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| If only I were as tough as you, Jack Palance.... |
Over a month has passed since my last blog. Not only that, but I haven’t been dutifully writing my minutes down on my calendar. Now don’t panic, I haven’t fallen off my every-day yoga train. The reason I haven’t been writing down my minutes is simple: for the last month or so, I have done yoga for ~30-35 minutes every single day. Even stranger, I have done yoga around the same time in the morning on each of those days.
This degree of regularity in my yoga practice was unheard of in my yoga 360 until a month ago. For the first seven months of this project, I've been consistent in practicing yoga every day, but I sure as hell haven’t been consistent in how much (other than meeting my imposed 30-minute daily minimum) or when I practice. So what happened to make my yoga practice so dang routine?
I got hurt.
Really, that’s the reason behind my incredible regular practice. That’s what it took to turn my daily yoga practice into something as automatic and predictable in my day as getting out of bed.
Now, this isn’t the first time this year I’ve had to work with an injury. But this time I hurt my wrist. My right wrist. I hurt it after a long day of digging. That night, I ached all over, but especially about 2 inches up from my wrist on my forearm. When I did yoga as usual the next day, it wasn’t too uncomfortable. But opening jars, washing dishes, using my car’s stick shift, washing my hair, writing, fastening and unfastening my bra and pants, and about a hundred other things...now those things were SERIOUSLY uncomfortable!
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| I would be holding the baby in this picture, if it didn't make my wrist cry... |
“Well, it isn’t broken,” the doctor said when I went in to have my wrist checked out. “It’s tendinitis of the wrist flexors.” He strapped a big black Velcro brace on me, told me to take 4 ibuprofen 3 times a day, ice my wrist for 15 minutes three times a day, and to rest it. He told me it could take 2 to 4 weeks for my wrist to heal. “But I do yoga every day,” I told him. “Can I at least do downward-facing dog and plank on my forearms?” To which he gave me a curt "No.”
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| No swimming either?!!! Bending the rules with a Cookie Monster water wing. |
And thus came the end of my quest towards 360 days of Adho Mukha Svanasana (that’s Dog pose, yo). But not my quest towards 360 days of yoga! When I began this project, I anticipated that I might get hurt and I committed to adapting as necessary to continue my yoga practice. So when I hurt my wrist, I started adapting.
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| Tendinitis can't keep me from climbing a mountain, with MY EYES CLOSED! |
I couldn’t go to any classes as almost every single yoga class I’ve ever been to has heavily featured downward-facing dog. Dog is like the complex carbohydrates of a yoga class—substantial and unavoidable in the yoga studio. But it is possible to omit it from one’s home practice, and all other poses that require any sort of weight bearing on the wrists. So that’s what I did. No dog, no plank, no cobra, no handstand, no wheel, no crow, no cat and no cow, no, no, and no. I also had be careful and make modifications in other poses like triangle or side-angle pose to make sure I didn’t put much weight on my right hand/arm.
After eliminating those poses from my asana practice, I was left with a lot of standing and balance poses, seated twists, and stretches on my back. Honestly, during that first week, I found it a little difficult to fill up more than 30 minutes with this limited catalog of poses, which explains my string of 30-to-35-minute-long practices. I also struggled with boredom; I really missed having all those other poses to toss into my daily mix. My typical yoga practice does have a degree of order to it, poses I generally do before certain other poses, but there is still a lot of flexibility. But with my wrist's limitations, I found I did the same poses in more or less the same order (vinyasa) every day. (Please note that while this is unusual for ME, there are many types of yoga, like Ashtanga, in which one always does the same vinyasa sequence, no matter the class, the instructor, etc.) Maybe this order to my asanas is behind the development of a regular practice time of day in my yoga life; does one routine begets another routine?
I didn’t anticipate a painful wrist injury to bring such stability to my yoga life. It has been interesting to observe how I’ve responded to a more structured, albeit limited, practice this month. I’ve enjoyed the additional structure to my day for the most part. But I really miss classes—sharing the time with other yogis and yoginis, holding poses longer, and being led through different poses I’m not so familiar or comfortable with, etc.
While my wrist is still weak, I’m virtually pain-free and only wearing the brace when I’m doing yoga. I added dog and plank on my forearms back into my repertoire about ten days ago. In the last few days, I’ve started pushing into full downward-facing dog. I often wonder if I’m capable of doing more than I’m allowing myself in my practice. Could I be doing handstand without any issues right now? But I think there is wisdom in showing restraint, recognizing that I may be more limited from the injury than I notice. I’m trying to look beyond that 35 minutes on the mat and think about the rest of the month, next month, and beyond!
Namaste!
