Roadtrip + Back Pain = Yoga
Have you ever hurt your back so badly that you can’t figure out how to get out of the bed in the morning? Every little movement creates such intense pain that you’re just kind of stuck. After a few minutes and some thinking and maybe even some breathing, you finally manage to get your feet on the floor. You struggle and wince as you bring yourself to upright and you begin to gingerly limp your first steps of the day. That’s what happened to me earlier this week.
I just got back from a family roadtrip vacation to Disneyland in Florida. The long days of driving and sitting in the car really did me in.
You might be thinking, well, Zelinda’s a yoga teacher, she must practice a lot of yoga, why is she having back pain? Shouldn’t she know how to avoid getting aches and pains?
The truth is that we’re all susceptible to injury. The health of our anatomical structure depends on two factors: how we use our bodies and how well we take care of our bodies. And honestly, the first few days of vacation were so busy and/or fun that I didn’t take care of myself like I should.
I’ve dealt with chronic back pain from the time of my second pregnancy, 5 years ago, until a few months ago when I finally healed my back pain with a combination of consistent therapeutic Yoga practice and improving my sleeping posture (more on sleeping posture another day).
But on my roadtrip, with so many hours spent sitting in the car, my back muscles, legs muscles, hip flexors, and glutes all got really tight. Couple that with sleeping on unfamiliar beds and pillows, and it the return of severe back pain was imminent.
And while I did do yoga every day of the trip, I apparently didn’t do enough during the first few days to counteract the effects of so much sitting. Then when the back pain hit, my body begged for longer practices.
By doing targeted, therapeutic Yoga practices, taking ibuprofen, and drinking lots of water, I managed to get the pain under control enough that I was able to participate in our vacation activities, even if I still had some degree of pain.
And then as soon as I got home I started using my foam roller to undo the tension that had built up in my back. After 15 minutes, 75% of my pain was gone. Seriously. It was magical.
While I slept that first night home, the tightness and pain crept back in, but in the morning I did a practice and more foam rolling to get the tension out.
And now, on my third day back at home, I’m back back to my normal, pain free self.
Why am I telling you this long story about my back pain? Because I want to illustrate that Yoga is much more than balancing on your hands or twisting your body into a pretzel. The gentle, therapeutic style of Yoga that we teach is amazing for dealing with aches and pains in your body.
If you have typical, every day aches and pains, they can usually be resolved with two or three Gentle Yoga classes per week.
If you have chronic or acute pain, it’s probably best addressed in a private lesson so that we can focus on your specific issue and create a customized practice for you.
And for general maintenance, you can do just a little bit of Yoga every day at home. Don’t know what poses to do? Don’t worry – I’m going to make a special instructional video for you. Look for it in next week’s newsletter!
XO, Zelinda
The Adventure of #handstand365
Yesterday was a big day for me. It was my 365th day of learning to handstand. When I started, on Mother's Day last year, I couldn't handstand at all. At first I just worked on building strength by handstanding at the wall, then after about a month I started experimenting with freestanding handstands. And now I am comfortable and confident doing a few different kinds of handstands. The last two weeks of my 365 Handstand Challenge I focused on handstanding by Round Rock landmarks (thank you for the suggestion, Terri!). And I wanted to feature big, important Round Rock landmarks the last two days of the challenge. My photographer friend, Laura Jenkins, graciously agreed to capture these special images.
Day 364 was the Dell Diamond. Here are couple of the cool images we captured there.
I'd like to tell you about Day 365, because it was a very important one to me - I wanted to feature the round rock that Round Rock is named after. I've actually wanted to do a photo shoot at the round rock for a couple of years, but I was waiting for the perfect time. I was waiting for the water level to be high, but the weather not too cold, nor the sun too bright. And I was waiting so that I could learn some fun arm balances.
Over the last few weeks I successfully handstood on a few rocks, so I felt ready.
Laura and I selected a day, and we decided that even if the conditions weren't ideal, we were going for it anyway. Laura said if we were lucky it might rain before the shoot, but I was doubtful.
Our chosen day was in the middle of last week. Miraculously, it poured the night before and the water level was high. But unfortunately, we were faced with a number of obstacles for our photo shoot that morning.
First, the road was closed because a city crew was cleaning large branches out of the creek. We parked a block away and walked to the rock, and were happy to find the water level was pretty high and the rock surface was relatively dry.
However, the water was really rushing and it took some time for me to figure out how to actually get from the street onto the rock. I decided on the route that was shorter with deeper water. Then I had to figure out how to safely lower myself down about 6.5 feet (3.5 feet to the surface of the water + water depth of approximately 3 ft), so I could wade over to the rock.
But then we saw a snake swimming in the water, just left of my intended path! After several minutes we couldn't see him anymore and I was about ready to get in the water, but then we saw a second snake. And that's when I decided I wasn't going to get in the water after all.
Laura suggested that we get a raft, and after a bit of discussion that's exactly what we did. The nice folks at Academy even helped us blow it up with an electric pump!
Finally we made it back to the round rock with the inflatable raft stuffed inside my SUV.
We lowered the raft down into the water, then I lowered myself down into the raft. The current floated me over to the round rock and I was able to safely get onto the rock (dry and free of snake bites!). Laura used a rope to pull the empty raft back to land and tied it up. We were in business!
I tried a bunch of different yoga poses on the rock (the surface is very uneven and it has some deep holes!) and Laura shot photos. Curious people slowed down to check us out, waved, gave us a thumbs up, and honked. I was a little surprised the police didn't show up, like that time when I was handstanding downtown.
It felt great to finally be doing the photo shoot on the round rock!
When the shoot was done Laura floated the raft to me then pulled me back to the bridge. It was quite a bit of effort to get out of the raft and back on land. Long story short, it required lifting one leg really high, balancing on the other leg in the drifting raft, braving a ton of little black bugs, some cobwebs, exerting some muscles, and rolling up into the bridge.
What an adventure! A big giant thank you to Laura for her support, enthusiasm, and creativity, to get this Day 365 photo done! We'd been planning it a long time and I think it's safe to say we both feel a sense of accomplishment.
This 365 Handstand Challenge has been such an incredible experience. I'm going to take some time to process it, then in the next few weeks I plan to write about what I learned by handstanding for 365 days. Please stay tuned for that!
In the meantime, we've got a ton of great programs and projects coming up at the studio. Please keep reading for all the details!
XO, Zelinda
P.S. Several people have asked me what I'm going to do now that #handstand365 is done. Well, I'm going to keep handstanding so that I can keep up the strength I've gained. And I'm taking on a new 365 Challenge of something I've wanted to do for years - I'm going to learn to play guitar! (Don't worry - I won't post videos!)