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What will be possible?

This was the question that was in my mind when I stepped on the mat this morning. Second series feels better for me these days, so I focus on this series. Yet once a week I'd like to do primary.

Oh it was difficult to start and not to stop after the first two sun salutations. I switched on music and lowered the ambition.

Vinyasas are lost.
I practiced cat pose as a counter pose to the forward bending asanas.

I could put my leg behind the head, yes and I'm happy about it, but I had to hold it and it didn't feel as good as it used to. Yes, I see progress again. This is what I appreciate and I even thanked the Universe for the hope that was sent.

Only twice I had to use the fascia roll to get rid of the painful tension in the right psoas.
Tomorrow morning I'll be able to say if pain returned or not.

As ALWAYS, I never ever regretted to have practiced. I feel good.

My motivation: This idea came up this morning and I think it's a good idea as I want to be up to date with all the technical stuff. When I feel ready I'll film a session and show it on periscope.

The benefits of yoga for physical fitness

I read a lot these days about fitness. I know that I have to change my daily routines. My injured sacroiliac joint tells me this. I found a book that acknowledges my experiences with Ashtanga yoga.

Here is a quote from the book 'Which comes first, cardio or weights?' by Alex Hutchinson, Ph. D..

Page 136 ff:

What are the benefits of yoga for physical fitness?
"..........Considered strictly as a form of exercise, yoga has many strengths and a few key weaknesses. A 2001 study at the University of California, Davis, found that an eight-week program of two 90-minute hatha yoga classes per week led to significant increases in strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility. Other studies have found improvements in balance and even bone density. This is not really surprising - yoga is, after all, a weight-bearing physical activity.

........
A more controversial question is whether yoga is vigorous enough to count as aerobic exercise that improves cardiovascular fitness. While the UC-Davis study observed a small but measurable improvement of 6 percent in aerobic fitness, other studies have failed to confirm this. In a 2001 Northern Illinois University study of 45-minute "power" (ashtanga vinyasa) yoga sessions, the participants' heart rates stayed below the recommended threshold for aerobic exercise. ........But at a certain pint, it's probably best to accept yoga's strengths and weaknesses rather than to fight them, and seek your aerobic exercise in other ways. After all, McCall points out, having a balanced approach is a writhy yogic principle - that's why he hikes, bikes, and dances in addition to doing yoga."

End of quote.

My own experience is that I got stronger during all the years of practicing Ashtanga yoga, but not strong enough to perform some of the challenging asanas of the series. This is why I add strength training now. My physio-therapist, who got to know my body even realized that I'm very flexible, but I lack strength. This I want to balance these days.

That my sweaty yoga practice is not a work-out shocked me. I few months ago I discovered fitbit and it allowed me to measure my heart rate. It stayed the same during the practice. Only during the sun salutations in the beginning it went up. This is why I take the steps, every step that comes in my way as fast as possible. Then my heart starts racing......

As mentioned in my last blog posts, I do strength training these days before my practice 3 times a week. My surprise: It prepares my body perfectly for the asana practice. I feared I would be too tired when I do exercises already before the practice, but this was not the case. Some of my readers are already curious what I do. I work with a book by Paul Wade. It's great. Pictures will come......

The right order

1. Strength training
2. Asana training (flexibility)
3. Pranayama
4. Meditation
5. Relaxation

6. Shower and breakfast

Since some time I know that strength training is important for me. The asana practice made me stronger, but not strong enough to perform certain asanas like laghu vajrasana.
The physio therapist also recommended not to forget to do strength training. She found my body very flexible. In order to stabilize my back (sacroiliac joint blocked) it would be good to have strong abdomen.

It took me some time to find out what sort of strength training I should chose, when to do it, where to do it......
Soon it became clear, that weight lifting wouldn't be good. Thanks to the advice to my vegetable and fruit dealer who has done weight lifting, I know now that it's a burden for the joints.

I discovered a strength training that works with the own body weight. It's done 3 times a week. That's it for me.

So Monday, Wednesday and Friday, before my asana practice I'll work on getting stronger. What exactly I do will come in one of my next blog posts.

Picture: This is the reward if one gets up early.

Practice: Back pain is back. Four or five times during my yoga practice I had to massage my fascia to relief the muscle. The hope that I'll be soon pain free disappears. I love to move, I love to practice, I try to practice smart. This is the only solution that I see. Strength training is important. To live on the sofa is not an alternative.

How to adjust myself?

I practice often at home these days.

