2.12.2010

Journal entry from day 40. Original date: 2.9.10.

So day 40 was a little bittersweet. The sweet part was that I had an awesome class in terms of seeing some progress in a few postures. I fully executed Standing Head-to-Knee (Dandayamana Janushirasana) and held it until it was time to come out (when kicking the right leg), I touched my head to the floor for the first time in Standing Separate Leg Stretching (Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Paschimottanasana), and during the floor series on both sides of Head-to-Knee (Janushirasana) I was able to lock my knee and get my heel off the floor. Also, Jenn was teaching and all my favorite studio buddies were practicing tonight. To me there was a great energy in the room.

But now the bitter part: Since about Sunday night my shoulders and upper back have been bothering me. I have some general soreness and even a little pain when I move certain ways. I don't think this is the result of something specific I did; I tend to agree with my teacher Audrey who said, "Doing this much yoga just tears your body apart to make room for healing." Well, this afternoon at work I took an OTC pain reliever to soothe my torn up body. It masked the soreness/pain alright... so much so that I think it was the only reason I was able to push myself tonight. That was not my intention when I took it, but I still feel like I cheated or something. Oops.


Anyway, I won't make that mistake again. Because I know I'm going to pay for it tomorrow. I can already feel the rebound soreness setting in. I just hope I didn't REALLY injure myself. I'm going to take it easy until I start to feel good in class again without the use of Motrin and the like. I really like pushing myself though, so that kind of bums me out. But I know it's the smart thing to do. Take the good with the bad and live and learn, I guess.

4 comments:

  1. Hey, take it easy on yourself for taking the anti-inflammatory. Being in the classroom is probably the best thing for your upper back! Just listen to your body, even through the medication.

    I have chronic upper back and shoulder pain due to scoliosis/being American, and the 24 hours after yoga are the only times I don't feel a little pain.

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  2. thanks for the enouragement! things got a little worse today and i shed a few tears (quietly, to myself) at the end of class. not really because of the physical pain, but because it's just FRUSTRATING to not be able to do what i want to do in class since i'm hurting. it's only been a week since this started acting up and it feels like forever! just can't wait to feel better.

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  3. I'm loving the progress you've made! I too have soreness in the shoulders. It's been present for about a week now and just lingers in the background. It's not terrible, I'm just very aware of that whole area. Tender a bit I suppose...

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  4. thank you! and re: the soreness, i now think my body was actually releasing a toxin in the muscle/tissue! i know this is one of the benefits of Bikram they always talk about, but i just always thought, "yeah, yeah... i GUESS that's probably happening- i feel better." but now i KNOW that actually happens. i'm going to write a new post about it!

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