Being 'stuck'

Lockdown. Social distancing. Travel bans. The same people, every day, all day. No wonder we're in the state that we're in (depression and suicide stats?). And it's not just physical confinement. Extra laws, fear-mongering, fake news, sheeple, the utterly staggering degree of selfishness and greed of many country leaders. And the mask non-compliant. The psychological strain has been immense; limiting your options or making you think three times before leaving the house. It's no wonder we're rates of depression are soaring. We're physically stuck.

I love to translate life things into yoga, or yoga into every day life. Maybe just because that feeds into my own opinion of why I do what I do (helping people to help themselves, basically), or because it's a way for me to make sense of this physical body in a physical world with so many deeper and higher layers and meanings. #existentialism. But it's been true in my life since I started yoga. I've noticed many links between my practice and my life, usually in hindsight (does that make it more or less prone to being a 'grasping at straws to make things make sense' kind of thing?)

In yoga we often come across the term, or at least the feeling of being 'stuck'. Usually in the hips (because so much of the asana practice focuses on and requires hip flexibility), but also in the hamstrings, the shoulders, and in pretzel poses where you're not sure exactly how to undo yourself without breaking... (#pushingtoohard?)

What I've learned though, is that practice is key. If you're stuck - with a pose, with hips, with life - just... keep going. Make small adjustments or improvements every day, if you can. Or just whenever you can. Alwys be open to the possibilities. And be gentle on yourself.

I threw myself into work (and inadvertently, doing yoga asana regularly) during the beginnings of Covid, and, unintentionally, I did a lot of practicing on areas that I hadn't focused on much (because it's good to teach what you're not good at) as well as areas that I was already strong in (because teaching your strengths is nice too!). As a result, my asana practice got unstuck. And as a bonus (I guess I should've expected this) I've started feeling a lot less physically confined. So while we're still in lock-down, and probably will be for a long time still, I've managed to make a massive shift.

And it feels glorious.

But you know the absolute bestest part of all of this?? I've seen shifts in my clients, too. Some small, some huge. But undeniable. And some of them have noticed it too, which is an added bonus (because yay mindfulness and being aware of ones own body and mind and stuff!).

Just keep on keeping on. You've got this.

Be FREEEE!
(ah, the good old days of doing yoga outdoors at the Da Vinci hotel)

anatomy blog classes clients Covid19 health mindfulness new beginnings progress psychology rehabilitation stillness yoga

Beginners yoga course

Beginners Yoga Program starting January 20th in Johannesburg. Contact Celeste for prices and info

Beginners Yoga Program

For those who have never practiced yoga or those who would like to improve on their yoga practice, this is definitely for you.

The four week program includes:

• Beginners manual and guide to yoga practice
• Two private 1 hour yoga sessions, focusing on your body and what you need as an individual
• 4 x 90min, group workshop styled classes to guide you through all you need to know when attending yoga classes
• Unlimited group classes for the full 4 week period

Workshop classes: Mondays 10am to 11:30am STARTING 20 JANUARY 2020
Private sessions to be arranged at a time suitable to you

EARLY BIRD SPECIAL: R2000 if paid before end December 2019.
January bookings: R3000

Location:

MoveMe Mind Body, BRYANSTON, Johannesburg. Click here to find us.

Contact Celeste to discuss your course

movememindbody@gmail.com

O845OO1877

alignment anatomy beginners classes clients course new beginnings posture private special offer studio teaching workshop yoga yoga studio

It’s back. And wrists and ankles and hips.

I had a period of about three months where my pain was all but gone. It happened after a break up that seems had been perpetuating issues and patterns from my childhood. He’s not a bad guy, he just wasn’t great for me. Or, he was, in terms of how much I learned about myself while we were together. I digress.

My body seems prone to side effects of medications, and I’ve had some of those get worse over the course of this year. Since my pain had started dissipating and stressors had changed, the doc and I made a change to my meds. Aaaand the pain started coming back. I now seem to have tendonitis in my wrists, ankles, knees and hips, and from today, in my SIJ. The link with the medication is my (and my physio’s) guess. It may also be because I haven’t been using the same cannabis treatment. I’ll keep you posted. It may be in five months time when the blog urge peaks again, or it may be in four weeks time once I’ve, a) Started on CBD tablets again, and, b) Gone back onto old meds if the CBD doesn’t help.

In the meantime, I’m staying positive, because CBT (Cognitive behavioural therapy - read here) does have its place, and because I’ve attained two new clients who are/ have been going through the same autoimmune/ chronic pain ordeal that I slogged through, and I cannot tell you what a massive difference it makes to have people around you who understand. Me for them, but so much them for me, too. If you guys are reading this, thank you :)

JUST FOUND THIS AMAZING ARTICLE ON FIBROMYALGIA!! And it has a cool picture, too.

