Thanks to accupuncture…

I had another physio session and things seem to be looking up. My left hip, the one that was pinching during flexion-adduction, has got a whole lot more range of motion back. My right gluteals were still tight, but the physio said it was much improved from the last session. I got more accupuncture anyway and a deep tissue massage. It’s feeling pretty awesome right now. I expect everything to be feeling worse again tomorrow, and then better again after that.

The physio put some real pressure on the tensor fascia lata trigger point today. He had me on my side with the left hip facing up then jammed his elbow into it. O-U-C-H. Nothing else can describe it. It felt like the more I winced the harder he pressed into the trigger point! I’m not saying this in a negative tone because that’s what you’re meant to do to release tight trigger points.

Next appointment will be Monday. I have a new PNF stretch for the right gluteal to add to my growing list of physio stretches. I hope this one yields better results than the passive stretches I’ve been doing.

Practice today was again uneventful. I suspect it will continue to be uneventful for as long as I’m injured. C had a little talk to all of us about injuries. Actually, she doesn’t call them injuries, she calls them “challenges”. It makes sense to call them challenges instead of injuries, if you put something in a negative light, it’s going to bring your mood down, if you put it in a positive light, it’s going to inspire you. That was also pretty much the point of her message today.

• Don’t feel down and beat yourself up about challenges in practice.
• Look at it in a constructive manner and learn from them.
• Don’t focus on what you can’t do, but focus on what you can do.
• Work on the parts of your practice that don’t hurt.

I took away marichyasana B and D again. I took away urdhva dhanurasana. I even took away ardha baddha padmottanasana and ardha baddha padma paschimottanasana. I pretty much took away anything that had to do with lotus and half lotus. The left leg wasn’t comfortable so I thought I’d better back off once again. Strange because my body is usually rather soft after a physio session.

My massage ball didn’t come today, that was a bummer.

Oh darnit! I forgot to add this to the previous post. So here we go again, two posts in one day and it might be three by the end of the day after I practice.

I forgot to mention that it was my one year yoga anniversary yesterday. So much has happened. So much has changed! I discovered yoga, and more precisely Ashtanga, one year ago yesterday after having about seven years of a sedentary lifestyle. I went from virtually no physical activity for seven years to yoga once a week for four months, twice a week for two months, then the past six months has been three to five times a week.

I started off with little flexibility, no strength and no balance. My chest was light years away from my thighs, I even had to bend my knees to reach my toes in paschimottanasana. I couldn’t hold virabhadrasana A or B longer than two breaths before I had to straighten the legs because they were screaming at me. I couldn’t do utthita hasta padangushtasana holding the knee instead of the toe and balancing on one leg. Oh hang on, I still don’t have much balance in utthita hasta padangushtasana! But at least I can grab the toe and straighten my legs.

It’s pretty mind blowing when I think back and remember that I thought I would never be able to get my head to the floor in prasarita padottanasanas or my chest to my legs in paschimottanasana. I thought jump-backs and jump-throughs were impossible for me because my legs were too long and my arms too short. I didn’t think it was possible to do three surya namaskara B’s without dying. I thought vinyasas were a form of torture! Actually… that hasn’t changed so much!

I had once seen another student go into marichyasana D and thought, “Dude, no way, no how, not in this lifetime, no sir-ie!” and now I’m one of those envied students that can wrist bind with relative ease. Ok, so that was pre-injury time, I have no idea whether I can bind in D anymore.

Come to think of it, I didn’t even know what the hell marichyasana D was one year ago!

I never thought I’d chant or meditate in my lifetime. I thought chanting and meditation was a little bizarre. But here I am one year later, chanting at the beginning of every practice and meditating at the end of it.

I also have this blog and I enjoy writing in it!

So many good things, what about the bad?

Injury stocktake: Had the tingling toes thing. Had the numb lower, left shin thing. Had the left knee thing. Most recently: the lower back on the right and pinching in the left hip. Those were the major ones.

Other little minor injuries: the shoulder/chest/back thing I have now (this is the second time I’m going through it), the broken a nail through the nail bed (I never blogged about this strangely!), the mat burn and squished fingers when falling in shirshasana. That’s all I can think of right now.

I’ve also been in a constant state of soreness for the entire year (virtually). It’s been so long since I’ve been painfree, but the good thing is that I’m getting use to being sore all the time.

More good bits.

I’m enjoying my new found muscular body, and the boyfriend is enjoying it too! I was a tall, skinny, scrawny looking broomstick, and now I have thighs! I have a butt! Oh my gosh, I have biceps and shoulders too! Who would’ve thunk?
And finally, I managed to rope the boyfriend into Ashtanga within this past year!

