You may or may not have noticed that my posts haven’t had much to do with yoga recently.  (I think those readers who follow me via ashtangi.net noticed, because my hits are down!)  In this post, I will actually live up to the name Yogamum, and write about yoga practice.  My yoga practice.  Which I haven’t really written about in forever.

The truth is that even though I have been doing a consistent, but reduced, practice all along, I have been dealing with multiple levels of an injury for close to two years.  I know I’ve written about my back problems off and on but to sum up:  I have a couple of deformed thoracic vertebrae which cause a kyphosis, there is arthritis in those joints and also bone spurs, and I have a problem with myofascial pain in my upper back due to trying to be upright on a spine that wants to curve forward.  And I have a mysterious shooting pain in my right shoulder that prevents me from extending my arm straight up (as you do in backbending).  Oh, and there is some weird neuropathy (numbness, tingling) in my right shoulder blade.  And at times I have been in so much pain that I couldn’t even stand up long enough to cook dinner.

Aaaaanyway… through all of this I have done my ashtanga yoga practice, with lots of omissions and modifications, and admittedly sometimes I felt like giving it all up.  It just wasn’t any fun to practice when I never knew if I was going to end up in excruciating pain from something as simple as Padangustasana.  I am not one to go on and on about my aches and pains (except maybe to my husband) so I just didn’t write much about this whole experience.  I am writing about it today to report that I feel like I have turned a major corner.  I have been feeling really good lately, and I did my full primary series practice for the first time in a very long time today, including the poses that have been giving me trouble such as backbends, shoulderstand and even a very wobbly headstand (I gave up headstands in November 2006 — Hi, my name is Yogamum and I’ve been headstand abstinent for 18 months).

I don’t know exactly what precipitated today’s wonderful practice.  I haven’t been consciously “working” on anything, or doing any homegrown physical therapy.  Make of this what you will, but my spinal arthritis pain started to clear up right after my dad passed away in late March.  He suffered chronic back pain from his adolescence.  I also got a lumbar support for my desk chair around that time so I wouldn’t hunch forward at my computer.  The muscle & myofascial pain have been greatly helped by massages every couple of weeks from a brilliant massage therapist whom I love to pieces.  She did something to my shoulder today that made backbending possible.  Other than that — I have no explanations.  I only hope to continue on this path and be mindful enough in my practice so that I stay painfree for a long time!

I can’t even express how completely EXCITED and THRILLED I am to have had this practice today.  Who knows what tomorrow’s practice will look like, but I am grateful for this glimpse of what practice used to be, and can be again.  It’s not so much the physical accomplishment, but the freedom and joy of doing a practice without pain and fear.  How wonderful to experience the magic of yoga once again!