The yoga gods were not pleased with my last post, my playful poking fun at various yoga poses. Today, I woke with a jabbing pain in my left shoulder blade. After a soothing hour long class last evening, you`d think that I would have awoken relaxed, refreshed, supple. But no, it felt as though someone was stabbing a knitting needle into my left trapezoid.
Ouch.
My cheerleader daughter had described a similar pain about a month ago, after she`d spent an evening night of lifting, throwing and catching 100 pound girls in the air.
“You popped a rib, Miss,” our sports chiropractor told her. “It happens often enough with girls your age.”
Sure, her age. But my age? I’m 44, and all I did was an innocuous resting pose with a bolster under my back, a sort of dying butterfly with my wings spread gracefully backward, my chest stretched wide. OK, let’s be honest, it felt like my pectorals were being ripped open. At the time, I thought that was a good thing, the miracle cure for the weak muscles in my upper-back and too-tight pecs. The instant relief for my sore shoulders, neck pain and headaches. And it felt so good, in a go-for-the-burn-Jane-Fonda-in-the-80s way. What can I say? I am a child of the aerobics revolution.
A sore child of the aerobics revolution. Who knew that Savasana, a resting pose, could be so vicious? Its not of course. This was me, not listening to my body. Again. Go easy on me! is, no doubt, what my chest muscles were trying to tell me. Did I listen? Uh no. And I got a popped rib in response.
It wasn`t the first time. The day after my first class my lower back complained that I had been overenthusiastic in my bridge poses. A few days later, my hip flexors told me to knock it off. Duly noted! I said, and backed off. Until I met that bolster, that innocent-looking pillow, that siren of yoga bliss. It lured me to relax right into and through the pain. Somewhere along the line, I`ve learned that`s a virtue, like the mom at last week`s cheerleading practice who shouted at a pack of tired, sweating girls “if you don`t feel like throwing up, you`re not working hard enough!”
Yeah. Somehow, I don’t think the yoga gods would agree with her, and when I’m in my right mind, neither do I.