Scientific Ink

Dunrie Greiling Ph.D., Ann Arbor, MI 48105

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Yoga retreat in Sonoma – hip relief for my Scoliosis

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I have been a “distant student” of Elise Browning Miller’s for years. She teaches Iyengar yoga, with a keen sense of how to adjust to accommodate for and unwind scoliosis.

She is based in the Bay Area, and Elise travels the continent teaching yoga for back care and yoga for scoliosis. I have traveled to Kalamazoo, Chicago, Cleveland, and California to learn from Elise. Every year, she hosts a retreat in northern California.

Her retreat in California is my favorite by far. For the other locations, she’s teaching at a local yoga studio, and the class is made up of local students, local teachers, and a few travelers. So, when I have traveled in the midwest, it has been yoga class and then solo meals and a basic hotel. At Westerbeke, everyone travels and stays over (even from the Bay Area). So there’s a community outside the classes, and the location and the food is wonderful.

It was as if my back gave up 50-weeks since I last saw Elise. It was as if it said “I got you most of the way, now get me to the teacher who can help you do better by me!” I had strong, debilitating pain in my left hip/lower back. I couldn’t sit at the computer. I preferred to stand or to lie back in a mild backbend on all of my yoga bolsters. I could get some relief by digging my fist into my back and glutes. I dreaded sitting on the plane, but I knew I’d get better in class.

As usual, the classes completely erased my pain. I appreciated the sequencing of the poses and the hands-on help – pulling me this way or that way. I learned I still need to pay attention to derotating my spine – particularly lifting my concave left side in certain poses.

What I learned

At one point, I spoke with Elise about my lingering lower back/hip issues. The hip/SI joint that has been really bothering me is the one opposite my scoliosis. I have right-thoracic curve, and it is my left hip that is problematic. She suggested I consider including the following five asanas in my practice.

These five asanas have helped me maintain the pain-free and happy state I attained during the retreat.

Quick sketch of four of the five poses for relief of hip pain in scoliosis.

Down Dog with crossed ropes or straps

Here is a video of Elise teaching Downward Facing Dog with crossed ropes from a doorknob. I use ropes attached to eye hook sunk into the wall by a professional carpenter.

Prasarita Padottanasana – Wide-legged pose

Prasarita Padottanasana video and instructions available at Yoga Journal website.

Urdhva Dandasana

The head and arms are not touching the floor, so gravity is giving me a gentle pull downwards to stretch my back.

I’m also getting a nice pull upwards on my thighs from the swing.

 

photo of down dog yoga pose variation, hanging from yoga swing.
A down-dog-like pose hanging from a yoga swing.

 

Salamba Adho Mukha Vajrasana

I get a good stretch of the back (note – neither my head or arms are touching the floor, so gravity is giving me a nice and gentle pull downwards). I feel a lot more of the swing’s pull on my tricky hip, making me think it is a little out of alignment. So, the swing is helping there too.

photo of yoga pose Virasana, hanging from yoga swing.
Hanging from a yoga swing in a version of Hero’s Pose – Virasana

Supta Padangustasana I – with double belts

Here’s a video of Elise teaching how to use the second belt to really get good traction in this pose. This setup helps me to lengthen rather than bunch up the hip of my “up” leg. If I only had time to do one asana, this is the one I would do.

Note: Elise’s voice is faint during this video, turn your volume up and then don’t forget to turn it back down at the end.

Since adding these yoga asanas to my routine, I have felt increasing well-being in my lower back and quietness in my body. My scoliosis affects me, but if it helps me keep up with my yoga, well then it helps me be healthy.

Learn More from Elise

Elise’s DVD has been a huge help in my learning and adjusting for my scoliosis. Edited 3/2017 – and now Elise has published a spiral bound book on Yoga for Scoliosis, which gave me better names for some of the poses above. Check it out!

Good product placement works – discovering I love Field Notes

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To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
To Sell is Human Cover

In late 2012, I pre-ordered Daniel Pink’s book To Sell is Human. One of a set of five gifts/thank yous for pre-ordering was a Field Notes memo book, stamped with To Sell is Human on the back.

I read To Sell is Human, and I used the memo book. I am a journal keeper, and I like Moleskine journals (among others). I like to take my journal from start to finish, and I resist starting other notebook-y things and diffusing my writing efforts.

As a consequence, I haven’t always known what to do with little memo books, and yet I found a use for this one. I carried it in my purse. It served me well at those times I needed to jot something down on the run – especially when taking out my phone to add a task/send a message would have been awkward.

I use it differently than my journal. The memo book is a temporary holding place. It’s kind of like a written RAM that gets cleared away. I won’t keep the old one, and I keep journals forever.

I like Field Notes
My new Field Notes pack!

Daniel Pink’s cobranding/partnership/product-placement/whatever-it-was worked. Now I’m hooked on Field Notes’ graph-ruled memo books. I just received my re-up, this time I chose the kraft paper cover.

And I think of Daniel Pink and how we’re all in sales every time I reach for it, even though “To Sell is Human” is not stamped on the back of this one.

Knausgaard reading from My Struggle

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“The deeper you go inside, the more general a place you reach.”

Yes.

I read My Struggle Book 1 and now am 3/4 of the way through Book 2. I am loving these books and his writing. His description of the mundane and his internal monologue is riveting, addictive, and moving. Listen to his own reading of his work and see for yourself.

My Struggle: Book 1My Struggle: Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgård

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

Orient by water

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I orient by water. Apparently I have to keep it on the east. If I don’t I have a hard time finding my way around the land. This is one of the many reasons I don’t live in California.

I grew up on the east side of Michigan, in a town pressed up against Lake Saint Clair. Lake Saint Clair is part of the Great Lakes, it’s just not a great lake, more like a pool in between the two straits that connect Lake Huron with Lake Erie.

My family has a cottage up on the east side of the Bruce Peninsula, the Peninsula defines Georgian Bay stretching off to the east.

I spent a lot of time on the east side of south Florida. There again, the seemingly limitless Atlantic stretches off to the East.

And I went to school in New Jersey – once more on the eastern side of the continent.

Basically, all of my most familiar and beloved places have had “big water” to my east, and even when it hasn’t been in sight, I’ve known it was there.

When I go to a place like California that has its ocean to the west, I get my cardinal directions completely backwards, and I find myself stumbling over the fact that away from the water is indeed East, not West, when driving and planning routes. I have imprinted my mental maps on the entirely subjective assumption that the “big water is to the East”.

Georgian Bay - placid
The clear, cold water of Georgian Bay, which I like to keep to the East of me.

Learning about my own mental shortcuts helps me see that the categories I create about the world aren’t the world.

Margaret Atwood on writing perceptions

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I’m pondering the intricacies of nonfiction and fiction writing and interpretation. I heard this on the radio and recognized its truth immediately.

When you’re writing fiction, everybody thinks you’re secretly writing about real people and things. But if you write an autobiography, they think you’re lying as one does.

From Margaret Atwood’s interview with Arun Rath on NPR books, interview full text available from WFAE’s website.