Injuries

This month new students at the studio were offered one free class to try out Iyengar Yoga. They were asked to fill out a registration form before starting the class. I look at this form before the class starts and if there is anything written down about injuries I usually talk to the student. Sometimes these are old injuries that have been there for years and the student has a good idea what brings on pain and what doesn’t.

So for new students to bring their arm over their head when there is a shoulder injury is a challenge. When they’re shown how to move in a way that creates space then they start to understand in what direction to work. To keep the understanding they need to keep doing the movement day in and out. The whole process is a journey.

If you have an injury, have you noticed how it affects your mind? I find that sometimes I push too far and there is a lot a sensation which clouds my mind in a way that I’m not clear about what is happening, all I know is that it hurts a lot. Other times there isn’t enough sensation to give my mind feed back to also know what is happening. So I find that the practice of working with an injury becomes a meditation. The mind is the observer and it can be clear on what it is observing if there is just the right amount of sensation.

So in a sense this injury is a wonderful teacher for body and mind, although a lot of us might not think of it in that way.