Let's start with trikonasana:
1. The position of the feet are important. First the feet are in one line when stepping sidewards from standing position. I turn the right foot on my heels. Now the heels are in one line.
2. The leg muscles are engaged, not 100%, but strong. The standing poses teach a strong foundation.
3. The upper body is parallel to the wall. This is the challenge. This is why it can help to move the arm behind the back to the thigh. This allows to open the upper body. I can realize the difference when I move my arm in the classic position again, upwards to the ceiling.
4. Fingers are together, also the thumb.
5. The back of the head and the spine are in line. The head doesn't move backwards to see the thumb.
6. The bandhas are engaged. Otherwise it's easy to make a hollow back which one shall avoid.

I practice, my back complains, I stop, I get back to the mat. That's how it is these days. Disappointing. But with time I also learned how to be disciplined and I learned not to give up.

So let's dance, I mean, let's practice.

Top 100 yoga blogs on the web

... And I'm on the list. This is a great joy in the morning. I'm ready for my practice now....

Here is the link.

Hope

I practiced before breakfast. I'm glad that this happened. It felt good to stretch. One hour was enough.

There is hope that my practice will flourish again.

The picture is from 2010.

I can sit again

Yesterday I sat hours at my desk. I was busy with Photoshop. I listened to videos. Quickly hours passed by. I stood up from my chair and after some time I thought: Wow, I had already forgotten how painful it was to sit longer than 25 min. I could even stand up without pain. It's a good idea not to sit so long without moving the body. Yet it's a difference if pain forces me to stand up or if I move from time to tome out of rationality.

I don't practice very regularily, that is every third day I'm on my mat and it's great. Perhaps my body still needs not to be challenged yet. The breaks might help to heal.

As important as yoga is to me, it's not my all and everything. It used to be my lynchpin over more than 3 decades of my life, but not more. This is enough. This is a lot. Ashtanga yoga can be so demanding that it's not only a life style, but a greedy diva. As always I think less can be more. One must use this tool 'yoga' with intelligence. One must also practice with intelligence.

My soilliac joint will heal. After about one year ! it's better, remarkably better. I'm one precious experience richer. It has been a frustrating ride.

One teaching method for everybody is never a good approach to anything. We are all different, that is the way of teaching must be flexible and consider the student. This doesn't mean that one isn't following a lineage. But with 57 years a more intelligent training is necessary. A 25 year old body is more forgiving. My body needs more variety as it takes longer to integrate new movements, just to mention one difference in comparison to a younger body.

What is the next important step for me after this injury that stayed with me for so long?
- I'm striving for a daily practice again. Just being on the mat and to practice is enough. Second series feels good. I've overdone forward bending asanas. And second series has enough forward bending asanas. By now my back got worse after a yoga practice. This is why my motivation to practice faded away. In the long run it's not a solution to be a 'couch potato'.

Ashtanga yoga and nutrition

When I started practicing yoga 37 years ago it was clear a yogi is a vegetarian. That's when I changed my meals. I became a vegetarian. That time back not so many people thought they could live without meat and sausages and fish. I was even told that I would get ill. I'm still healthy. I never liked meat or sausages neither fish so it was easy for me to make this transition. I discovered Indian dishes. It was the first time that I thought to eat is something joyful in live.

Ahimsa means living a life without hurting other creatures. Living a non-violent life is one of the few rules for yoginis.

In the meantime to eat vegetarian might not be enough anymore. When I first read about the production of milk I was shocked. It's so cruel. I don't want to get into detail here. We can survive without eating animal products. It's even healthier than the usual meat diet. Exceptions might exist.

I think the direction is clear. If it's possible to eat well without killing or exploit other creatures, this is the way.

The reasons are mainly ethical ones.

But is this enough?

I used to practice 2 and a half hour Ashtanga yoga every day for more than 2 years. So glad that I gave up this ineffective practice. In the afternoon I was so tired. I slept again. Often hours. My body needed incredible much sleep. Even though I didn't like this, but it seems as if Ashtanga yoga was the only activity I was able to perform. For anything else I had no more energy.

A few months back I used a fitbit armwrist. It measures the heart rate, counts the steps and so on. The accompanying software allows to enter the food that one has eaten during the day. That way I found out that I don't eat enough protein. This might have been a reason why I was so often so tired.

In most other sports the connection between nourishment and accomplishments are known.

With this post I want to draw the attention to this important aspect.

I practiced as mentioned already 2 and a half hours daily. Alone with this amount of time my practice was no more a hobby. Because of the injury of my sacroiliac joint I saw a physio therapist. She helped me a lot. I also appreciated the conversations with her. She said: Many amateurs practice more and longer than professionals, but they don't know that they have to relax as well. They have no treatments by physio therapists. They don't get any advice what to eat and so on. This is why injuries can be expected.

