Saturday, April 23, 2011

Ashtanga practice with a gimpy leg

So I went to Ashtanga practice yesterday, my right leg already feeling way better than Monday. I had to modify my triang mukha eka pada paschimottanasana as well as all poses involving half and full padmasanas. For vinyasas, instead of crossing my legs and hopping back, I swung both legs to the right side and walked back to plank, and for jump forward I swung both legs to the left (instead of jumping). I looked and felt like I was doing some funky break dancing move. The day before I could barely hold weight in my right warrior lunges, but yesterday my lunges were much better. So the only things bugging me now are full knee bending (calf touching hamstring) and extreme internal rotation of leg.

Modified primary series felt kind of bleh... I'm at a point where I don't easily feel a stretch, except maybe hamstrings. Even with the hammies I feel like it's only a matter of time before I stop feeling an intense stretch in the tendons and muscles. I've been told before (not by a yoga teacher) that I have longer ligaments than average people, hence I find it hard to feel a stretch in my muscles even though my joints have been pushed to their limits. I always feel my muscles need a good stretch; I'd love it if I could tighten all my ligaments by a few millimeters (not really possible without surgery).

My mom mentioned to me that I seem kind of addicted to exercising. Hmm... yah, I guess I do appear that way, compared to those who consider a 30min walk or a 10min run on treadmill once or twice a week as adequate work out. I admit I don't frequently do girly stuff like baking, cooking, crafting, sewing, knitting, scrap-booking, finger nail painting, spas, etc. I feel for me, the "rewards" for practicing yoga far exceed any of the above mentioned activities. I'm just glad it's possible to still do some yoga with a gimpy leg. Hopefully next week I'll be 99% back to normal.

2 comments:

  1. I'm going to spend most of the day trying to forget what you said about tightening your ligaments!!

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  2. Haha sorry to make you cringe Serene. The way to stablize joints is to strengthen the muscles around the joints, which is what I do.. avoid yin yoga and lots of yang (Power, Asthanga etc) yoga :)

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