I’m sure there’s more good and bad things that I can sit and reminisce, but this entry is already so freakin’ long! Anyway, time for some cake…

Had a chat with C during yesterday’s class. I got a chance to tell her that I wasn’t improving and was getting worse if anything. I should have told her before class that I was backing off practice yet again, but she was busy chatting with other students and I was doing my physio stretches before class and before I knew it, it was time to start chanting. She told me she hadn’t been adjusting me because of my injury and I let her know that I was fine with that, I know she wasn’t neglecting me.

Other than that, practice was a rather uneventful, didn’t do all my vinyasas but I did more than Monday’s practice. I thought my shoulder/chest/back strain was ok so I stupidly went up in urdhva dhanurasana and strained it again, doh! Had a big fall onto my butt in bhujapidasana, it was a severely loud thud this time. I almost, almost, almost had a touchless vinyasa, and I wasn’t even trying for one. It was so close I could taste it.

My hypertonic muscles and trigger points are back, I suppose it’s to be expected and that’s why I’m seeing the physio again tomorrow (Thursday). He calls it the “two steps forward, one step back” process of healing, I finally understand what he means. The SI joint is very tender and tight at the moment, makes me wish for the SI joint manipulation the physio gives me (see the picture).

I ended up buying a massage ball from Australia. It’s an AOK massage ball that, supposedly, can be used for trigger point release. It should arrive today if I’m lucky, otherwise it’ll be tomorrow. If this little ball doesn’t do what it’s suppose to do, I’ll have to bite the bullet and buy that TP massage ball from America.

Is blogging twice a day too much? Not that it matters, it’s not going to stop me

So, onto the physio report card. I was right and the physio wasn’t too happy that there wasn’t any improvement, but at the same time I think he kind of felt somewhat responsible because he couldn’t do a follow up the first time I presented with this problem. For those who are not aware, the physio had to go away for a couple of weeks on tour with the rugby team when I first presented with this current batch of problems.

After some poking and prodding and some movement tests, he found a really tight spot on my lower back on the right side which I believe is the SI joint and a few more tight trigger points. The first trigger point we already know, it’s in the right gluteus medius area and that was treated with needle accupuncture again. I got immediate relief with the accupuncture, it still hasn’t stopped amazing me.

The other trigger points were in my left hip flexor and left tensor fascia lata. I got traditional trigger point release techniques using ischaemic compression. Man it hurt but it was good pain and it released the trigger points just as effectively as accupuncture. The hip flexor trigger point release just plain hurt, but I couldn’t decide whether to cry out in pain or laugh hysterically at the tensor fascia lata trigger point release. It was a weird combination of pain and tickling.

At the end of the session, I got the obligatory heat treatment across the gluteals which is always nice and relaxing. He told me that I could keep practicing as long as I don’t do anything that hurts and that I back off my practice a lot more than what I am already doing. He also advised that I need to continue the stretches for the gluteus and piriformis.

I’m glad and relieved that I feel better, there’s still a little twinge here and there but it’s much more bearable than pre-physio. I’m going for a series of treatments similar to how the last injury I had was treated, so my next appointment is Thursday afternoon.

I had a good practice today (I practiced after the physio session) and for the first time in a long time, a lot of things felt “right”. I had previously reported how the first side in janu shirshasana A felt very different to the second side. Well, that imbalance was 80% gone in today’s practice. Many of the asanas where I felt some imbalance suddenly felt more balanced.

I took practice at an easy pace, skipped many, many many vinyasas. I can’t believe I’m saying this (C would have a heart attack!), but I missed my vinyasas! Practice was still sweaty without them, but definitely not as sweaty as usual. I added in marichyasana B and D, bound in B but not in D (because of the hip - no pain-inducing asanas, physio’s orders). Took two tries to come up from bhujapidasana and still ended up on my ass. Went up in shirshasana with straight legs all the way, all by myself without a wall, but I don’t think I was fully straight. Backed off all forward bends so I didn’t have my chest to my thighs once, I would say my forward bends were at 50% of its capability.

Shavasana was hectic at first, I couldn’t seem to stop my mind racing, but once I got in control of it, I was in bliss. I stayed in shavasana for a good 15 minutes before reluctantly getting up.

I’ve been fighting the temptation to write post titles that are song inspired… I’m giving in to that temptation and today’s post title is meant to be read to the tune of “We’re Off to See the Wizard” from the musical “The Wizard of Oz”. Sad, I know. Lame, I know. Tacky, I know. But it’s too late, it’s now typed up and I’m not hitting the delete button!

