Knees

[Questioner]

I took your SYT course at Kripalu a couple of weeks ago. I am the one who was blowing my nose the whole time. The one from Puerto Rico. I am writing first, to say thank you again. Your teaching left quite an imprint that continues to deepen in my sadhana and in my life each day. It feels beautiful. I look forward to doing the 2 year training with you.

The second thing has to do with my knee. At the course you only had time to check it out briefly. You told me to strengthen all my leg muscles. You said bridge reps would be helpful. I think, however, my knee is worse than I knew. I actually think I might have injured the meniscis. When I am standing naturally, with equal weight on both feet, my left knee is comfortably straight while my right knee is slightly bent. I had been feeling resistance to that knee straightening for a while. Now it requires me to really engage my quads to get the knee straight and even then it feels kind of jammed. It clicks with each step I take, always. The clicking point is at about a 5 - 10 degree flexion. And there is a slight gravely sound on extension. And, there is quite a bit of soreness near the connection to the fibula. Bummer.

I am really hoping that it isn’t something that is going to require surgery. And, at the moment I have no health insurance. So, I have been spending more time with all the stuff in the JFS that strengthens the legs. I have been doing slow flowing reps of warrior poses I and II as well as bridge reps focusing on muscular contraction rather than momentum.And, I found a sequence for knee strengthening in Anatomy of Hatha Yoga that I have been practicing as well. Basically it consists of standing with my legs wide apart and strongy engaged while I turn my trunk right and then left and then bend forward and back on each side turn a million times. Any thoughts you might have about this would be hugely appreciated. I know you are busy and get lots of inquiries from loads of students. So, I’ll be patient.

Namaste,

[Questioner]

I would recommend that you go to my archive site - www.yogaforums.com and do search about knee conditions there you will find my answers to many similar complaints. Also recommeend taking glucosamine chondrotin supplements which seem most helpful for connective tissue injury. I cannot say what is injury without seeint you but suggest you do vata balancing and kapha increasing practices. First is JFS done with rhythnic breathing – key is not too many times 6-10 is enough to get the sense of prana flowing into the joint tissue. Definitely the million times recommended in Anatomy of H. Yoga is likely to aggravate by increasing pitta. Do not do much let it heal. In second phase of healing once swelling, tenderness to touch is passed then increase kapha by doing JFS as it says in my book for strength. Think of toning all directions of motion - addcution, abduction, flexion, extension, mildly on rotations (again i disagree with twisting torso with legs planted as in anatomy book as it can stress rotators medial and lateral sides of the knee. These motions are especially likely to aggravate the meniscus or ACL or PCL, the inner knee delicate structures.

To increase kapha safely you should feel the specific muscles you are toning and only do one muscle per asana as in the JFS Strengtehning series; holding poses only 6-10 breaths or more specifically as long as you can focus on one muscle awareness. So in bridge tone hamstrings. In Locust tone gluteals. In Virabhadrasana I tone adductors; in Virabhadrasana II tone abductors, like that then you will be safely building tone and power to immune system. Be cautious if you suspect meniscus injury. Do not be agressive, keep sattvic attitude, not rajasic attitude i am going to heal no matter what (that creates trouble). blessings. mukunda