gluteus maximus ala butt, tightened in the anti-clockwise direction. I am relaxed, with less pain, lounged in a couch potatoe pose writing this blog and watching meaningless television, "Gardening with Ciscoe Live on NWCN channel". Its a video moment really, and one of these days, it will appear on this blog. I figured we get enough visual stimulation with TV/Video so reading some bad english writing for a change would be more preferable.

Life would be a lot more painful without yoga therapy and magic of Nuvana. Thanks Nuvana and welcome back!

Namaste

The Yogi

NOTE OF CAUTION: If you are a novice or new to yoga, or even if you are an experienced yogi, please do not try what I described above without proper supervision of a trained and certfied Iyengar teacher who specializes in yoga therapy. If you are in the Portland metro area visit http://sunsetyoga.com/ for more information or visit http://www.bksiyengar.com/ to find a certified Iyengar yoga teacher in your city, state or country. It will change your life!

Yoga poses

I find the yoga journal (www.yogajournal.com) to be very useful in looking up details of various poses. Browse http://yogajournal.com/poses/finder/browse_index. I have been mentioning a variety of poses in my earlier posts. Simply go to the yoga joural site and look up the names. It even has poses grouped into anatomical and therapeutical groups. You can even create your own sequences. I am off to teaching 5-9 year olds yoga today. Will report back later. I teach a class once a month.