This is meant to be a quick post before I go to see the physio again. I was contemplating this move all weekend. Should I just live with the discomfort of the lower back on the right side and the inability to bind in marichyasana C and D because of the pinching sensation in the hip when the left leg is fully flexed and adducted? I thought that with time and patience, yoga will correct my imbalance and I’ll be back to feeling “normal”, which is probably possible. Only thing is, I’m concerned that if I leave it untreated and unattended to by a professional who actually knows what they’re talking about (as opposed to my hypochondriacal research and musings), I could be doing some permanent damage.

So, with the fear of permanent damage, I made an appoint with my physiotherapist for this afternoon. He’s probably not going to be happy to see that I haven’t improved much in the month since I’ve last seen him.

I can feel the hypertonic butt muscles as I sit and type, not a comfortable feeling. It gives me the urge to stretch the muscles, so I do a sitting piriformis and gluteus stretch where I bend up my right leg and put my right ankle on my left knee (forming an up-side-down number 4) then bend forward with a straight back. What an effective stretch… oh it feels good.

There’s a holistic center right next to the shala. They offer sports massage including trigger point release and myofascial release. I learnt the difference is that trigger point release is when pressure is applied to the trigger points to get them to release their tension and myofascial release is when pressure is applied to the belly of the muscle to get the muscle to release, both seem to be ischaemic compression techniques. Maybe I’ll go to the center for a 30 minute massage at lunch time.

In terms of practice, there hasn’t been much. I did a quickie practice Friday night after shopping with my sister. I had come home at about 9pm, so it was already really freaking late for a practice. No practice on Saturday and Sunday was moon day. I don’t know if I’ll practice today. Every fibre in my body says “DO IT” but I’ll see what the physio says.

Speaking of which… better get going.

It’s 1:30 am and I’m not in bed yet. How am I ever going to start morning practices when I go to bed so late? No matter, a bit of midnight rantings might help me get my mind settled for some sleep. My mind always races and I can’t relax enough to sleep when M goes out for a boy’s night out.

So I went shopping for the first time in months. I’m usually so caught up in work that I don’t make it to brick and mortar shops, except for groceries, and I do most my non-essential shopping online. It was nice to get out, to touch and feel the yoga pants I’m looking to purchase. Yes, even when I go shopping, I walk past the high heeled shoes, the pretty frilly skirts, the sexy slim-fit pants and straight to the sportswear looking for yoga pants, yoga tops and sports bras. Man I feel like a yoga freak.

Other than that my lonely night was filled with more research into my chronic tight muscles, or as I’ve learnt, hypertonic piriformis or gluteus. I learnt that one of the best ways to loosen hypertonic muscles is a method where compression is applied to the tight muscle for a period of 45 seconds to one minute. The theory being that after starving the muscle of blood and oxygen, the muscle will release it’s tightness and thus increasing the blood flow, or something like that.

I’ve heard about this technique before, especially in the context of being applied to trigger points around the body to loosen tight muscles, especially in piriformis syndrome. I think this would be a useful technique for me and there’s two ways I can achieve this, pay $50 for each sports massage session or pay $50 to buy this nifty device.

Why spend $50 on something that looks like a tennis ball? Why not just use a freakin’ tennis ball? Well, 1) I don’t have a tennis ball and 2) I’ve read on forums that tennis balls just aren’t firm enough to sit on. My only problem is that I have to find an online stockist that posts to Australia. I’d prefer to buy from the original source, but they don’t seem to post internationally.

One of C’s favourite sayings. She likes to remind us students that 10 minutes of practice every day is better than a full practice once a week. Consistency is key.

For this reason, I did end up going to practice yesterday when I wasn’t feeling like it and as I suspected, I did feel better afterwards. Actually, more accurately would be: I felt better the moment I lifted my arms in the first surya namaskara A.

C had a check in with me to see whether I was ready for a new pose. I told her my leg isn’t quite good yet and that I’ll let her know when I’m ready. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had hurt my chest. Speaking of which, it’s most likely the serratus anterior I pulled, or strained, or overworked. Anyway, I don’t expect I’ll be ready for a new pose for another week at least.

My right piriformis or gluteus something or rather is a little stiff again, but today, I don’t care. I’m resolving to the idea that daily practice, even if injured, will eventually realign my body so all these aches and pains and injuries won’t be so bad after a while. That, or I’ll finally just get use to it.

