YOGA FOR KNUCKLEHEADS #14: "HEALING"
I limped into the yoga studio at 9 in the morning a decrepit, finger frozen wreck, the pinion high on my right hip joint still stabbing me like a jagged shard of glass or steel from a stupid bout of basketball the afternoon before. Each step caused me to cringe and stagger as the hip gave out, and during an earlier walk with my dog Wilbur in below 40 degree wind chill I found myself cursing and whining like an old crotchety baby, though the day before when I was sinking 20 and 22 footers from beyond the key in a warm gym I was full of myself, on a roll, a return to roaring self-congratulatory hubris after a long layoff, basketball having been my drug of choice for decades but a sport I was warned to quit by the surgeon who operated on my left knee, claiming if I continued to play the next step was a knee replacement.
But I couldn't control myself and had to double down on Ibu profen which barely dimmed the pain. Samantha, who my tennis pal Ethan says is physical therapist of the past, always emphasizes how certain poses heal certain organs and joints and areas of the body. This morning I was depending on Samantha to heal me, like a miracle worker. I was depending on yoga to heal me. I was now beholden to yoga and terrified I had chipped some minute fragment off my upper hip and was permanently crippled and prime for not only a shoulder and knee replacement, but a hip replacement.
I am stupidly egotistical about performing as an athlete, being the son of a professional baseball player who excelled in all sports and needed to be hospitalized to be kept off the field due to an insecure Depression era phobia about losing his job to a player who might out perform him and send him to the lower minor leagues and eventually out of the game, broke and jobless.
This phobia drove him to the big leagues and later great success as a businessman who never missed work, even if he was near to collapse.
Thus, I am close to being cripple from playing for nothing but passion on ruined body parts because I was ingrained with dad's phobia and fear of babying myself and being called a mollycoddle, and because of this I continued to execute downward dog when my left shoulder hurt (so I could keep up with the ladies in class) and now this shoulder has taken a turn for the worse, so that I can no longer sleep on my left side and it hurts all the time and especially when I move it and is becoming almost useless.
I felt like asking Samantha to emphasize “hip work” as I lay down on my mat and stretched, but didn't want to embarrass myself by begging for help. But this morning for some reason Samantha had us stretching to the right and left while squatting and also when sitting with our legs stretched as far apart as possible with some ladies accomplishing the “splits.”
These moves were torture. She had us sitting on our lower backs and pulling our one foot up to our chest on either side. She had us on our backs splaying our left and then right legs completely out (“opening the barn door”) and dangling, the pain in the right hip screaming, but I refused to quit or flinch, a real man as I peered around and watched a couple men and old ladies hold firm. I held firm. Next we spread our legs as far apart as possible while standing bent over, toes slightly turned in to relax the sciatica, and reached far out and down, then stretched to the left and right, then scrunched down even lower and grabbed both ankles, panting again, drooling, this inversion one of my favorite tortures because I feel everything ironing itself out.
Samantha had us rise and execute a different version of “peaceful warrior” and “exalted warrior” than the one we perform in Reggie's class. These are majestic poses in which the women look especially proud and regal, like ballet dancers or posing angels, and the men look like lunging slugs, like me. There is no reprieve during the middle or tail-end of a yoga session, when the process becomes more demanding and grueling and you wish to quit and at least back off a trifle, but if you want results you plow on, organizing your breath, panting, moaning on the inside, sighing, wishing this all could end.
At the end most of these people do head and shoulder stands while I placed a block under my lower back and moved my legs up and twirled them about, attempting “the plow,” which means folding my legs back as far as possible, which isn't very far compared to these women whose legs fold clear back in a horizontal manner. But what the hell, I tried.
After Samantha got us up for the finale, which involved the ommming, I stood and moved about and all the former pain in my hip had miraculously vanished. I hopped, swiveled my hips, stepped this way and that, like a broken-field football halfback, and still there was no pain. I was extremely loose. Samantha had healed me. Yoga had healed me.
In the office, where Samantha's disciples exchanged the usual cheer, I hovered over her and she smiled.
“You healed my hip, Samantha,” I told her. “I could hardly walk this morning. I am a new man. You are a miracle worker.”
