I’m Not Keeping Score
I did 31 days of yoga—and so did all my old injuries.
Every January from 1999-2012, I held a yoga challenge at my NYC studio, OM yoga Center. Participants committed to taking an OM yoga class for 31 days in a row. Over the years the number and variety of class offerings grew to include everything from Brand New Beginners, Beginners, Beg/Intermediate, Intermediate, Intermediate/Advanced, and Advanced. If you were exhausted after six days of practicing yoga, you could take a Restorative class and if you were just a little bit tired you could take a Half-Active/Half-Restorative class. It all counted! The point was not to hurt yourself but to begin the new year by developing a solid yoga practice.
But hurt myself, I did. Typically my participation in these challenges was limited to teaching yoga classes. One of the ironies about running a yoga studio is that the owner has so many responsibilities that it’s tough getting to class as much as they would like. But one year I was able to clear the decks and give myself the experience of recommitting to my daily yoga practice. I was really psyched to do it!
The first day was such a joy. The classes were full with enthusiastic yogis. So full that there was only about 5 inches between our mats, and that’s the way we liked it. We were completely facile in our ability to share space and we loved the energy of moving together. All these many years later, I still miss the sweep of our group momentum as we moved through Sun Salutations in perfect synchrony.
The second day was just as fun and now I was on a roll. Then something shifted on the third day and everything started hurting. I’m not talking about what my ballet teacher called “profitable pain”—the kind of soreness that comes from using your body more intensely than usual in the process of learning a new choreography or, in this case, doing more yoga than I had done for a while.
The discomfort I felt was closer to feeling injured, but not newly injured. It seemed that every old injury I’d ever had arose from dormancy. That was not completely true, though. My active childhood included dislocating my elbow twice, getting 56 stitches in my calf after being hit by a car, and more stitches from a ski injury in ninth grade. All of those stayed where they belonged, back in the past.
The injuries that resurfaced were from my dancing days. Tendonitis in my elbows and ankles, broken toes and even a whiplash emerged from the past. There were also renewed injuries that had originally resulted not from practicing yoga but from teaching yoga.
Back in the day when yoga teachers used specific hands-on adjustments as a skillful instructional technique, my job was to guide and spot people as they learned new poses. I helped keep them safe and caught them when they fell. I got kicked in the head several times. I also got kicked in the face a few times. More than once, I got stuck in an awkward position supporting the weight of someone much larger and taller than me, which caused shoulder and back stress issues.
I remember helping Terry Creach do a backbend at the wall. This is when a student stands a few feet away from the wall and then arches their spine backward until their hands can touch the wall. In this advanced class, the students were practicing walking their hands down the wall, all the way to the floor, ending up in a big back bend called Urdhva Dhanurasana or Wheel Pose. Then the yogis walked their hands back up the wall, pushed off and returned to the standing position they started in.
Terry was a well-known choreographer and dancer, and much bigger than me. Walking up was the hardest and least secure part for him so I placed my hands around his upper back to give him guidance and a reference point for where he was in space. This allowed him to press into the wall to lift his chest and push into the floor to stand right up on his feet. He stumbled a little bit but I kept my hold on him. He got there just fine but it left my back tweaked and my neck out of whack.
Last week these memories started popping up one by one, like the baby prairie dogs in Santa Fe, emerging from hibernation in March. It started after I got a shingles vaccine.* The pharmacist told me to expect body aches. At first just my arm was sore but then my neck started to really ache (whiplash from choreographing a video for Menudo in Puerto Rico) followed by shooting pains in my esophageal zone (original reaction to antibiotics for Lyme).
The worst was when my back spasmed so intensely that I couldn’t stand up. This old injury first occurred while my mother was slipping away into dementia. I was in deep grief, watching my mother’s mind and personality fade away. As she lost her capacities, I became her mother. I lifted her up to change her clothes, to get her into bed, to help her take a shower. It was only sort of a metaphor that I was carrying her on my back.
When my back went into spasm again last week, I laid on a bolster for a few hours, dosed with Tylenol and aspirin. Before long I was fine, physically. But emotionally, I really wondered about what was happening to me.
Of course, I am familiar with the Bessel van der Kolk book called The Body Keeps Score. I know it has been useful for many yoga teachers and their yoga students dealing with trauma.
But personally I don’t like the idea of keeping score. I don’t hold a grudge against Terry Creach. Honestly, it was an honor to be his yoga teacher and it meant a lot to me that he trusted me. I really feel that way about all my students. And I felt that way every single difficult day of the eight long difficult years I took care of my mother. It was my honor.
At this point in my life, I am absolutely sure that indulging in repetitive thought loops of resentment or competition is not good in any way. In fact, it is almost a perfect definition of the First Noble Truth in Buddhism which says “Suffering exists.” Suffering could be relabeled as anxiety, chafing, dis-ease.
This is the difference between pain and suffering. Both of them are impermanent, like everything else. Every pain comes and goes. Suffering can outlast any pain if we choose to keep score, hold a grudge, blame someone else for our experience.
As I cycled through these various injuries I realized they were just part of me. They are not afflictions. They are not insults or indignities. But they do define me somehow. These memories are a map of my life in motion. My body is a memoir. I could have chosen a different life, one that offered a softer landing. But I like to move.
My trainer, Douglas, is a practical guy. He doesn’t think these revisiting pains are about what I am carrying. He thinks they are about how I am carrying—leaning into my right hip more than my left, the way I did when I carried my books home from school. The slight scoliosis that made my dancing better on the left than the right. The hyper extension in my twice-dislocated left elbow that makes that the weaker arm.
On the third day of the challenge, when these forgotten pains started to hurt me again, I was so disappointed. I really wanted to complete the challenge! So, I just kept going. I took care with how I did certain things and modified when needed. By the end of the week all the discomfort was gone. I think there is a lesson here. Maybe about seeing things as they are. Working with what you have. Or what the Third Noble Truth says, that there can be an end to suffering. At least, now and then.
* I’m glad I got the shingles vaccine. I know several people who got shingles and it is very painful. Also, the shingles vaccine provides significant protection against dementia.
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PAID SUBSCRIBER ZOOM MEDITATION WITH ME
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In February, I held the first paid-subscribers only meditation session on Zoom and it was wonderful!
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Sunday, April 6
12 noon -12:30 EDT
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Retreats
July Mindfulness Meditation Mini-Retreat
Each day I will offer a lesson on the nuts and bolts of meditation, as well as how the practice relates to the rest of your life. On Day 1, I will give specific mindfulness meditation instruction and we will sit for a short period.
July 14-18
30 min/day
12:15-12:45pm ET
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This retreat is open to everyone! Our practice will focus primarily on sitting and walking mindfulness meditation, sustainable yoga, and restorative yoga. Yoga props will be available in the yoga studio and modifications will be offered for everyone. Each morning will include a short dharma talk and group discussion.
Some photos from last year’s retreat!
Thank you for sharing this Cyndi! This brought me right back to my days living in NYC and doing the challenges at OM. I can feel that tiny silver of space between mats and the smell of the studio. I still have my blankets and blocks from the studio sale 🙏🏼
Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts and experiences with us on this wonderful post.
Your mother was so lucky to have you at her side during her final years on this earth, a special time indeed. My mother suffered for 10+ years with Alzheimer's, thus I understand how challenging & emotional it can be~ 🙏