Yoga

[noveldevice]

Best yoga class ever. There's a particular teacher that I really really like and this was her power yoga. It was hard work but I felt so good after it, and so strong during it. I was resistant to the yoga thing because it's a such a Vancouver trope (I mean, we are the home of Lululemon) but it is so great. I had reached the point where I was totally plateaued with my usual workouts, and yoga has really energized me and made me feel like I'm working again. I'd gotten to the point with cardio where making it hard enough work actually meant making it so hard on my joints that I was starting to worry about RSIs.

I need to reintroduce cardio, but yoga is being really good to me right now. And the emphasis on focus and presence is very much about what I want my exercise to be, so it falls in well with my own beliefs about movement and exercise.

lauzeta and I are going to wander around today and I may buy a yoga mat of my own. I feel like my practice would be greatly improved by being on a mat that's not primary school blue or sputum green.

I also really like that yoga teachers (the good ones at least) really understand that bodies aren't the same, and so instead of the message that my weird proportions and old injuries are either imaginary or can't possibly affect my practice (which is what my hooping teacher kept saying, and was one reason I became more and more resistant to hooping--because my arms are fucking short, goddammit, and telling me it's my imagination and to reach harder is NOT going to make them longer!), yoga teachers say "pay attention to your body and honour its wishes--if you can't do it this way, do it that way".

Today we did a weird set of IT band stretches that made my feet act up because of my birth defect in a way they haven't done in more than 20 years. So that was kind of interesting. It made me think about the nature of my feet, and the ways that my body has learnt to compensate for my birth defect as well as to compensate for the things that the correction of it did to my feet.

This may not continue; after all, it's been less than a month. But now, in this moment, yoga makes me happy in ways that I haven't been in a while. I call that a win.

Comments

[noodledays.livejournal.com]

it's very cool you're getting so much out of it currently. :) do you mind if I ask what kind of defect you have in your feet?

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I was born with a less-serious form of talipes equinovarus (clubfoot) in both feet. The distal halves of both feet (from the tarsals down) were pointed inward instead of being straight, but my ankle joints were unaffected. While I probably could have used surgical correction, my parents opted for corrective shoes beginning at birth to straighten my feet and flatten my talus bone as much as possible (not very much, as it happens--my talus/calcaneus is still basically shaped like an upside down U). As either part of the talipes or a result of the nonsurgical correction, where most people have an immobile "plate" of bones in their midfoot that used to be a joint (taking the broader primate view), I still have a joint. I also have very high arches (because of the talus bone), and cannot put even a normal amount of pressure on the outside (or blade) of my foot without collapsing that outermost metatarsal in painful ways.

[noodledays.livejournal.com]

that sounds like quite the challenge to deal with. are you or will you be able to modify the yoga moves so you don't deal with more pain than you need to?

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

It's actually not a problem 99% of the time on yoga or life. side plank and certain IT band stretches bite but that's it.

i don't mind my defect. because of my weird bone structure and the gentleness of the correction, my feet are beautiful. :)

[noodledays.livejournal.com]

cool, that's a nice bright side. :)