Pain in the Ass

My left hip/butt has been excruciatingly painfulbothering me for a few months now. I should get it checked out. Of course I know I should get it checked out. But seeing my primary doc, to get a referral to the higher-copay ortho doc, to get an MRI scheduled, to be prescribed physical therapy that I can't afford, seemed like a very expensive rabbit hole (which under normal circumstances would be a stretch, but I'm on the hook for $500 of a big car repair, so, yikes [fucking deer fucking running into me]). My leg isn't falling off, and I'm not even taking Advil or Aleve most days, so I've been fine with just sucking it up.

Until!

Today, the super lovely Josie posted on FB this article, "A Common Cause of Low Back and Sciatic Pain — The Piriformis." Through some web-sleuthing, I'd become pretty sure that the culprit was my insanely tight piriformis, but all the stretching in the world hadn't been helping, just making the pain worse (which is can be pretty characteristic of fibromyalgia, but that could be another post entirely).

The article discusses trigger point therapy and self-myofascial release, even backing up (in the comments section) the idea that stretching is not helpful until the trigger point is released. This is sort of groundbreaking for me to hear.

Doing the work with the foam roller and a tennis ball will be hard; it will be painful. I am notoriously bad at following through on commitments to do anything for more than a week; the writer recommends starting with two weeks of daily work. But it's the least (and least-expensive thing!) I can do for myself to try to bust up the knots that have so negatively affected my quality of life the past few months, specifically.

Perseverance has never been a strong suit of mine, but now's as good a time as any to work on that. I can't wait to get home tonight to sit on a tennis ball.

Australian news article on Rajashree

(Click on the page, then click on the little magnifying-glass-thingy to enlarge. Or, original is here but who knows when they'll take it down.)

Thanks to @jimwehmeyer on Twitter for sharing this, and Rachel at Alive in the Fire for retweeting it.

I'd so wanted to go to Rajashree's seminar at Kripalu last weekend, but it was just too expensive for me. Everything I've heard about her leads me to believe it would be amazing just to be in her presence, and try to soak up drops of her wisdom, and compassion. Been feeling like I could use some of those lately.

Hope everyone's doing well, and staying warm!

Be moderate in everything, including moderation.*

*Horace Porter, 1837-1921


Gorgeous shot via Gregg Le Blanc / flickr

Yoga for Hangovers

This New York Times Wellness blog entry is harmless, but some of the comments on it have gotten me a little steamed. Some of the same people who define (their style, natch, of) yoga as one glorious thing go on to define alcohol drinking as one awful thing, when it seems so obvious to me that people can only speak to their own experience. Yet that caveat is never included in the comment.

Maybe my hackles are residually raised from my time in Utah, and I'm still hypersensitive to all-or-nothing, us-vs.-them claims. Or maybe my perspective on this has come from being in the Bikram community and exploring its place in the larger yoga world... It's so often under attack; it's not "real yoga," according to someone(s) who've declared themselves deciders for the rest of us. That judgment, that sense of superiority that makes it OK to judge, really bothers me.

And maybe oddly, the same goes for comments like this one:
The purpose of drinking is to numb oneself to life’s challenges, forget your troubles, lower ones [sic] inhibitions, and enable oneself to have a good time, It requires no work or effort. It has the potential for bringing short term bliss and longer term misery, unpleasant recuperation, and long term physical harm.

It's simply not true across the board. No doubt there are people for whom numbing and forgetting is the purpose of imbibing (in fact, I dated one of those people; it was terrible). But there are many, many more people for whom some alcohol is healthily integrated into daily life. As far as the commenter's claim about alcohol consumption bringing "long[-]term physical harm," well, he or she must not have heard any of the science linking red wine with heart health. And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

It may seem like someone who gets so amped up about this must be on the defensive, must have some deep personal attachment to drinking (or insert any vice here). But I'm not, and I don't. Yes, I work at a wine magazine and on some level, surely have a vested interest in people continuing to consume alcohol. Yes, I really like the taste of beer (IPAs, mostly). I'd guess that I drink four times a week, including a glass of wine with dinner some nights. But if for some reason I had to stop ingesting any alcohol right now, I'd be fine. It's the principle here, people.

