TURNING INJURIES INTO A GIFT
by Ghazal Bina
Last month, I got injured. I felt a very sharp pain in my left SI Joint. Where was this coming from? Did it happen during practicing yoga or teaching? How long does it take to recover? Will I be able to practice and teach like before? If I have injured myself, have I injured others? All these questions were making me sad and confused.
I am a full-time teacher. My mat is my home. I make a living out of teaching. I absolutely love what I do and can't even think of having a day without sharing my passion or not sweating on my mat. I am also studying for my 4th training which is an advanced 300-hours at Downward Dog Yoga Centre in Toronto and the intensive core module, the art of hands on adjustments and therapeutics, (80 hours), was about to start.
I was getting a bit stressed emotionally, financially and physically. I contacted my childhood friend who is a very good sport’s injury physiotherapist. I met him right after, as I was panicking. He asked me to lie down and applied a very interesting technique on my body — moving my bent left knee to right and my left arm to left. Something clicked in my back and I felt relieved, the pain started disappearing gradually. In some ways what he did was a bit similar to Thai massage or Chinese Tuina massage. Interesting discovery!
Then I went to my senior teacher/mentor, Ron Reid, pioneer of Ashtanga Yoga in Toronto. He gave me some modifications for my Mysore practice and less adjustments and no adjustments in some poses such as Marichyasana D. He is a very intuitive person/teacher who is full of light. If you listen to him with awareness, he has the ability to calm you down and offer you sustainable solutions, no matter what you are going through.
I felt better. I could still practice but in a different way. The day after, my yoga therapeutics and hands on adjustment module commenced, and my other senior teacher/mentor, Marla Meenakshi Joy (Ron's wife), started talking about common injuries such as herniated disc, si joint and hamstring insertion. BINGO! Great timing to deepen my knowledge. I was a good example to demo the poses for her. She gave me a strap, to have around my pelvis, to keep my front hip bones close to each other, and a block for between my thighs, in some poses, as a reminder to engage my lower abdominal and pelvic floor muscles.
After facing the injury and learning how to deal with it, I felt I was going through a transition in my practice, teaching and life. I have heard from some teachers that "injuries are the best teachers”. To some extent I agree with them and to some I don't. Yes, injuries do teach you a lot on how to modify the poses, how to work with your body during that time or how to teach an injured student, but what are the ways to prevent them? For instance, it might be better to bend the knees when we fold forward during our practice and on a daily basis too.
This transition made me notice that there is a weakness in the world of yoga asana. We stretch too much, hence, we need to be aware of eccentric contractions. How to work on strengthening our hamstrings and glutes is as important as lengthening them. So, adding some physiotherapy & Pilates exercises can bring some crucial benefits to our practice. My other discovery was receiving massage on a regular basis, which has brought me great results so far.
At the end of the day, we all go through dark days and transitions on and off the mat. It’s up to us to decide how to deal with them. We can be real warriors and take our yoga practice off the mat by practicing the art of mindful movement and relaxation, as well listening to our inner voice to pause and modify. Even if our yoga practice has brought us an injury, let's treat it as a gift and a journey to broaden our horizons, learning modifications, adjustments and patience, enjoying the process of our practice rather than being in a rush to reach the destination. Moreover, when it comes to teaching or preparing a teacher training, it is very important to encourage practitioners and future teachers to teach in a sustainable, slow, step-by-step way, rather than flowing on the mat with no physical or emotional awareness.
Accepting the fact that we are perfectly imperfect was a deep lesson for me and yoga, which has always been my savior, put me back on track again.
Love and gratitude to Krishnamacharya and all the past and present teachers who kept this ancient practice alive...
Ghazal Bina
I am a full-time teacher. My mat is my home. I make a living out of teaching. I absolutely love what I do and can't even think of having a day without sharing my passion or not sweating on my mat. I am also studying for my 4th training which is an advanced 300-hours at Downward Dog Yoga Centre in Toronto and the intensive core module, the art of hands on adjustments and therapeutics, (80 hours), was about to start.
I was getting a bit stressed emotionally, financially and physically. I contacted my childhood friend who is a very good sport’s injury physiotherapist. I met him right after, as I was panicking. He asked me to lie down and applied a very interesting technique on my body — moving my bent left knee to right and my left arm to left. Something clicked in my back and I felt relieved, the pain started disappearing gradually. In some ways what he did was a bit similar to Thai massage or Chinese Tuina massage. Interesting discovery!
Then I went to my senior teacher/mentor, Ron Reid, pioneer of Ashtanga Yoga in Toronto. He gave me some modifications for my Mysore practice and less adjustments and no adjustments in some poses such as Marichyasana D. He is a very intuitive person/teacher who is full of light. If you listen to him with awareness, he has the ability to calm you down and offer you sustainable solutions, no matter what you are going through.
I felt better. I could still practice but in a different way. The day after, my yoga therapeutics and hands on adjustment module commenced, and my other senior teacher/mentor, Marla Meenakshi Joy (Ron's wife), started talking about common injuries such as herniated disc, si joint and hamstring insertion. BINGO! Great timing to deepen my knowledge. I was a good example to demo the poses for her. She gave me a strap, to have around my pelvis, to keep my front hip bones close to each other, and a block for between my thighs, in some poses, as a reminder to engage my lower abdominal and pelvic floor muscles.
After facing the injury and learning how to deal with it, I felt I was going through a transition in my practice, teaching and life. I have heard from some teachers that "injuries are the best teachers”. To some extent I agree with them and to some I don't. Yes, injuries do teach you a lot on how to modify the poses, how to work with your body during that time or how to teach an injured student, but what are the ways to prevent them? For instance, it might be better to bend the knees when we fold forward during our practice and on a daily basis too.
This transition made me notice that there is a weakness in the world of yoga asana. We stretch too much, hence, we need to be aware of eccentric contractions. How to work on strengthening our hamstrings and glutes is as important as lengthening them. So, adding some physiotherapy & Pilates exercises can bring some crucial benefits to our practice. My other discovery was receiving massage on a regular basis, which has brought me great results so far.
At the end of the day, we all go through dark days and transitions on and off the mat. It’s up to us to decide how to deal with them. We can be real warriors and take our yoga practice off the mat by practicing the art of mindful movement and relaxation, as well listening to our inner voice to pause and modify. Even if our yoga practice has brought us an injury, let's treat it as a gift and a journey to broaden our horizons, learning modifications, adjustments and patience, enjoying the process of our practice rather than being in a rush to reach the destination. Moreover, when it comes to teaching or preparing a teacher training, it is very important to encourage practitioners and future teachers to teach in a sustainable, slow, step-by-step way, rather than flowing on the mat with no physical or emotional awareness.
Accepting the fact that we are perfectly imperfect was a deep lesson for me and yoga, which has always been my savior, put me back on track again.
Love and gratitude to Krishnamacharya and all the past and present teachers who kept this ancient practice alive...
Ghazal Bina