I plan to practice tonight, not sure if it’ll be a full practice or a quickie, but I want to start incorporating all the poses I’ve been leaving out for the past three-ish weeks. That will be:

• ardha baddha padmottonasana with the forward bend
• ardha badda padma paschimottanasana with a full forward bend
• marichyasana B
• marichyasana C and D with binding
• urdhva padmasana
• pindasana
• uttana padasana
• baddha padmasana, padmasana and uth pluthi with full lotus

M’s so adorable. He told me he had a yoga dream last night where he was so flexible, he got his head down to his shins in forward bends and said it felt good. Then he woke up to his usual stiff-self and realised it was just a dream. I thought that was cute.

I’m reading up more about my tight piriformis/gluteus and my left hip pinching. This was an interesting article and sounds the closest in description to what I’ve experience and what I’m experiencing. A word of warning if you’re going to read this article: you better know your scientific terminology because the article is full of it!

Basically, the part that caught my attention is in the “Treatment” section at the end, where the article states “the piriformis would ‘re-tone’ in the next few days and cause problems again” which is exactly what happened to me. It also says that improvement is a “two steps forward, one step back” process.

That is the question. I’ve got about 15 minutes before I have to leave for class and I’m wondering if I should go or not. Usually nothing keeps me away from practice, but today, I’ve been stressed, I’ve been depressed and I don’t want to talk about it. Feeling down on the dumps always makes me not want to practice.

I suspect if I do go, I’ll end up feeling better afterwards, at least for a little while until all my troubles and worries boil up to the surface again.

On a technical note, I’ve added a pretty little lotus as my favicon. If you don’t know where to look, check out your address bar in your browser (where you type in web addresses). I also decided to add a web search instead of my site specific one. You can still search the site of course, but I thought an added web would be useful, even if it’s only me using it.

I’m not have a good run with practices. Stupid stupid stupid me keeps injuring myself.

Practice was good up until urdhva dhanurasana when I felt something strained in my chest. I have to stop hurting myself during practice, I seem to hurt myself even when I’m being mindful. I ended up doing one warm-up backbend, one full backbend then into paschimottanasana. I usually do three nice deep backbends (I love backbends), so one is a bit of a bummer, but I’m respecting my body and not pushing it when it’s obviously telling me to stop. I skipped everything after backbends and just went into baddha padmasana, padmasana and uth pluthi. Pity, I was looking forward to shirshasana.

This chest strain isn’t serious, thankfully. I’ve done this before during my very first full backbend when I didn’t have enough strength to push up in a controlled manner and ended up kind of cranking my way up. I’m not sure exactly what caused the strain, I certainly wasn’t cranking my way up this time. Maybe my overuse of my right upper body over the weekend contributed to it.

I’m not mad or frustrated, I just feel kinda stupid for injuring myself… again… during practice. Actually, I feel surprising good for someone who just hurt herself.

Oh the up side, bhujapidasana was awesome today. I’m still far from chin-to-mat bhujapidasana, but I shall start working towards it by taking more weight into my arms and less on my forehead.

No sarcasm this time. I had a really nice gentle practice yesterday and it seems to have loosened up the tight piriformis. My lower back feels almost normal again, which is a relief, but the left hip still isn’t much better yet. I still can’t bind in marichyasana C because it pinches on the joint but forward bends with the left leg in lotus is coming back. I’m still leaving out marichyasana B and D because I don’t want to aggravate it before it’s back to 100%.

I thought I would have to stop yesterday’s practice early because the first few urdhva mukha svanasanas were really stressful on the lower back. By the time I finished my set of surya namaskaras, the back had loosened up and I felt good to continue.

I started losing concentration at janu shirshasana A. I noticed my first side felt very different to the second side so I was repeating both sides trying to figure out why it felt so different but I didn’t come up with an answer.

My right shoulder/chest area is aching a bit, I think it’s been overworked and needs some rest so I’ll probably skip a few vinyasas in tonight’s class. This isn’t another yoga-related injury though, I think I overworked it when I was massaging my own butt over the weekend.

M enjoyed his class again yesterday. He told me in the morning he didn’t much feel like going to yoga, but I think he’s glad he went after the fact. C did the closing chant for the class to wake them from shavasana. M said he mostly liked the chanting, only a few sounds of the words and the monotonous melody wasn’t so great. I love C’s closing chant personally, I think she has a beautiful voice.

I just read over what I typed so far and realised this is yet another post full of my whinging. I can’t wait until I can report on something positive, like getting a new asana. Then again, I’ll probably start whinging about how hard it is or how I think I’ll never be able to get it. A new asana is going to be a while away for me, got to get back to 100% before I even think about adding something new.