Yoga

This Thursday, I went back to yoga for the first time since I tore my ACL more than a year ago. My friend, Karb, teaches yoga in her home. I was signed up for her class last winter but had to cancel after my skiing accident.

This was the hardest yoga class I have ever been to. I had always thought I had been flexible, but I never realized how much that was true until I became inflexible. I could have gone back to yoga earlier, that wasn’t the reason I stalled in going back. Instead, I was too busy working on my cardio and strength that I didn’t have time for yoga and still ride the exercise bike forty-five minutes a day.

Before when I did yoga, I never felt much strain on my muscles except during the endurance poses. I could hold the plank pose for fifteen seconds without my body talking back. After a minute or two, my arms, back, and belly would ask when they could stop. Other than that, I was fine. Now, child’s pose takes work, and that is an easy, relaxing, chill position you are supposed to take when you are tired from holding Downward Dog. The easiest pose is Corpse pose, where you pretend you are dead.

It wasn’t just my injured leg that was a problem, it was the rest of me. My left leg was stronger than it was before. I could hold a one-legged standing pose for longer than I could before I tore my ACL. What surprised me was my arms got tired in Downward Dog. This was unusual. 

I realized I had become lopsided since my injury, and not only between the right side of my body and the left, but between my legs and everything else: my back, arms, and core. Now is the time to regain balance between the rest of my body and my legs.

It is interesting to look back on an injury and see repercussions that we didn't know were there. I suppose that is true for other parts of life, not just the physical part. I became more introverted, sitting at home reading books and quilting instead of socializing. I exercised alone, not going to yoga classes or walking Green Lake with a friend. As I've been healing, my social life and my inner life have been rebalancing, too. After the injury, I pulled into my head and had to learn to come back out.