I just looked up quotes about moderation, looking to cite this post's title, and it was funny how many of them, across cultures, related to "the drink." I particularly liked this one:
It is better to rise from life as from a banquet - neither thirsty nor drunken. ~Aristotle

So go and take part in that banquet, and enjoy its bounty, and rise from life knowing, reveling, in that fine place of balance we've worked so hard to create.

And for Pete's sake, can we stop the obsession with defining what's correct for everyone??

(Grrrr. There are so many things I've wanted to blog about in the past month; it feels a shame to start with this one. And so ineloquently, too. Harrumph.)

Just a link, but a good one.

How to Know When Yoga is Working for You, via Elephant Journal.

My favorite from the list:
9. You no longer think about what you're cooking for dinner while in Savasana.

What's your favorite way to know the yoga is working for you? It doesn't have to be from this list, either. :)

xoxo

Awesome blog meets awesomer yoga

One of my favorite blogs/bloggers, Ryan over at Pacing the Panic Room, hooked himself up with The Gap to make a "Do What You Love" mashup ad campaign of amazing people doing what they love, while wearing Gap's new jeans line.

via Pacing the Panic Room. I can't figure out how to make this picture a link, so click right there, right below this, and check out Afton.

His first installation features a Bikram yogini rock star! My outdated work computer won't play the video, so you should check it out and then tell me all about it.

OK? OK. Go.

No, go NOW.

speaking up

Good class last night. I was dizzy every so often, but I stood and breathed and it passed. I stood in a new spot, too. (Lucky for me, I am not wedded to any particular spot. I am usually one of the last people into the studio so I stand wherever there's space, which usually happens to be the front right side. Whatever.)

I didn't want to be in the front row because I wasn't sure I'd be a good, strong example for the couple new students we had. I stood in the back right corner, and it was almost chilly! What a weird sensation, to *not* want fans blowing on me. Can't imagine feeling that way again. Usually I am trying frantically to send telepathic messages to the instructor, offering bribes in exchange for turning on the fans. (It hasn't worked, yet, but I'll let you know.)

I realized sometime between class last night and right now, that most of the time, I forget that the studio is hot (with rare exceptions; see previous post). That sounds crazy, but I'm dead serious. I think I just identify the yoga as hard. Heat has become less of a factor. Weird, eh?

Just got back from the chiropractor's office, after postponing Wednesday's appointment until today because I was just so dang sore. Figured that my body might be more receptive to manipulation if I had just taken class. It was, but I was also geared up to speak with her about the pain. It was empowering, in a small way. She did less-intense (I can't go so far as to say gentle) work, and so far I don't feel too bad. And she scheduled my next appointment 10 days out, which is nice, too. It's good to work on things, but it's good to know when to back off, too. This is the first time I feel like she's actually heard what I'm saying regarding pain.

Got back to work and I saw this article about Rolfing in the NY Times. I thought it was interesting, and share-worthy because it mentions yoga's benefits (woot!) but also something near and dear to my heart (and back): fascia.

One line at the end made me chuckle a little bit, and reminded me of my extreme gratitude for yoga:
"It's almost as if your body locks up emotions," he said.

You think? ;)

Day 3/30: A Goldilocks kind of day

On March 1, I couldn't stop biting my nails, but did some pretty good yoga. On the 2nd, I didn't bite my nails at all, but I didn't practice, either. Yesterday, whatever I did was just right.

I walked around for an hour yesterday during my lunch, and found a few new (to me) yoga studios near work, including an actual affiliated Bikram studio. Yay! I hope to make one of the 5:30 or 6 p.m. classes there soon. Maybe the week after next, once I a) get paid again and b) know something about the house closing date.

The regular train home waited just for me (woohoo!) and the BF headed to the pool to swim. Even the dog's low-for-him energy level conspired to help me have a good practice last night. Yay!

I felt pretty good, energy- and pain-level wise, so I started out doing the whole (both sets) standing series. When I got to Triangle, I felt wasted and thought about switching to the single-set iTunes playlist, but decided to plug on through at least Triangle. It would have been lame to switch only during one of my most challenging postures. But it went fine.