Also this picture from here about fibromyalgia. It isn't just one thing.

anatomy blog CBD clients health mindfulness new beginnings pain psychology rehabilitation yoga

New concepts

So, turned out that LETTING GO of some of the 'baggage' that I was holding on to actually had a massive impact on my pain levels. A LOT of therapy had gotten me to start realising and dealing with childhood stuff, and then some alternative healing sessions got me to a space of actually letting go of said issues, and then my pain all but vanished. For a while (but more on that here).

(update to New words)

So, turned out that LETTING GO of some of the ‘baggage’ that I was holding on to actually had a massive impact on my pain levels. A LOT of therapy had gotten me to start realising and dealing with childhood stuff, and then some alternative healing sessions got me to a space of actually letting go of said issues, and then my pain all but vanished. For a while (but more on that here).

Insert new word:



Well, not new, really. Just a very necessary clarification.

Psychosomatic means that there is a link between mind and body (I love my ‘business’s’ name), but it doesn’t mean that any pain experienced as a result of stress is in the person’s head. It is, in the sense that all pain is an interpretation of stimuli by the brain, but it isn’t in the sense of being ‘made up’. I struggled with that for YEARS. I had specialists (the ones who charge R1600 for half an hour ‘consultations’) tell me to go to therapy for my lower back pain. Yes, CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) has its place in pain management, especially in learning to cope with chronic pain, but it isn’t going to heal your pain, because the pain isn’t all in your head, it isn’t made up. And only if you’ve been in that situation would you understand how frustrating and infuriating it is to be told that. And to have to pay that much to be told that crap.



This can all sound contradictory, I know. And it took me a long time (about four years from the first real ‘sign’) to admit and acknowledge just how strong the link between mind (in this case mainly chronic stress) and body (chronic lower back pain) is. It seems that having dealt with past stress and having let go of situations that were perpetuating that helped my brain let go of the overwhelming pain stimuli. I still have degeneration in my lumbar spine. I still have arthritis in several joints. The autoimmune stuff is still there. Stress had a physical effect on my body. The physical effects were triggered by psychological issues, but I have not made up the pain, I did not consciously decide or choose to be in pain, and I cannot just ‘let it go’ or ‘get over it’.

*deep breath*

Years of CBT has helped me get up in the mornings, and years of psychotherapy has gotten me to a point where I can acknowledge and let go of shit. And that has helped me to retrain my brain to not over react to pain stimuli. It took YEARS of work. As for the psychosomatic side, stress caused physical harm to my body*.

So if you come across someone who’s experiencing chronic pain, be nice to them, k? Thanks.



*derived from a process of elimination, with no other possible explanation besides, perhaps, an unknown/ undiagnosed autoimmune disease (most of which are still impossible to diagnose properly, and the etiology of which is vastly unknown

Dunno who said this initially, but it rings too true

alignment anatomy blog health mindfulness pain posture psychology rehabilitation teaching terminology yoga

Exciting times!!

This week saw the end of our first yoga Teacher training one-month intensive course in Joburg!
The course was offered semi-privately, and one awesome student has been transformed into a fantastically promising teacher!

I'm so proud. And so excited to be starting the next two courses next week! Keeping busy with training teachers properly in anatomy and teaching, to give them the understanding required to adapt to a vast array of student levels, in hundreds of poses, in virtually any setting, in a professional and well-equipped manner.

Well done, Idelette, and thank you for being such an awesome first student of the Joburg-based off-shoot of the Wellness Connection 200-hour teacher training course!

Contact us for more details on said TT course - spaces fill up quickly! :)

anatomy blog studio teacher training yoga studio

A new year, a new... me?

A very happy (and very much belated) new year to everyone! =)

In the build up to the start of the new year, I spent a lot of time reflecting back on the events of 2017. It was a pretty spectacular year. Spectacularly awful, as well as spectacularly awe-full. But through all the ups and downs, I do feel like a very, very different person starting 2018, compared to when I unsuspectingly, and happily entered into 2017.

But I've sort of found, perhaps, maybe, that the less prepared you feel for a lesson, the greater that lesson is? Or the more you grow during it? Or just the more completely it catches you off guard and knocks you down. But the only really bad thing about being knocked down is if you don't get back up again, isn't it?

So, like, in that sense it's very similar to standing balances in yoga (or arm balances, too, I guess; but let's stick with the slightly simpler analogy for now...). If you're frowning with intense concentration, I bet you you'd be more likely to not be able to keep a balance like Vrksasana. At the very least, you probably wouldn't be able to keep your balance for as long as if you were smiling merrily and allowing your body's natural balance mechanisms to do their thing *. I always encourage taking balances lightly, and taking oneself less seriously in balance poses. Yes, you need to engage muscles and focus, have proper drishti and so on. But more importantly, I think, is laughing at yourself when you fall over. And then getting back up and trying it again. After all, yoga is about the journey, not the destination.

