What a complete mind melt this past month has been! In a really good way, though. The majority of this month on the course was all about anatomy. I honestly thought I would dread this part of the course because I always disliked “science” classes in school. I didn’t like Chemistry or Biology or any of those types of things in school. They were really really difficult subjects for me. So you can kind of get my apprehension when it came to these anatomy classes. It’s valuable information that I need to know in order to be a good yoga teacher, but I was scared.
Love for a new topic: anatomy
Fascinatingly, I love the subject! There’s a real difference between being forced in a public school setting to learn topics and subjects that you can see no purpose for at the time and taking a class directly relevant to something you’re passionate about. Don’t get me wrong, my brain is complete mush after this intake of information. I doubt I’ve retained most of it. However, I still have a decent amount of time to learn before my course ends. It’s also a topic I’ve found passion for. Thus, I will want to pursue it further and delve deeper into anatomy in relation to yoga. I mean…I’m already going to bed thinking “the nuclei pulposi in my body are refilling with fluid”. Once you start thinking those sorts of things before bed, then there might even be a tiny obsession starting.
I feel like anatomy shows you the purpose of the yoga asanas. We’re not just doing these poses because they’re trendy on Instagram or look cool (although, it’s totally fine if that’s why you do it because I’m like that sometimes, too), but these poses really do benefit the body. And for me personally, it brings me back to the discovery I made my first month on the course. The anatomy of the body in relation to my hypermobility.
Hypermobility struggles
Midway through the third month of my course, I noticed more pain in my hips and a bit more pain in my knees. I didn’t understand–I still don’t really understand. Here, I thought I was being so careful in my practice, working on building up strength and not going into the deepest expressions of the poses that I could do. After pointing out problem areas of pain to the anatomy instructor, Loretta, who is absolutely wonderful, she gave me a few quick movements to do to help build strength in those areas. I had been doing those movements for about a week, but the pain seemed to get worse. I stopped doing them. If it hurts, don’t do it, right?
I also spoke with Retha, another student trainee on the course who happens to be a physio, and she gave me some additional advice on how to improve the hip flexor. So, now begins my journey of trying to really build up strength in these problem areas and patience. It’s really hard not to get frustrated at your inability to do something that you used to be able to do. Or, more accurately in my case, frustration at feeling like you have to hold yourself back in order to prevent injury. Then, I get frustrated for being frustrated and it’s this cycle of beating yourself up that’s really not healthy. This has been the hardest part of the course. I never expected the course to bring out so much emotion and take me on this roller coaster of feels. But, here we are.
A weekend of breathing
To wrap things up, the final weekend of month three on the course was all about meditation, chakras, pranayama, and chanting. A nice break from anatomy and total contrast to the science based weekends. While meditation and pranayama have scientific backing to them, it was interesting to listen to the discussions and differing opinions of everyone about chakras.
Only one more month to go!
