YOGA FOR KNUCKLEHEADS #21 "SAMANTHA'S INVERSION CURE-ALL"
Toward the end of our session, as we began our inversions, which for some members of class means head-stands or shoulder-stands, neither of which I can do, because my neck can tolerate no compression after herniating two discs back in 1994, and my shoulders are shot as well, Samantha told us that these inversions help us when we are “depressed, anxious, edgy or dithery.”
Sometimes Samantha, who is also a physical therapist, sounds like a shrink. My friend Ethan, and his celebrity yoga wife Contessa, both stand on their heads with regularity, but neither expressed any reason to use this pose as a cure for the mental maladies Samantha mentioned. I have never observed either of these two people even remotely depressed or outwardly anxious, or dithery, and although Ethan is pretty cynical about things, he's usually upbeat, seeing the ironic humor of himself and the world in disarray and distress, while Contessa is a person who dodges controversy and any shred of discomfort on an ongoing basis, refusing to be drawn into any discussion involving personal conflict or discontent with the world.
I know this because she cuts my hair and no matter how hard I try to get her confused, depressed or anxious, she always finds a way to pleasantly change the subject.
But I was very interested in Samantha's statement about inversion-cure, because I'm looking for any way possible to make my life more comfortable and less stressful, though my entire life has been wholly devoted to dodging stress at all levels and, like a cat, aspiring to the ultimate comfort zone. So far, in 74 years, I have, with a few setbacks, achieved this goal. For instance, when folks ask me how I like retirement, which I've dwelt in for almost 12 years (though old friends claim I've been semi-retired in a sort of self-institutionalized squalor since the early 1970s) I tell them I absolutely love retirement because there's nothing more pleasing than waking up each morning with absolutely nothing on my agenda save a little tennis, basketball, yoga, reading and writing and generally cavorting about on the beach with my friendly Lab/Chesapeake Wilbur, and dealing with no maintenance of premises, which is left to friends for the pleasure of my company.
Of course, any snags in this agenda do cause an immediate heightening of “anxiety, dithering and vicious anger.”
For instance, my LA Times newspaper, which I've been subscribing to for 40 plus years, didn't come the other morning and I was instantly calling the deliverer in a panic, especially since I'd spied my neighbor two doors down receiving her paper. All I got was a recording. I waited, and called, still no paper and a recording, so I went to both liquor stores in town and they were sold out because it's summer with hundreds of tourists in Cayucos, and from this point on my morning habit of coffee, paper and blueberry muffin as well as the rest of the day was ruined and I was in a “dithery, helpless, lost, irate state.”
The following morning, I was pacing on my deck above the narrow alley where I live at 6 o'clock. ( I was awake at 3:30 even though the paper doesn't usually arrive until around 7). Neighbors and my worried dog spied me sitting, standing, pacing, grumbling, dithering, terrified my paper wouldn't come, because there was no way I could endure another morning without it.
This was certainly a time calling for me to go into emergency inversion, for I was in a state of severe, unceasing dithering and unable to stop it, until the paper mercifully arrived at 7:23 and my turmoil came to a sudden halt and I expelled great relief. This is the way it is when you force upon yourself as iron-clad an ongoing attempt to fight stress as I do—any small setback throws everything into helpless frenzy.
This happened four days before Samantha's explanation about inversion, and although, as previously stated, I cannot stand on my head or shoulders, she did add that if you lay on your back and propel your legs straight up and keep them there for a certain amount of time, say a minute, two minutes, even five minutes, and move them around, split them, and regulate your breathing, this is a more than passable inversion, which means it could help me with my panic attacks over setbacks in the future.
This is excellent stuff to know and I have only my yoga guru Samantha to thank. Yet, when we do indulge in our inversions in class, and I exercise my vaunted back-stand while 15 or so others do head and shoulder-stands, I feel, at the end, no different than when I started, and I'm sure this is because I am not balanced directly upon my head, with the blood rushing about, which Ethan claims is a sort of cleansing, and very healthy, but can only be achieved when you are standing on your head, and to my way of thinking this means there is no way my foolish imitation of an inversion can do me any good when I'm in a dithery panicky state, because I'm receiving no blood rush whatsoever, no cleansing, no clearing of the mind, no relieving of depression or stress, but merely loosening up my lower back!
Well, I have to confront Samantha now and explain my problem of anxious dithering (I'm only depressed about twice a year and it passes with a joyous drunk) when a snag hits my daily agenda and explain that my back-stand inversion won't work, though I'm not sure she wants to hear about some of the maladies I've just mentioned, though again she just might understand, because, above all, generous hearted and very understanding and compassionate Samantha knows for sure I'm a yoga knucklehead in dire need of all the help I can get.