She smiled up at me, eyes shining with compassion and pride. and I could see she was moved. “Well wonderful!” she gushed. “Isn't yoga great for you?”
Of course it was YOGA, and not Samantha. Well, I say bullshit to that. It was both. Anyway, if I get rained out in tennis next Thursday I will want to play basketball again, and rain is in the forecast, and I fear nothing will stop me, and I dread hurting like I did earlier...
Stay tuned.
But I couldn't control myself and had to double down on Ibu profen which barely dimmed the pain. Samantha, who my tennis pal Ethan says is physical therapist of the past, always emphasizes how certain poses heal certain organs and joints and areas of the body. This morning I was depending on Samantha to heal me, like a miracle worker. I was depending on yoga to heal me. I was now beholden to yoga and terrified I had chipped some minute fragment off my upper hip and was permanently crippled and prime for not only a shoulder and knee replacement, but a hip replacement.
I am stupidly egotistical about performing as an athlete, being the son of a professional baseball player who excelled in all sports and needed to be hospitalized to be kept off the field due to an insecure Depression era phobia about losing his job to a player who might out perform him and send him to the lower minor leagues and eventually out of the game, broke and jobless.
This phobia drove him to the big leagues and later great success as a businessman who never missed work, even if he was near to collapse.
Thus, I am close to being cripple from playing for nothing but passion on ruined body parts because I was ingrained with dad's phobia and fear of babying myself and being called a mollycoddle, and because of this I continued to execute downward dog when my left shoulder hurt (so I could keep up with the ladies in class) and now this shoulder has taken a turn for the worse, so that I can no longer sleep on my left side and it hurts all the time and especially when I move it and is becoming almost useless.
I felt like asking Samantha to emphasize “hip work” as I lay down on my mat and stretched, but didn't want to embarrass myself by begging for help. But this morning for some reason Samantha had us stretching to the right and left while squatting and also when sitting with our legs stretched as far apart as possible with some ladies accomplishing the “splits.”
These moves were torture. She had us sitting on our lower backs and pulling our one foot up to our chest on either side. She had us on our backs splaying our left and then right legs completely out (“opening the barn door”) and dangling, the pain in the right hip screaming, but I refused to quit or flinch, a real man as I peered around and watched a couple men and old ladies hold firm. I held firm. Next we spread our legs as far apart as possible while standing bent over, toes slightly turned in to relax the sciatica, and reached far out and down, then stretched to the left and right, then scrunched down even lower and grabbed both ankles, panting again, drooling, this inversion one of my favorite tortures because I feel everything ironing itself out.
Samantha had us rise and execute a different version of “peaceful warrior” and “exalted warrior” than the one we perform in Reggie's class. These are majestic poses in which the women look especially proud and regal, like ballet dancers or posing angels, and the men look like lunging slugs, like me. There is no reprieve during the middle or tail-end of a yoga session, when the process becomes more demanding and grueling and you wish to quit and at least back off a trifle, but if you want results you plow on, organizing your breath, panting, moaning on the inside, sighing, wishing this all could end.
At the end most of these people do head and shoulder stands while I placed a block under my lower back and moved my legs up and twirled them about, attempting “the plow,” which means folding my legs back as far as possible, which isn't very far compared to these women whose legs fold clear back in a horizontal manner. But what the hell, I tried.
After Samantha got us up for the finale, which involved the ommming, I stood and moved about and all the former pain in my hip had miraculously vanished. I hopped, swiveled my hips, stepped this way and that, like a broken-field football halfback, and still there was no pain. I was extremely loose. Samantha had healed me. Yoga had healed me.
In the office, where Samantha's disciples exchanged the usual cheer, I hovered over her and she smiled.
“You healed my hip, Samantha,” I told her. “I could hardly walk this morning. I am a new man. You are a miracle worker.”
She smiled up at me, eyes shining with compassion and pride. and I could see she was moved. “Well wonderful!” she gushed. “Isn't yoga great for you?”
Of course it was YOGA, and not Samantha. Well, I say bullshit to that. It was both. Anyway, if I get rained out in tennis next Thursday I will want to play basketball again, and rain is in the forecast, and I fear nothing will stop me, and I dread hurting like I did earlier...
Stay tuned.
