Leslie and not-me

On Friday I went to see my anatomy teacher Leslie Kaminoff, who noticed my blog posts bemoaning my injury and kindly invited me to come in to his clinic. Yay for blogs! I sit in class every week and watch him fix people, but I kept thinking my shoulder would be better tomorrow, or tomorrow, or maybe tomorrow…

I did my little demo of snap-crackle-pops around the left shoulder blade, which he said was probably tendonitis (inflammation of the tendons). I told him about the pinch in the upper arm, and how I’d tried to treat it according to my trigger point book, which pointed me to a big painful knot on the back of my shoulder blade. He said that the spasming muscle was probably the teres minor, more than the infraspinatus, since I felt the knot better with the arm over my head. He asked about my job and computer use, so I described my work station… turns out that elbows on the desk is “really, really bad. There’s your problem.” Villain!

Then came the treatment. It’s like a bit of chiropractics, a dash of Thai yoga massage, and a pinch of Shiatsu all mixed up as a breathing lesson. He found a rotated vertebrae in my neck and fixed that. He found all the “stuck” vertebrae in my back, and popped them. He stabilized the center of my diaphragm (aka “pushed on my tummy”) to force my ribs to expand upwards as I breathed. And he cranked me into this one twist that I swear popped the fused vertebrae in my tail. Then he stretched out my hip flexors, my hip extensors, and my neck. We hadn’t even gotten to my shoulder yet.

All these adjustments were like adding an extension onto my house. When I sat up, it was like I had a third lung; I just kept inhaling. He said that when we have an injury, we have to look at what’s supporting it. So, a neck or shoulder condition can result from tightness (or collapse) in the ribcage. When we have good support below, we can have full mobility above.

Then we adjusted the shoulder a bit. He pressed his thumbs into my back as I moved my arms from side to side, up and down. I felt the knots underneath squirming and trying to escape. He popped the humerus back into its socket a bit, I don’t know how. And then we were done!

I can’t get over the fact that the solution to this is breathing better. It makes sense; if I loosen up my ribcage, I can stretch my shoulders from the inside, too, 24 hours a day! But it seems so easy. As with my meditation, and asana practice, I’m going to have to beat myself over the head with the “secret”: it’s all about your breath! Maybe I’ll take it literally, Monty-Python-style. That’ll convince the masochist in me. I will still be squelching the knots under my neck with my tennis ball; it’s a new favorite sport, and I have to undo all my computer poses. But it’s amazing how posture — the way we align ourselves in the 22+ hours OUTSIDE of yoga practice — will make or break our health.

So. Next step is to rearrange my whole computer setup, ugh. (And up my olive oil intake, it’s the best anti-inflammatory and that should help my tendonitis… along w/the icy New York weather.) I guess I need a higher chair, or a lower desk. But I already went today and bought one of those ugly laptop stands, so my computer is floating six inches above my desk (like a good yogi) with a new keyboard underneath. My big head is no longer looking down at my screen, pulling on the back of my neck. My elbows are opening downward, and my wrists are flat. And my shoulders are relaxed.

POSTSCRIPT — I forgot an interesting part. Leslie said that the infraspinatus (or was it subscapularis?) and rhomboid muscles work in opposition, and while we do a lot of rotator cuff strengthening in yoga (chaturangas and other “pushing” movements), we don’t have a lot of poses or movements where we “pull” our arms back or shoulder blades together and strengthen the rhomboids. So he said I could loop a strap around a door handle, hold it with straight arms, lean back, and pull from the shoulder blades in little pulses to strengthen the rhomboids. Without overdoing it, of course. I think I might try to get myself back onto an erg…

It's your year, baby

New Year’s is probably my favorite holiday (in spirit, not in typically exorbitant and excessively drunken practice). It’s about starting fresh with what you have, doing things you’ve been wanting to do, declaring your intentions for the next year. I’m not usually a resolution-maker; I’m kind of a self-improvement junkie so I’m always tweaking my habits anyways. Plus, I don’t like to make good health a source of additional pressure — cause then I rebel against myself like a schizoid.

But this year, post-holiday, I’ve been really inspired by watching a few resolutions actually get carried out — namely this one and this one. Both women committed to daily yoga practices; one general, one specific. Both have described real transformations taking place even in just these few weeks, and I’ve even noticed their writing styles changing.

Luckily, the Chinese have scheduled their new year to scoop up all us late bloomers. I’m using today’s Chinese New Year to resurrect my morning pranayama, and make it a real habit. Kundalini yoga recommends that you practice a set for 40 days to truly master it, psychology books tend to say it’s 30 days to build a habit, and here’s an article that says 21 days is the brain’s minimum:

Brain circuits take engrams (memory traces), and produce neuroconnections and neuropathways only if they are bombarded for 21 days in a row. This means that our brain does not accept “new” data for a change of habit unless it is repeated each day for 21 days (without missing a day).

