YOGA
INJURIES
Can Be Blessings In Disguise
A
year ago, I was teaching a yoga class and something shifted in my hip. Nothing hurt
at first, but after class, I could not put any weight on my right foot without excruciating
pain shooting up my leg into my hip and back. Afterwards, I couldn’t walk for days and
couldn’t practice asana for weeks. My ‘prescription’ was two-fold: one, to open up previously-ignored inner groin and inner thigh muscles, and two, to intensively strengthen my
back and core to take the pressure off of my hips. My therapist-trainer told me I needed
to learn how to dead-lift in order to balance out my body, which was too flexible in some
places and too tight in others. He also started to teach me different stretches that were
outside the context of yoga poses.
Injury often forces us to approach our practice in a new way instead of taking for granted
the way we were taught. This often means we simply continue to practice yoga, but in a
slightly modified way.