Thoughts :: Archive

More pain, less gain...

Originally published July 30, 2006

Well, after 15½ months, Juno has finally settled into something of a sleep pattern -which is, and those of you that have offspring will know how much this means, sleep from 7 'till 4am, wake up for a feed and then back out again until around 7am -which meant that I got all keen and thought that I might be able to resume my yoga practice.

Let me just give you a little background before I move onto the gory details of this disastrous experiment.

I began practicing back in 1996, reluctantly I might add. A friend, who was quite a keen yogini, talked me into accompanying her to an Ashtanga class, convinced that I would enjoy it. Well, she was wrong. I hated it. I was quite fit, had good strength, but I was (and am) graced with the all the flexibility of a Scientologist... Consequently, the 1½ hours of the class was an exhilarating mix of pain and humiliation. Yeah, I was going to come back for more of this...

I remember walking out of the school thinking, "thank god that is over - I will never have to go back." Which just goes to show how pointless all of these sorts of resolutions are. Unfortunately, as part of the deal with Kate, I had also agreed to accompany her to a demonstration some weeks down the track. I conveniently forgot all about this in my haste to put as much space between myself and this loathsome activity as quickly as possible.

So, a couple of weeks later I get the call. "Jas, remember that demonstration that you said you would come along with me to check out?" Fuck no, I think to myself. Anyway, as gracelessly as possible, that saturday I escort Kate off to see some dude called Graeme Northfield go through his paces. I guess that you could say that I hardly went along in a receptive frame of mind.

Notwithstanding that, I emerged into the bright sunlight of a saturday afternoon on Oxford St absolutely convinced that Ashtanga yoga was the path for me. And, for the next 6-odd years, I practiced at least six times a week, and on occasion 7. I suppose that the only fair and accurate description of me at the time was "fanatical." Ashtanga seems to have that effect on a certain type of person.

Anyway, after 9 months in India around 2000, the injuries had started to mount up and the relentless practice of jamming my body into postures that it was unable -and increasingly resentful- of naturally assuming started to take its toll. First my knee and then, more seriously, my sacrum blew out. If you are unsure what that means, just let me say: OUCH! Pain. Lots of pain. Lots of pain, all the time. A really shitty time, in fact.

So, I changed my practice. Tried lots of remedial stuff. Ran up a huge bill seeing osteopaths, acupuncturists, physiotherapists, kinesiologists, doctors, etc. The crunch came around Christmas 2004 when I just sort of got fed up with the whole thing and thought, "fuck it, I am going back to jogging." And so I did. And, for the better part of the last two years that is what I have been doing. Without even the most perfunctory stretch beforehand. I had snapped from one extreme back to another (what did I say above about Ashtanga attracting a certain personality type?).

And then, over the last couple of weeks, as Juno has started to sleep a little more consistently, I have found myself thinking about the mat again. Just when I thought I had it kicked, back it comes sneaky-peteing up through a haze of sleep deprivation and middle-aged apathy.

So last monday, I set the alarm for 5:15 and lumbered over to the mat. How was it? It was like that very first class 10 years ago, only worse. At least I was fit and strong back then. I couldn't remember the sequence for Suryanamaskar B; my entire upper body was burning after 5 A's; my hamstrings had completely solidified over the previous 18 months; in a word, it was hell.

So, tuesday morning, I set the alarm and got up and did it again. Why? I don't have the faintest. If it was up to me I wouldn't have gone back in 1996...

Comments?

heheh - certainly on the dot about 'personality type'. Mad, I tell you...
Mark

'all the flexibility of scientologist'.......astanga yoga is steeped in strict dogmas. 'head down'is one that comes to mind.it is taken that it needs to be adhered to at all cost, even if doing so puts undue strain(and injures) other parts of the body. we have amazing knowledge of anatomy and physiology(science)today, that the ancients did not. yoga can be practiced with an enlightened(in the european sense) mind, not a dogamtic one. we can apply knowledge of anatomy to a yoga posture, rather than merely jamming a face into a knee, and come away with some real benefit, rather than a disibilitating injury.
Ian