So, I’m going for 30 Days of Golden Nuggets. Not only does it sound like a fast food special, it promises to burn unresolved emotions. Which I am kind of full of these days, post family time and post breakup. It’s also good for the digestion, which I am also kind of full of. Basically, it’s Navel Lock with breath retention. The intermediate version takes 40 seconds each day. Maximum. If I can’t handle that, then I need to be led around on a little velcro leash. We’ll see if the old routine (Breath of Fire / Alternate Nostril Breathing / meditation) seems appealing afterward. No pressure, though.

If you have a New Year’s resolution you’d like to share, please do! Happy Year of the Ox!

J. Brown in his Vinyasa days

This morning I got up early (9:15) and went to J.Brown’s class at Abhyasa. It’s the new studio on Metropolitan and Leonard. I really liked the essays he posted on the studio’s site; like me, he’s looking for something more than just acrobatics and athletic achievement of poses. (I should say for me, in addition to the athletics — see previous entries on the value of sweat.)

That something is breathing. Even if you’ve mastered the practice of keeping ujayi breath through each and every pose and transition — not an easy task — I learned today that you can still adjust the breath itself. It’s like practicing internal alignment: feeling out the strength, location, duration, and aftereffects of the pressure from your diaphragm/lungs.

This clarifies the infuriating phrase “go deeper into the pose.” (What does that mean??? I always wondered. We’re not spelunking…)

For example: as we lay in a Simple Reclined Twist (on the back, knees together, twisting to the left with both shoulders on the floor), J. had me inhale and hold for a brief moment. I felt the breath gathered in front of my shoulder blades, creating a slight tension. As I exhaled, I felt the tension release along with the breath. This was new.

He explained that stretching does not always release tension; many people are very flexible but still very tense. (Ahem.) Breathing releases tension. Approaching the poses halfway, and allowing room to breathe, will lead to a more transformative pose than going 110% with every muscle and nerve.

Alignment instructions were very good, although different than most classical classes. (e.g: Shoulders slightly up and back, instead of back and down, to wring out the upper back. Elbows slightly bent out in Chaturanga, for the same reason.) You can tell he has studied Vinyasa and Iyengar. He talks a lot; if you like instructions you will surely get them.

I am curious if this approach can be applied to a faster class. I feel that there’s this neo-Hatha slowness going around, über-Vinyasa sticking around, and a big chasm in between. Today’s class was Open level, but it was the same speed (and basically the same sequence) that he taught in the Beginners’ class in the park. (This might have been for my benefit, as he really rolled out the red-carpet-welcome-mat new student treatment for me.) My guess: eventually, by starting slowly and achieving breath awareness at each level, the pace can eventually pick up to cardio level. Crew and dance have taught me that it’s better to memorize something slowly and correctly, rather than quickly and wrong, so that’s kind of the approach I’m going for with deeper breathing.

Since I got back from the retreat, I’ve actually kept up a morning practice. I always do pranayama:

• 3 rounds Breath of Fire (60, 75, 90 reps, and 60, 75, 90 second retentions)
• 5–10 rounds Alternate Nostril Breathing (inhale 4, hold 16, exhale 8 )

Sometimes I add my favorite sequence ever: the Kundalini Spinal Warmup. It is great for days when you can’t bring yourself to practice vinyasa, or you’re really stiff, or you’re tired and can’t think, or your back hurts, or you have shoulder problems. Sitting in easy pose:

• Hands on knees: Flex spine forward and back, with Breath of Fire (20 seconds – 2 minutes)
• Hands on shoulders, elbows out: Rotate spine side to side, with Breath of Fire (20 seconds – 2 minutes)
• Hands clasped in front of heart (Bear Grip), pulling on each other: Rock alternate elbows up and down, with Deep Breathing (20 seconds – 2 minutes)
• Hands still clasped in front of heart: Inhale deeply. Exhale deeply. Raise clasped hands above the head. Inhale deeply. Exhale deeply. (3 times)
• Hands on knees. Inhale and hunch shoulders up to ears; exhale and drop them, with Breath of Fire (20 seconds – 2 minutes)
• Hands on knees. Tip chin to chest; inhale and roll head around in a circle, lifting from the jaw as it reaches the back. (5 times clockwise, 5 times counterclockwise)
• Sit on your heels (Rock Pose) and interlace your fingers above your head, index fingers extended to the sky. Close the eyes and focus between the eyebrows. Inhale and think Sat (truth); exhale and think Nam (named), using Breath of Fire. (2 minutes)

I always skip the last one for some reason.

Another great wakeup exercise is Spinal Jump Rope. Sitting in Easy Pose, with the hands on the knees:

• Focus on the navel. Gently start to spiral the lower back clockwise, making each loop a bit larger than the last. Inhale circle it forward and exhale circle it back. Visualize the navel like a sparkler tracing a circle in space. Continue for a couple minutes, then gently slow back to center and do the other direction.
• Focus on the heart. Same as before, but making gentle circles with the upper back.
• Focus on the throat. Same as before, but making gentle circles with the neck.

I did this a few weeks ago and couldn’t stop. My spine got really warmed up and the movement became completely unconscious. I was like a circling Sufi or something. Really weird.

Today I added 5 Sun Salutes; we’ll see if that sticks.