Re: Triangle - I have definitely lost a ton of flexibility since moving to NY (and quitting a near-daily practice), but I have come so far with my strength. For the longest time I was skeptical that I actually had hamstrings to use in this pose, but over the past few months they have helped keep me upright in Triangle, instead of sliding out into the splits.

So I switched to the single set before the spine-strengthening series. I didn't want to overdo everything last night and then be completely drained today. As always, it felt so good to move through the series. This yoga is amazing, folks, although if you're reading this you probably already know that.

Not to whine, but it can be hard to practice at home — I miss studios' heat, the feedback, the excitement of others, the heat, mirrors, "talking shop," and oh, did I mention the heat? But I have noticed that I have more energy and excitement to practice lately! I can only chalk it up to becoming part of this blogging community we've got goin' on here.

It could be that something like this is happening:
The best class I took after my 10-day Bikram intro in August ’04 was in May of 2006 (I loved it, and went a couple times, but couldn't afford it and was working and caregiving, both full-time). It was Memorial Day weekend, and my hot-water heater had blown up on Friday night. By Monday I desperately needed a shower. The only place I could think of that I could take one? Bingo! Bikram Yoga Sandy, just down the road from where I lived.

I checked their schedule and they only had one class on the holiday!!! Needless to say, it was packed, maybe 50 people? A lot, anyway, for that little studio. I was kind of tripped out and bugged that I wouldn't be able to see myself in the mirror. Much to my surprise, everyone in the room became super cheerleaders for everyone else. The energy level was amazing! No one left, and I don't think very many people sat out postures, either. We all lifted one another up (literally, of course, in Full Locust).

So even though I've been practicing all by my lonesome, for the most part, I have all the other blog writers and readers to help lift me up and share energy. The compassion that has flowed through comment sections across Blogger and WordPress astounds me. I can't thank this nebulous you enough for this, for helping me return to something I need so intensely for my mental and physical health.

* * * * *

A word (or many, it turns out) on fibromyalgia:
This came up in yesterday's post/comments about my experience of a pain/fatigue complex. This was at The New York Times' website today, and I think it's commendable that they're showing some of the many faces this syndrome can take. But reading the comments broke my heart. It shouldn't matter what causes someone's pain; I would hope that compassion could be shown toward people who are in any kind of pain, regardless of its genesis.

I consider myself lucky to have discovered ways that work for me in calming my nervous system (someone else's story here). One commenter (No. 126) at the Times story said a few things that resonated. Among them: "[T]he more you don’t move, the more your muscles get locked in, the more pain you’re in, the harder it is to get going. It’s a vicious cycle. But start slowly." Although I sometimes feel like I'm cheating, or being lazy, when I only do a single set of the Bikram series, this affirms a little bit that I can only do what I can, when I can. Sometimes I have good "classes," like last night, when I started out with both sets of everything. And whenever I have the opportunity to be in a studio, I bust my ass to try to do everything! With a memorable exception, it usually goes well. :)

xoxo to all!

waiting game

I'm itching to buy the old blue Bikram book before work today, but can't because I'll spend all day at work flipping through it, resisting (hopefully successfully) urges to blurt out to my coworkers "Can you believe the benefits of x posture?" "Did you know the parathyroid is compressed in y posture?" "So *that's* why I feel dizzy/nauseous/homicidal after z posture; ahhhh..."

So I'll pick it up after work, and geek out on the train home.

In the meantime, I'll have to be satisfied reading the cover story of today's NYT food section, which bears a headline about chocolate and chakras. It could be up my alley, or it could annoy the crap out of me, with incomplete information and gross generalizations. (I'll add the link when I get to work, as I haven't been brave enough to try extensive html coding when posting from my phone.)

Namaste, y'all!
xo

Edit: Here's the link. I think I want to reread this article a few times before I write too much about it. I will say that I appreciate the acknowledgment that "[t]here are many ways to 'do' yoga: the term embraces meditation, worship, study and action, as well as the physical pretzeling that Americans primarily associate with the term." I'm amused that food is the hot controversy among yogis. Bikram is soooo yesterday, I guess.