Yoga off the Mat part 3

Oct 13, 2020

I have decided that part of my purpose as a yoga teacher is to help people in more abundant bodies or/and with physical challenges such as myself to help make complex/uncomfortable poses more accessible. The second week of my yoga teacher training, we had a wonderful teacher by the name of Sat Kartar Singh. I was put at ease pretty quickly that I wouldn’t be “judged” for not being able to do the complex poses. One day, he said something to me that completely changed my approach to practicing yoga. I can’t even remember the pose the class was doing. I just knew I “couldn’t” do it. I automatically went into modification mode. Sat Kartar came over to me and asked me to try the pose. I told him from looking at it I didn’t think I could do it. He smiled and asked me to just try. Lo, and behold-- to my great shock and amazement I was able to do the pose-- almost comfortably! He then leaned closer to me and said, “Try. THEN modify. How will you know for sure unless you at least attempt to challenge yourself?” Hmmm. I guess yoga is partly about how you handle challenges!

Today at physical therapy, I had a new PT. She didn’t know all my “knee backstory” like the others. She only knows that she has seen me working with other therapists. She asked me if I had worked on “sit to stand” yet. I told her yes, so she said we should start with that. She watched me push myself up from my chair, (pretty damn near perfectly if I might add). I then eased myself back down as I had been taught. She said, “Why don’t you do it without using your arms?”

WHAT?” (I thought). What I ended up saying was, “You have more faith in me than I have in myself this morning. Ha ha.” She said, “I know you can do it. But YOU have to know you can. Just try.” Sigh. Sat Kartar strikes again!! And-- I’ll be darned if she didn’t get 20 “sit to stands” unassisted. 

Next up: walking sideways without any assistance across the room, first leading with the good foot and then with the bad. “ Should I use my cane?” I asked before I started. “Should you?” was the response. UGH.

I guess I did that exercise so well that it was decided I should try walking at a diagonal, again unassisted. The PTs steps were much bigger than mine. She told me small steps were acceptable, the point was to try, to aim for the bigger steps, and if I fell short, that was fine. And the whole time I kept hearing “Try. THEN modify”. When I was done, the PT got me ice for both of my knees. She told me I had done really well and said that with knee replacement you don’t want to get too comfortable. It’s easy to get nervous about falling, but that fear had been making me too dependent on my walker. I had to get out of my comfort zone to use the cane. She said that even though I had just graduated to the cane, she didn’t want me to use the cane as a crutch either. “Sometimes, you have to have a little push to know you can do it”.

Sat Kartar, I thank you. I still am the Queen of Variations -- but I always try first. Somehow, your advice resonates in my heart when my mind forgets.

~ Ysraelia Garbutt-Sullivan (IzzyJi)

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(much like this blog post!)