In order to have a healthy but also an effective practice nutrition is as important as the practice itself.

My meal planning:
1. Monday - lentils (Indian lentil soup, or a salad)
2. Tuesday - Tofu
3. Wednesday - Quinoa
4. Thursday - chickpeas
5. Friday - we usually eat out

Saturday and Sunday I'm flexible and I often try out new meals.

This is a list of ingredients with a lot of protein. How much protein does a body need? No more than your body weight. Otherwise the liver and kidneys are overloaded.

In order to build muscles the body needs protein. This is worth repeating. One of the reasons why I was not able to perform some asanas even though they were within my possibilities was because I was not strong enough. Additional strength training would have been good, but probably not enough, too. A nutrition with enough protein would have supported my endeavor to perform laghu vajrasana i.e. After 6 years of practice and not being able to come up from this pose requires for reflection: What went wrong? I guess I have to adjust my meals and I see the importance of strength training.
Life is an experiment, my yoga practice, too.

On my practice:
I practice, back pain returns, I interrupt my practice only to start again a few days later. Not to practice seems to be good, but it has disadvantages, too. Quickly the body becomes weak and stiff. I got so weak. Incredible.
To do nothing for the rest of my life is not an alternative.

I focus on second series these days as it feels so much better. Yesterday's practice brought a highlight. I could do sun salutation B without back pain. It was such a joy.
This morning I practiced again. It was the first activity in the morning still before breakfast. I gave up rather early, but it counts as a practice. I was glad that I practiced in the morning.

I need a group of practitioners, but I don't want adjustments from people I don't know and who don't know me. M will be back in September then I'll join his morning sessions again......

"No pain, no gain." So true, so wrong.

"No pain, no gain." This is a core sentence in the Ashtanga yoga community with fatal consequences. Sharath says this sentence sometimes. But when he speaks to a huge audience I'm sure he wants to use sentences that people remember. This sentence is often quoted out of context. It needs correct interpretation.

It's always good not to complicate things unnecessarily, but this sentence is so short that it becomes wrong.

In addition, as mentioned already it leaves too much room for interpretation. Mainly it's interpreted: Work through any pain that you feel, no matter what it is. No pain, no gain. Stick to the series and keep practicing as usual. One day you'll feel better again. Unfortunately this is not true.

I know now that this over-simplified approach to pain can have unwanted consequences till the point that one has to stop practicing at all. Not every pain stops one day from alone. Things can get worse.

Since my sacroiliac joint was blocked about a year ago already I read a lot. I found a lot of knowledge. Of course injuries can happen also when doing other sportive activities. One can learn a lot from each other if one stays open-minded.
It was wrong to practice as usual. My back pain got so painful that I couldn't sleep anymore, I couldn't sit anymore, forget about a yoga practice. A yogini then wrote me to go to a physio therapist. This finally brought relief and a lot of understanding.

As it's so to the point in the book 'Fat loss happens on Monday: habit based diet & workout hacks' by Josh Hillis with Dan John I refer to the chapter: Pain and other problems in the workouts: pain versus pain versus pain.

There are different sorts of pain and they require different actions. Pain is a warning from the body. Via pain we get messages that we shouldn't ignore.

1. There is muscle soreness when we work on strength. We feel when the muscles get tired. Only when we feel something the muscles get stronger.
2. Stretching discomfort: It's also wanted. If one relaxes the pain fades away. Then one can go deeper into a pose. The pain can guide us when we are attentive.

Only for these too sorts of discomfort the sentence 'no pain, no gain' might be true.

3. Pain from the joints or other pain are a warning. It's best to work around the pain and to see as fast as possible a physio therapist or a doctor (the more specialized the better) . This sort of pain becomes quickly chronic. After a few weeks of pain one speaks already from chronic pain.

It is not recommended to work through the pain. I repeat it, because it's so important.
Most Ashtanga yoga teacher cannot differentiate between the different sorts of pain, because they don't understand the sentence: no pain, no gain that Sharath says sometimes.
And what to do if someone has serious pain? A yoga teacher is not a doctor, but he/she can recommend to see a doctor........

The consequences of this lack of knowledge can be rather awful. Since almost a year I have this back issues now. I lost many asanas. My practice was so painful that I omitted the practice too often. Perhaps I could have avoided all the months of pain if I saw the physio-therapist much earlier.

Pain doesn't equal pain.

If you want to learn something from this post then it is to differentiate between 3 different sorts of pain. The one when you get stronger, the one that is felt when you stretch and the dangerous one that tells you: Stop, something went wrong. Something is seriously injured. Immediate action is required then. See a physio-therapist, reflect on your practice in general, alter your practice. Perhaps strength training is necessary and so on. To keep going as usual is not recommended.

