Ego and Injury
Happy Sunday everyone! So as I mentioned, I was going to talk a bit about yoga and injuries. It’s true, a lot of people can recover from injuries by doing yoga and gently easing their bodies back to a balanced state. It is also true that many people can cause their bodies injury while doing yoga. This happens either because of an uneducated instructor, a students inability to follow instruction, or a disturbed ego that cannot it’s bodies limitations. When I began doing more yoga, I came to the practice with a pre-existing condition of a ganglion cyst in my wrist. Doing yoga has been the best thing for it, especially when I learned that almost every move in yoga requires that you are constantly mindful of your shoulder blades moving away from your ears, shrug them down your back. This creates space in your neck and shoulders and puts less strain on your wrists in such poses as downdog or updog, plank and even dolphin pose. I also notice that if I skip a day of yoga, I can definitely feel that my wrist isn’t too happy about that! But, just recently, I injured my neck during a class, or as a result of a couple of classes. I can’t pinpoint it to a specific move, but I believe that it happened during headstand, plow pose, or shoulder stand. I know now that during plow pose or shoulder stand, the neck has a tendency, if forced due to the ego self egging you on, to flatten out on the floor. Well, the neck has a natural curved shape and by not observing that shape while on the ground and allowing it to completely flatten out, you are on your way to injury. Before we can attempt certain advanced moves in yoga, we really have to take time to develop strength. Yes, we may have been able to do shoulder stands when we were kids, but if a lot of time has elapsed from those flexible years, we need to gently work on our stiff muscles and accept where we are right now. Since I am experiencing this neck injury now, I am still practicing yoga, but I am altering my moves if I feel the least bit of strain. I am hoping to get in to see a chiropractor as well to get adjusted and to get a professional opinion. My situation occured because I thought that I was more flexible than my neck did and I was not aware of the intricate details about keeping the curve in your neck while in shoulder stand and plow. Lesson learned for sure! Until next time, adjust each move in yoga to fit your body. Your body is very quick to tell you when it doesn’t agree with something that you are doing. That is when being in the present moment comes in handy! Use your breath to keep you in the here and now and be good to yourself.
Tags: ego in yoga, ego self, force yoga poses, ganglion cyst, headstand, neck injury, plow pose, shoulder stand, Yoga
RSS
