Taking the internal 'Super-Yogi' outside.....

                                                                           ...And shooting her!

Just as I had to do with my internal 'Super-Christian' - I had a 'Super-Yogi' inside that needed to be dealt with.

When I came back to Yoga a few weeks ago I had to be diligent about a few things if I was going to progress without knocking myself completely off the mat for another long stretch (no pun intended!) Previously I pushed harder than I needed to in order to fulfill some internal need to be ass-kicking and tough - a perfected Yogi by pushing and soldiering through...After all - doesn't Bikram call his class a 'torture chamber?' Don't be a wimp! DO IT!

And how did that work for me?

It didn't.

Finally listening to the sense that the Good Lord gave me, I decided to be OK with where I was. And so the ultra-modifying began.

Modifications included:

-No above the head reaching except for transition breaths
-Minimal back bending
-No twisting - no way, no how.

All of the above modifications were based on recommendations from my chiropractor. He had recommended no weight-bearing exercises over-the-head but I found that even doing weightless up and down presses during walking work outs was leaving my upper back and neck in pain (not the 'good pain').

These changes severely limited what I was able to do. But I did whatever postures I could as well as I could for each day. I completely skipped a few - including some of my favorites like:

HALF MOON

BALANCING STICK

and modified other favorites that I had previously done 'all out' and loved but that ended up hurting me:

STANDING BOW

STANDING HEAD TO KNEE

Some postures and transitions I replaced with others:

TRIANGLE became WARRIOR II

And since the transition back to SAVASANA between each sitting pose can be extremely painful I opted for a CHILD'S POSE or just sitting quietly on my knees between those.

Gabrielle Raiz (The Hot Yoga Doctor) offers some abbreviated classes on the DVD that I am currently using and I have mostly been working on the 35 minute or the 60 minute option and only doing one set of some of the postures as my body directed. And that's not to say I am lazy about it...I love a good double set...I also value  being able to move following my practice and so I allow myself to go easy if I need to, trusting that all things will come along as they need to in the time that it takes for my body to be able to do it. This, I believe, has made the biggest difference for me.