I had to do very gentle asana for 6 month and almost no asana practice for 2 month. Now I?m returning to my regular practice. OMG!!! YOGA asanas are hard! I get very lightheaded after each forward fold?.just lying flat on my back and bringing knees to my chest HURTS! all rotations seem impossible!
Now I?m REALLY ready to teach yoga for beginners:)
My salute to all beginners! Yoga is hard, but bit by bit you can grasp it!
Ooooh I know!
I was basically immobilized from SI joint inflammation and back spasm from July until sometime in the last month or two. My therapeutic practice was supine breathing for a few months, and then finally I could incorporate some dynamic supine movements like apanasana, and it was HARD. Thankfully now I have been able to come back to some standing postures and even mild bujangasana, with a lot of caution. A twenty minute gentle vinyasa practice can wear me out still.
It’s was a blessing for me that I finished my yoga teacher training certification course at the start of this state. Right before the final module, I spent two months studying with my mentor and having a kind of mid-western summer yoga study vacation. Upon leaving I felt that I had learned so much and was strong and healthy and capable, and that after my final YTT classes I would be ready to teach and conquer the world! A week later on a job site, ten days before I left for India, my back went out. I was forced back to being a beginner at the very end of a journey, and I had to delve down to the basic core of the therapeutic lineage with my yoga therapy teacher and really confront the fundamentals of what I was learning. It is hard smash to the ego to be nearly completely restricted in your movements when you spend a month sitting silently in the corner while your classmates do their practice… but without the experience, and without the help of my teachers, I don’t know if I ever would have TRULY understood that yoga practice is doing what is RIGHT, and that sometimes inaction is the best action you can take. They always said in school, ‘if you can breathe, you can do yoga’. I believed it whole-heartedly, I saw the practical application… but now I have known it intimately. All of a sudden it made sense, truly and deeply, that ending the program was just the first step in becoming a true student, and my homework for that program and the following months was to assimilate the real teachings into my daily life through acceptance and relearning. It really was a blessing.
And yeah, I’m more prepared now than ever to REALLY teach beginners too!
I was in a car accident in September and had to stop my daily asana practice. It is still hard for me to practice everyday even though my injuries are much better. I can only practice a couple times a week. I try not to push myself too hard. I know it will take time to get back to where I was. I have lost strength in muscles that need to be rebuilt. I know that patience and compassion with my body is virtue right now.
yoga can be lying on your back and just breathing. it will have more health benfits then pushing through a hard asana practice