Sometimes Samantha, who is also a physical therapist, sounds like a shrink. My friend Ethan, and his celebrity yoga wife Contessa, both stand on their heads with regularity, but neither expressed any reason to use this pose as a cure for the mental maladies Samantha mentioned. I have never observed either of these two people even remotely depressed or outwardly anxious, or dithery, and although Ethan is pretty cynical about things, he's usually upbeat, seeing the ironic humor of himself and the world in disarray and distress, while Contessa is a person who dodges controversy and any shred of discomfort on an ongoing basis, refusing to be drawn into any discussion involving personal conflict or discontent with the world.
I know this because she cuts my hair and no matter how hard I try to get her confused, depressed or anxious, she always finds a way to pleasantly change the subject.
But I was very interested in Samantha's statement about inversion-cure, because I'm looking for any way possible to make my life more comfortable and less stressful, though my entire life has been wholly devoted to dodging stress at all levels and, like a cat, aspiring to the ultimate comfort zone. So far, in 74 years, I have, with a few setbacks, achieved this goal. For instance, when folks ask me how I like retirement, which I've dwelt in for almost 12 years (though old friends claim I've been semi-retired in a sort of self-institutionalized squalor since the early 1970s) I tell them I absolutely love retirement because there's nothing more pleasing than waking up each morning with absolutely nothing on my agenda save a little tennis, basketball, yoga, reading and writing and generally cavorting about on the beach with my friendly Lab/Chesapeake Wilbur, and dealing with no maintenance of premises, which is left to friends for the pleasure of my company.
Of course, any snags in this agenda do cause an immediate heightening of “anxiety, dithering and vicious anger.”
For instance, my LA Times newspaper, which I've been subscribing to for 40 plus years, didn't come the other morning and I was instantly calling the deliverer in a panic, especially since I'd spied my neighbor two doors down receiving her paper. All I got was a recording. I waited, and called, still no paper and a recording, so I went to both liquor stores in town and they were sold out because it's summer with hundreds of tourists in Cayucos, and from this point on my morning habit of coffee, paper and blueberry muffin as well as the rest of the day was ruined and I was in a “dithery, helpless, lost, irate state.”
The following morning, I was pacing on my deck above the narrow alley where I live at 6 o'clock. ( I was awake at 3:30 even though the paper doesn't usually arrive until around 7). Neighbors and my worried dog spied me sitting, standing, pacing, grumbling, dithering, terrified my paper wouldn't come, because there was no way I could endure another morning without it.
This was certainly a time calling for me to go into emergency inversion, for I was in a state of severe, unceasing dithering and unable to stop it, until the paper mercifully arrived at 7:23 and my turmoil came to a sudden halt and I expelled great relief. This is the way it is when you force upon yourself as iron-clad an ongoing attempt to fight stress as I do—any small setback throws everything into helpless frenzy.
This happened four days before Samantha's explanation about inversion, and although, as previously stated, I cannot stand on my head or shoulders, she did add that if you lay on your back and propel your legs straight up and keep them there for a certain amount of time, say a minute, two minutes, even five minutes, and move them around, split them, and regulate your breathing, this is a more than passable inversion, which means it could help me with my panic attacks over setbacks in the future.
This is excellent stuff to know and I have only my yoga guru Samantha to thank. Yet, when we do indulge in our inversions in class, and I exercise my vaunted back-stand while 15 or so others do head and shoulder-stands, I feel, at the end, no different than when I started, and I'm sure this is because I am not balanced directly upon my head, with the blood rushing about, which Ethan claims is a sort of cleansing, and very healthy, but can only be achieved when you are standing on your head, and to my way of thinking this means there is no way my foolish imitation of an inversion can do me any good when I'm in a dithery panicky state, because I'm receiving no blood rush whatsoever, no cleansing, no clearing of the mind, no relieving of depression or stress, but merely loosening up my lower back!
Well, I have to confront Samantha now and explain my problem of anxious dithering (I'm only depressed about twice a year and it passes with a joyous drunk) when a snag hits my daily agenda and explain that my back-stand inversion won't work, though I'm not sure she wants to hear about some of the maladies I've just mentioned, though again she just might understand, because, above all, generous hearted and very understanding and compassionate Samantha knows for sure I'm a yoga knucklehead in dire need of all the help I can get.
