Blog on the Lillypad
Friday, July 02, 2004
 | Adventures in Fitness
As the Lord works things out, I had just finished a vigorous workout at the gym and stopped by the Whole Foods store for some groceries. At the checkout line, the lady ahead of me got to chatting with me. She told me that she takes classes in a Hatha yoga style tat has benefited her. I admitted that my ongoing back problems have prompted many people to suggest yoga for me, but I am not enthusiastic. For one thing, while I disagree with much of Chinese and Japanese philosophical premises, I respect a lot of the writing and observations of Chinese and Japanese writers of bygone eras. |
But Indian philosophy leaves me cold. And the idea that enlightenment comes from attaining physical postures is impossible to me, and I can see how such ideas could easily be turned to great abuse of others.
On the practical side, even without the philosophy of yoga attached, the physical exercise of yoga strikes me as just too passive. (I'm sure some readers will see that I have been unfairly prejudiced on this point.)
But the woman in the checkout line, who is about ten years my senior and is a math teacher at UNC, told me that the class is physically demanding. And furthermore, the instructor is a woman of considerable expertise. And then she said the magic words, "It;s been a help to people who have had back trouble and shoulder trouble. You might want to try a class. It's only ten dollars."
No contract. I became a lot more interested. Her name is Sandy, and she went on to explain a lot more to me, which I will synopsize here.
Yoga is a very general term for a lot of different styles and philosophies that include the practice of physical postures to attain enlightenment. There's a huge diversity of disciplines that come under that big umbrella.
Hatha Yoga is a slightly more specific term that describes the purely physical side of yoga, detached from the philosophical/religious base. Under Hatha Yoga are several physical styles, including Bikrum and Vinyasa yoga, the newest forms to hit the American public. These are among the so-called "power yogas" that are now popular in small store-front franchises across the country.
| The class that I attended Thursday night is mostly Vinyasa yoga. It consists of several difficult (for me) postures that "open up" different joints, muscles, and organs. I was sweating within five minutes. Within ten minutes I was sweating so much that I was afraid I would slip on the mat. We did a lot of postures that either start or end with the person going into the pushup position but never touching down to the mat. We moved from one posture to the next, in a cycle, but a very slow cycle. |  |
The instructor, Vicky, who is also older than I and has the best posture I have ever seen on anybody, anywhere, ever, in my entire life, ran things with a gentle voice and clear instructions. I could see that in some ways she was surprised by what I could do on my first night. But given how strong I was with my legs, she was also surprised at what I could not do. I had warned her of my back trouble. So she occasionally tapped along my spine as I tried to maintain a pose, and she was startled at the degree of deformity in my back.
"Do you have any idea how high the right side of your mid back is standing up from the rest of it?" she asked. "Vicki," I gasped helplessly, "You're not helping!"
The truth is, years of punching, push-ups, and lifting weights postponed the inevitable for me. But now that the inevitable has come and I have back trouble, a good look at my back shows that where the spine is curved, one side of my back is highly developed, but the "stretched" side appears to have no muscle at all. So my rear deltoids, traps, and rhomboids on the left back and the lats and spinal erectors of my mid right back are muscular. But my right rear deltoids, traps, and rhomboids, and my mid left back have no definition at all. You cannot really see this when you look at me, but anybody who touches my back for a spinal exam or even a massage will notice the mis-matched sides.
 | There were a lot of postures I could not do, and she started me out on "junior" levels of these. One is called "the crow," in which the student gets on his or her hands and balances on them with the knees resting on the forearms. To my amazement, my fifty-something new friend, Sandy, could do this. She held it for a few seconds. I was impressed. Everybody else could do it and hold it at least for a second or two. They all agree that it's ab strength, way more than arm strength, that enables a person to do it. |
 | But the most amazing posture was what I call a "bridge." That's what martial artists call it, but yoga practitioners call it "Upward Facing Bow Pose". I watched my 50+ friend go into this pose and hold it with no apparent effort while I maintained what is considered an "easy" version of the pose, with my shoulders on the mat but my legs holding up my hips and lower back. "Don't worry," she told me. "I couldn't even hold the first level of this for months when I first started." |
Class lasted for an hour and fifty minutes, and sweat poured. But after the first thirty minutes I felt my back start to loosen. And to my surprise, the constant nausea that has plagued me for the last two weeks abruptly quit right at the end of class. I have chronic stomach trouble, so I just live with flare ups, but the yoga calmed it down. Hard martial arts practice used to do this too.
It was a welcome feeling to be covered with sweat again, to go home, plunge myself under the steaming jet of my shower, and then emerge, dry off, don clean pajamas, and eat a late supper, greatly relaxed and at peace with the world. It's been a long time since I have been able to work out for nearly two hours. And even though it wasn't the explosive type of taekwon do workout that I prefer, the results felt the same. I went to bed by ten and slept very deeply.
