Scientific Ink

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

Mind-body

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!

Music and breath heals

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A grasp of fresh air, originally uploaded by Bindaas Madhavi
A grasp of fresh air, originally uploaded by Bindaas Madhavi

I tweaked my back two weekends in a row. I have some history of back pain, largely stemming from a jaunty twist in my spine (scoliosis). And, because I bend towards my knitting, bend towards my computer monitor, and otherwise stress out my upper back and neck, my upper back gets cranky now and then.

Once I’ve tweaked it, it is a long process of hot baths, ibuprophen, bodywork, arnica gel, and mostly just rest and time to undo whatever kink or constriction I’ve triggered.

Boring.

My interesting stories are the divergences from this pattern: I have had two experiences of spontaneous improvement in my neck/back pain: through pranayama breath, and at a music concert the other night.

Pranayama heals

The first spontaneous release I’ve experienced was in a yoga workshop taught in Ann Arbor by Navtej Johar at Sun-Moon Yoga. During the session, the pranayama breath work (shown in the photo above) released the kink that had stuck my neck for days. I have used pranayama breathing some since then, not enough considering its powerful effect that day….To encourage my practice, I recently picked up the Pranayama iPhone app by Saagara from itunes. I used it recently to relax during a bout of insomnia, and last night to further relax my back and neck. It helped!

Music heals

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross

Sunday night was the only other time I’ve experienced seemingly “spontaneous” healing. I think I whacked out my upper back on Saturday by trying to move some largish rocks we have in our garden. I woke up Sunday morning kind of sprung behind my right shoulder blade. Later that day, I attended a concert at Rackham Auditorium. It was a reading by Alex Ross of his book The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, accompanied by Ethan Iverson on the piano. While I enjoyed the crisp and funny writing, I found the turbulent 20th Century history revealed in the lives and concerns of its composers daunting.

I was excited about the concert because I wanted to hear the music of the composers I’d read about. I also sometimes lose track of time, and so I was late for the performance and stressed out when I arrived. They wouldn’t seat us because the piece had started, so I waited, fretting, in the hall for the a slight break to be seated. Well, Rackham has very comfortable seats, and once I settled into our row, the soothing notes of the piano, even playing intellectual 12 tone music, which I’d expected to be annoying, had a physical effect on my body.

I don’t know what Ethan Iverson was playing in that particular moment, but in the middle of the performance that included Babbitt, Bartok, Gershwin, Ives, Ligeti, Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Stravinsky, and Webern, I felt a muscle next to my shoulder blade go into a release that felt like an inverse spasm. It was a kind of drumming pattern of releases and then slight recontractions, but without pain. I don’t know what it was exactly – I’m going to guess, based on my experience with pranayama, that what might have helped was a relaxation in my own breathing in time to one of the pieces. Or, perhaps my absorption in the event let some other process take its course in my back. I doubt that new age spas around the world play a selection of 20th century classical music, but maybe they should. The concert had an unexpected and salutary effect on my body!

Yoga for the tall

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I am still under the influence of Arianne Cohen’s The Tall Book. In keeping with the tall theme, I am mulling over her notes on body differences. In one section, she noted a few differences in tempo (just takes longer to sweep my hands from my sides to above my head given my hands travel farther) and strength (body is heavier, but not proportionally stronger) that gave me an a-hah moment.

Yoga would be a very different activity if yogis were six-footers. p.89 The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life on High by Arianne Cohen

Being a 6’+ tall yogi and an internet wonk, I then Googled variants of several phrases including “yoga” and “tall”, and I found nothing helpful. I did see lots of advertisements for longer yoga clothes and a rant by a shorter-stature yoga teacher about talls infringing on the airspace and viewspace of the shorter folk. (Note I would go to the back of the classroom, but it’s really crowded back there and there’s a lot more wingspan space at the front because people avoid it…sorry to be blocking the view).

Arianne’s words finally helped me solidify my positions on certain styles of yoga, given the dearth of info, I thought I’d write it up. In the past, I have found Vinyasa and Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga classes quite challenging in terms of pacing. Now, I feel justified in this, but I suppose it isn’t a critique of the style itself that they are less than tall-friendly, more like a note to self that I would either need to do these on my own in a more stately tempo or else not mind falling farther and farther behind the class (a good exercise in disregarding externalities and working on my competitive nature, I suppose…).

  • Vinyasa yoga, in which sequences flow from one position to another, is lovely and dance-like, but I’ve often struggled with its tempo. Essentially, when doing a sun salutation, I’ve often felt like I was rushing to get from one position to another. I barely get into plank and I have to rush headlong into Chaturanga Dandasana and oops, just getting there, and the whole class is already enjoying upward dog. Essentially, I am running behind, challenged by my extra length to maintain the pace of the class and actually spend a moment in each pose. I’ve taken Vinyasa classes at Sun Moon Yoga (where Sondra is beautifully tall and lithe and fleet of yoga pose and disproves my argument a bit, but I’m sticking to it anyway) and A2Yoga. At least now I have a physical excuse for the rushed feeling.
  • Ashtanga yoga, in which folks repeat a series each class is wonderful for marking growth because, well, you can mark your progress because you’re doing the same thing over again. I found the sequence quite challenging in terms of strength (lifting myself up in places). Perhaps it was no accident that my old Ashtanga teacher was a powerfully built shorter statured guy. He could do anything at all, floating high while balancing on a finger or two, and I was flailing along, quite grounded as he soared. I am not sure on the naming, but I sometimes see it as Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, and yes it does flow from pose to pose. I have taken Ashtanga classes at A2Yoga.