My summer break is over and I practice again at home. Today I started at 6 am. I sweated and enjoyed my modest practice. There is a long way to go till I can practice again like 3 years ago. This I must accept.

Instead of thinking 'no pain, no gain', I recommend to think: 'Work smarter than harder'.

I'll write in posts to come what I mean with 'smarter than harder'.

Halleluja, I practiced.

With this practice this morning the summer break is over. Friday still means that I focus on primary. I had to try out what is possible.

The first surprise came when I did the first upward facing dog during the first sun salutation. An unbearable pain was felt on my upper left foot below my big toe. It felt as if the nerves there are sore. Perhaps I was too long in my shoes last night when we flew home from LA. I interrupted my practice and stretched the feet, the toes. Then I adjusted upward facing dog, I remained on my toes and didn't stretch my feet backwards.

A very positive surprise is to report, too: I could get into sirsasana with straight legs. Back pain was so minimal that I could do this. My muscles could hold my legs. This is so WOW for me. I could jump up and down out of joy.

After an hour it was enough.

The summer break is over.

Picture is from 2011.

I daydreamed that I practice

We are at home again. This one month in the US was great. Yet in not one single hotel room I was motivated to roll out my yoga mat, not even for the tiniest practice. Once I practiced forward bending asanas on the bed. The consequence: back pain. My fascia roll was in the suitcase. From then on I bowed forward from time to time, but this was it.
It is possible to practice on soft carpets in a hotel room, that looks dirty, it is possible, but not inviting. I was not motivated to do sun salutations between the door and the bed as if I was in a deep valley.

In the meantime I read a lot of books on exercising. There are important rules to follow in order to make any practice safe. I'll write about it.
I'll write much more often again. Writing about anything that one wants to improve supports the process: Documentation is a well-known tool used in most sportive activities.

To travel is often also a trip to oneself. I do love the variety of this world. I'm in awe, fascinated, entertained. It's great to try out different life styles, different food, different weather. Highlights are always to meet locals. It helps to find out what one loves and if it is fine-tuning the own life-style. I love a healthy elegant life style that implies yoga practice and cooking. I also love to have time for nothing. To function all the time, to work towards a goal all the time, to be busy all the time and so on is not enough. Simply to sit and to kill time is wonderful. This might be even more effective than running around all the time without creative breaks.

Sun rise is at 5:55 am here in the south of Germany. The days become shorter again, the nights longer. When getting up at 5 am it will feel as if it's deep night. It rains. The sound is so familiar. I feel ready to start practicing again - modest, passionate, careful.

I loved this trip in the US, I love to be at home again.

Focus is the process

Today my practice was painful again. I needed breaks. This is absolutely OK for me. I'm not stopped because one asana is not as it should be, I don't feel pushed. All my ambition is focused on getting up early (5am) to practice Ashtanga yoga. That's it.

I learned that even top performer are better when they have a relaxed attitude. Trying to give 90 percent shows better results than trying to give 180 % every day.

On the other hand I prefer to stay in bed to do anything half-hearted. My heart-blood must flood, otherwise it's not worth doing anything. I love Ashtanga yoga, but not every fashion of it.

Every day I become a bit stronger. At least it feels so. I focus on the positive aspects and I ignore the frustration. This is what yoga is. It's a mental exercise.

Now, at 15:49 this Wednesday my back is not existing. It's like a miracle. How long will it last?

Also today I'll go to bed early and I'll get up early.
On Friday I'll try primary again.

I take the steps

I take the steps of the subway entries, I take the steps at home. I need strong legs for so many asanas. My legs are slightly sore, something is moving.

Before katotasana I was advised to do an exercise that shall help me to relax the upper body and to keep the legs engaged. I lie on 5 blocks that are under my arms in the middle of my back. With the hands I press against a wall. Slowly I walk down the wall with my hands. The pose gets deeper that way.
I'll have focus on the breath again. My breath is superficial these days. I even hold it, not on purpose, but I fear the back pain. My practices are not pain free. A yogi told me a trick today after the practice, that helped him. Just laugh at and about the pain. This can indeed help, because in my case the pain is probably chronic already.

I do what is possible without pushing too much. I trust that my daily practice will help me to get better every day a tiny bit.

The rhythm to go to bed early and to get up early is perfect. I love the sun rise. Often the sky is red. It's such a joy to see this in the morning.

After the practice I went to a vegan restaurant round the corner to have a lemon-chia-cake and a chai. It had the addiction factor. But my breakfast at home is also excellent. From time to time to step out of the routine spices up life.