Yoga

In my efforts to start this year off right, I went to yoga a few days in a row with my sister before she left to go back to college today. Being on winter break from school, I haven't had much soccer so it was great to get my exercise and spend my last few days with my sister. As I've said before, I've been doing yoga off and on for a while but I haven't in a while because of soccer. The past few days got me thinking though.

The first two days we went to classes by the same teacher who had been my instructor only once before and quite a while ago. He always goes up to everyone before and introduces himself and asks if you have any injuries he should know about. I remembered appreciating that because it saves me from the often confused glances I later receive when the instructor notices me doing a one-handed downward-facing dog. He didn't remember me from the last time I'd been to his class (understandably since it had been months) so he asked my name and I told him about my shoulder injury. He told me what he told me last time and what I've been told many other times, that I need to open my shoulders and squeeze my shoulder blades together behind my back which I've been working on. So the class started and I modified as it went through as I always do but even more this time because me and my sister had accidentally gone to the wrong class, one that was a higher level and often depended on shoulder strength that I obviously don't have. It was hard but I still felt good afterwards and realized that it was actually probably good strengthening for my shoulder. I decided I should maybe push myself to that level more often, even if I have to modify every other pose.

The next day, we went to a different class, not realizing it was with the same instructor. Before the class, he of course came up to me and I reminded him my name but this time he remembered me and my injury from the day before. He told me that he didn't understand the extent of my limitations at the start of class the day before and that he had been very surprised with my ability to modify and use my right shoulder to compensate. He asked more details about my injury and seemed intrigued by the whole thing. He was truly impressed and told me to just keep doing what I was doing. The class was great.

The last day (yesterday), my sister and I went to a stretching class because I was really sore from doing double workouts of soccer and hot yoga the previous two days. In front of me in that class was a girl around my age who was clearly an athlete. As the class went on, I realized that months ago I looked exactly like her when I was just starting to try yoga. I have learned that yoga is really about the little things you adjust: the alignment of your hips or the curling of your toes or the bend in your knees or the deep inhales and exhales of your breath. As an athlete, when I started yoga I didn't know this and in the poses we flowed through, I would try and get the furthest I could, not realizing that I should have been focusing on these little adjustments instead of trying to get my forehead all the way to my yoga mat or twist my body all the way to the side. I saw exactly that in the girl in front of me and I looked in the mirror at myself and saw the transformation I had made. And I remembered how impressed the instructor from the day before had been and how when I was in his class months ago, he clearly wasn't. I haven't become a yoga master or gone every day or accomplished anything major, but seeing that transformation in the mirror yesterday was just enough. For once, I had beaten the odds against my brachial plexus injury.