So, I am brought back to the idea of Iyengar yoga, of which Ann Arbor is a historical bastion, and the Russayog or rope yoga, that I’m currently practicing. They both have a more stately, thoughtful pacing.

  • Iyengar yoga is all about alignment, which is good because of my crooked back (scoliosis) and not so much about speed. I have taken Iyengar classes at the Ann Arbor YMCA and Inward Bound. I routinely work with Elise Browning Miller’s Yoga for Scoliosis DVD. Elise is a certified Iyengar yoga teacher.
  • Russayog or rope yoga has nice repetition in the classes, so it is both stillness-inducing (I yawn my way through the class, and that’s a compliment), and I can see progress as I go. Some portion of the classes change each time, so there’s also something to keep things fresh. I really like working with the ropes – they are both challenging and forgiving – they can help stabilize me. And, they stretch my back like nothing else. My massage therapist notices if I don’t go! So it must be doing something good for me. I wonder if it also helps that Jasprit is tall, so his classes have a nice tall-friendly pacing.

All of this is a good reminder to be gentle with myself, to not rush in my yoga classes (sometimes during the bal-lila in russayog I do feel rushed, and I just have to claim my own speed and stick to it) and respect who I am and where I am, which is of course, a big part of practicing yoga in the first place.

Rope Yoga at RussaYog in Ann Arbor (gratitude #33)

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After my first experience of Rope Yoga at Vie on S. Ashley Street in Ann Arbor, I’ve been going to the RussaYog studio on S. State Street. There are only a few blocks in between them, but I thought that I would experience the classes taught by the founders, Jasprit and Teresa Singh.

I’ve really enjoyed my classes there. I like the music they play, I like the challenge of the classes and how soundly I sleep afterwards. I like the athletic and diverse posters on the wall (from Marilyn Monroe to Scotty Pippin (I think).

Even better, my massage therapist has reflected back to me that my upper back and spine really seem to respond well to it. She essentially told me that if I knew what was good for me, I’d keep going back to the RussaYog studio. Happy to do so!

My CSA share keeps me eating veggies the old fashioned way: guilt

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So, I had a 1-4PM meeting today turn into a 1-6:30PM one with an hourlong trip on each side, and although it was a great meeting, I’m an introvert and was sorely in need of downtime afterwards. So, when I got home at 7:45, I was hungry and tired and would have very happily reached for some comfort food from the freezer or a local restaurant (chinese food? pizza?). But, I have this farm share from a local organic farm, and my fridge is filled with kale, beets, beet greens, green beans, onions, and the like.

I even considered heating up frozen veggies, just because I didn’t think I could muster anything beyond tossing something into a bowl and punching 4 buttons on the microwave. Then I realized that was completely pathetic, and I couldn’t possibly. I imagined each bean and each beet staring at me, balefully as they wilted, while I feasted on non-organic and less vitamin rich frozen food because it was marginally more convenient.

And then I recognized the awesome power of the farm share to improve my life. Yes, the veggies were organic and local, yes they were chock full of vegetabley-goodness like vitamins and minerals, but their real power was elsewhere. Yup, those veggies in the fridge could make me eat healthier just by their very presence. I’d already committed to them, several times, by signing up for the CSA share from Tantre Farm last fall, by picking them up this week, by giving them space in my fridge. After all that, how I could waste them? The frozen food would keep. I had to wash and slice and maybe even boil before I’d get my meal.

I started with the beets. I scrubbed them and cut them into even blocks for a quick boil. But then, because I was crazed with hunger, I tentatively put one in my mouth and bit down. Raw beet was perfectly fine, tasty in fact. I turned off the water, chopped the beets more finely, tossed on a splash of fancy Zingerman’s balsamic vinegar and moved on to the next course. I prepped some kale, rinsing and chopping, and blanched it quickly. Nice.

In probably 5 minutes, I had two very tasty dishes out of my organic veggie stockpile. Because the healthy food had guilted me out of it, I had protected myself from poor eating. By stocking the fridge with healthy food, I actually ate healthy food. And it was quick to prepare. Imagine, fresh fruit and veggies really are nature’s original fast food.

Needing bread in response to a death in the family

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Last week, in the middle of a workday, I got a call about a death in the family. I was shocked and sad – Somboun, the guy who died, was young, in his thirties, my husband’s age or so, and seemed in full health. He slipped away in his sleep, without warning.

I was busy, out of the office and about 10 minutes from a client meeting, so after a few quick moments of talking to family, I had to put on my game face and focus on the client and the project. After the meeting, I had the ride back to the office to think and talk, more phone time, and then a little bit of decompressing with the other riders in the car. I talked about my relationship with him, about his relationship to the family, about meeting him and what he was like.

When we got back to the office, to the hub-bub of lunchtime and visitors, I was ready to shut down completely. I think I’d finally had enough time for it to sink in. The funny thing is, I really, really wanted bread. I had a salad, dressing, and some lovely smoked trout Dave had brought back from up north, but I wanted salt and crust and chew. So, I went out and got a Zingerman’s sea salt bagel. I never eat the salt bagels, tho I love salt, they’re usually too salty for me.  

Usually I bolt my food, unhealthy I know. It’s just before I notice, I’ve eaten it all up. This time, I sat alone, not wanting to be social, and chewed thoughtfully. Perhaps in response to the news of the death, I was really able to focus on the taste of the food, its texture, the crunchy and sharp arugula, the bite of the garlic in the dressing, and thick and chewy bagel.

Nothing like the shock of mortality to make being alive so tactile.