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August 30, 2005
Chataruang-What?
My feelings have been vascillating from pure unbounded joy, fear, dread and complete excitement for the past day. Yesterday was 7 Weeks Post-Surgery. It sure seems like a long 7 weeks even though, in the grand scheme of life, this is nothing. Everyday of it I have so deeply missed my time on the mat. I always feel so much more centered when I'm practicing yoga regularly. So it was with joy that after I posted my 7 Week Post-Op Pics for the doctor that he told me I could try engaging my pecs a bit. It was with a bit of fear that I actually thought about the idea of engaging my pecs...holy shit they hurt like hell just sitting here and I've got these wierd things on them (they seem pretty natural and all that but, honestly, wierd... they aren't the same). Then I attempted it. First and foremost, I have no idea how the hell I ever managed to do a single chatarungadandasana. I mean, did my elbows really ever go at that angle? I must have been really strong. Way the hell stronger than I thought I was. Right now, I can't drop a milimeter... seriously. Last night I then attempted to lay down and do halasana or shoulderstand. I've been yearing for the ability to put my legs over my head (funny that... when I dread headstand usually... ah, the appreciation of the lessons in all the poses). My attempt left me with a yelp of pain, literally and the realization that I'm not only dealing with my pecs here, I'm dealing with the ability to stretch my incision points too and, you know what, that hurts. So I emailed my doctor and asked him about it. I explained that in yoga we try to find our edge and then we try to take it a bit further. I wasn't sure if I should find that edge (half a milimeter though it is) and try to push it or just sort feel to the edge and back off. He told me I could try pushing a little but to go VERY VERY slowly and warned me twice not to over develop my pecs right now (I read it with the vision of red warning lights and sirens in my ear). So tonight I tried a bit more. I laid over the side of my couch (it is rounded and I used to do this everynight actually) and, nope, I can't get very far but what an edge it is. It's gonna take a whole lot of time of "damn is that painful bad or painful good" to get through this. Later I tried downward dog... and that's when I got just a bit excited. I mean WOW... this is gonna be like learning to appreciate building the strength just to get through the practice to Navasana. I think I forgot that, at one point, I used to think that was really difficult both mentally and physically. At some point Navasana came that halfway point instead of the end... and slowly pose by pose (wow, wierd how you are given the practice pose by pose, eh *smirky smile*) you begin to lengthen it out. What a trip it will be. At the same time as all that good bright stuff... I do harbor some feelings of mhmmm anger, I guess. I'm gonna miss working on backbending and all that nifty stuff for awhile. I'm not angry really at anyone... I guess it isn't anger really but a deep sense of "Man, I miss that!" It's almost like having a second kid when the first one has, oh, just been out of diapers like 6 months... all of a sudden you are back in diaper-land and you think fondly back with images of the Sound of Music to those few months (that had turned into the norm) within which you didn't have to prepare yourself for an outing down the street, find yourself with a dirty one on and nothing to replace it with, or, worse, find yourself with a, well, not working quite so wel one and you have to clean it up. You look back on those days with a sort of "Man, I miss that!" (which by the way happens to be a really wonderful part of getting past the baby phase altogether... I am now waiting to get past the car seat phase ;>).
Anyway, this means I can probably try and start practicing again and at least giving stuff a try.
Posted by ashtangagirl at 8:34 PM | Comments (1)