As any primary series practitioner will tell you, there are a lot of poses that involve bent and possibly torqued knees. I won't list of them here, but you know what I mean.
Anyway, in June of last year, the inside of my right knee started to complain in lotus and ardha baddha padmottanasa. I hadn't had problems with my knees before and have been happily going through my routine. I thought it was just a nagging tightness that I needed to relax into, but the pain started to increase each time I did these particular poses. Oddly enough, my knee felt free of pain otherwise.
I decided to cut out the particularly problematic poses and spend a lot of time babying my knee, doing lots of hamstring and hip-opening warm-ups. I also got some good advice from the Diver, as well as regular acupuncture and massage treatments. Sparkle Pony was particularly helpful in working her magic to zero in on my adductors and other weird little attachment points along my shin.
It's been getting better gradually. I took the Diver's advice about approaching the healing very slowly and to not overwork the shit of my knee. Patience and aparigraha (abstaining from greed of wanting to make my knee better) were keys to success.
I also consciously didn't want to blog about it and get all sorts of advice that might or might not have worked. Thanks, but too distracting. At one point, I pulled out a particularly painful Iyengar exercise that involves a dowel stick and wedging it in the crease of my knees and sitting in virasana. It's supposed to create space in your kneeds. Talk about excruciating! When I mentioned this to the Diver, his eyes just about popped out. After that reaction, I stopped doing it.
So finally, just over a year, I can comfortably work these poses without fearing I'm going to shred my knee. I still approach them with a bit of caution and try to make sure that area is warmed up. But what a lesson. It's not only working on the poses that are to come, but to revisit the old ones with a new sense of respect and perspective.
Sukha Sthira Asanam.
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3 comments:
Knee/joint discomfort is scary. You never really know what it means. There are several people that practiced at AYS that did that same virasana variation with the dowels. What does the Diver say about it? Does it put too much stress on the ligaments?
Def, Carl. Teachers scare their students about knee pain. The Diver says that the dowel puts unnecessary strain on the ligaments, stretching them and creating instability in the joint.
spaci in the knees. yikes.
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