So, without further rambling... go make 2018 the year for you. Your growth. Your discovery. Your love. Fall down, learn lessons, hard lessons, easy lessons. But get back up again. And keep smiling.

What the heck is going on with my shoulder??! And my hands are skew.
But either way, this is Vrksasana in a pretty tunnel

* No, I'm not saying that balance is all about your body taking over and you can just be blissfully unaware. You need to have your standing leg engaged. Engaging abdominals can help in some situations, too. I'm speaking more of the over concentration that takes over and makes your body rigid. 

There's much more to balance
Source

Also, check out this link for more on the muscles that are used in Vrksasana

anatomy blog classes mindfulness new beginnings teaching yoga

The bright side of pain

Sigh. The past two weeks have been horrid. Or, at least, the pain has been horrid. Which kind of makes the day horrid. Which makes a week horrid. I'm sure you get the picture.

I am, once again, on the verge of being diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylosis (Ooh! I found out: spondylosis refers to the disease state, while spondylitis refers to the inflammatory flare, or specifically to the inflammation of the joints). My most recent scan shows severe inflammation in my lumbar spine, and, to a lesser degree, in my cervical spine, hips, SI joints, and knees. On top of that, I've been in a wrist brace to immobilise my wrist, so that it hopefully heals from an injury that I sustained two months ago, whilst ice skating. Or, more accurately, whilst falling, while ice skating :-p

On meeting a new client, I explained to her about my injuries (I had the brace on and she asked), and I also explained to her that, while several of my injuries are yoga related, I feel that that has contributed to making me a better teacher. My non-yoga related injuries have done the same in the sense that I know very well what to look out for, how to modify, and when to back down. I realised, while explaining this to my client, that being a chronic pain sufferer myself, puts me in a unique position to relate to people in similar situations. I know from experience that no amount of explaining or empathy can fully reveal what someone in chronic pain is experiencing, so it's super useful to have an instructor who already knows first-hand what you're likely experiencing.

While my pain and awareness of injuries may make me a little hyper cautious, I have overcome so much in the process of dealing with my own pain that I have grown my determination and confidence in my ability to help others with the same problems. Coupled with my thorough understanding of anatomy, I help people get into those show-off-y yoga poses too. Because I'm a pretty awesome yoga instructor, for people on a broad spectrum of levels and abilities.

And that is my bright side of pain!

Laughter is the best medicine. As is movement.

anatomy blog mindfulness pain posture private rehabilitation yoga

Teaching and fear

Last week I was teaching a class, and there were only two students. So I asked them if there was anything in particular that they wanted to do. The one requested shoulder stand (Salamba sarvangasana), and the other wanted to deepen her backbends... not the best combination of poses to sequence for 😁 We decided to focus on the shoulder stand for that session.

...I was scared! For me, personally, Salamba sarvangasana is a horrid pose. I think it's because of my prominent C7 vertebra, but I get dizzy and see stars and feel nauseated very quickly in that pose. Similarly, but to a lesser extent in Halasana. Anyway. Besides not enjoying shoulder stand in my own personal practice, I also learned on my teacher training course that several prominent teachers and higher-ups had decided that teaching it unpropped, should not be done. Which makes perfect anatomical sense.

The cervical vertebrae are way smaller than your lumbar vertebrae, which are made to bear weight. Now you want to put close to your full body weight on your comparatively tiny cervical vertebrae, at a severe angle... with poor little C7 getting smooshed into the floor... So I was happy to not teach Salamba sarvangasana. Because I didn't like it, and because the propping takes a long time. More on that at a later stage.

Comparison between the three different types of vertebrae, showing the size of cervical vs. lumbar vertebrae.

Source

BUT. I had asked the students what they wanted to do, and teaching Salamba sarvangasana became unavoidable. Which was fantastic for my growth as a yoga instructor. Because I forced myself to step way out of my comfort zone to sequence that class into a safe, properly activated and executed shoulder stand. Yes, I gave very many warnings about not feeling any pressure on the neck and properly engaging the shoulders, abdominals, back, and legs. Even more cautions than I would normally give 😁

And it worked!! I faced my fear, and I got both my students into beautiful, and completely safe propped Salamba sarvangasanas! I was admittedly relieved by the end of that session, but I felt like I had accomplished something. Like I'd gotten over a long-standing fear of mine. And you know what, I actually feel less scared now of including it in my own practice. Which I think is a fantastic thing. Of course, I would never do it unpropped, but I'm much less nervous about doing and teaching that pose now. And it feels good.

alignment anatomy blog classes teaching yoga