Ashtanga Brighton Blog

Former Brighton teacher, Julie Martin returns to Brighton for a workshop on 12/13 July at Yogahaven. Contact Yogahaven for details.

Hi everyone

Thought you might be interested in an upcoming yoga holiday! It’s in beautiful unspoilt Western Crete from 24 June to 1 July. You stay in a small hotel with its own pool, 100 metres from the beach. Yoga twice a day - a mixture of Ashtanga and Hatha with meditation, pranayama too. Teachers are our very own Brighton-based Janaki and er…me (Davy Jones). The holiday costs £410 excluding flights. More details on the Free Spirit website or visit our website or email: janakiyoga @aol.com

I tried out Sally’s class on Saturday morning at Yogahaven.

It’s a led class and an introduction to 2nd series. I’m hoping that it will help to strengthen my back after all the forward bends in primary series.

I love my morning practice at bnhc but the change of doing a led class and exploring some of the Asana in second series was rather refreshing, so I hope to make this one a regular.

At the post-practice coffee this morning we had a lively discussion about injuries.

I’m sure you’ve never done this yourself ; )

My recent back injury was the trigger for the conversation. It went something like this:

Every person who I told about my injury who doesn’t do Yoga suggested I stop doing it.  My Dad in particular was rather vocal: “Guy you must stop this crazy Yoga!” I patiently tried to explain (again) that my injury was caused by me not listening to my body and that it wasn’t the Yoga that was doing it to me. This was followed by a long silence on the phone.

When having this conversation face to face this is normally the point when people start rolling their eyes and looking rather bored. With a “if you’re not going to take my advice then you deserve it” attitude. I’m exaggerating for effect slightly here but not much.

So am I crazy to continue to practice through my injury? In the quest to get some answers I’ve been to a doctor, osteopath and sports masseur and spoken to nearly everyone I know about back injuries.

Noone knows what is wrong with my back. I have no answers. I’m on the waiting list for a referral to the back clinic which could take a few months. I’m skeptical that I’ll get any answers there either.

So I’m faced with taking responsibility for my injury and recovery, how do I do this? I make mistakes (mostly) and I do my best to listen to my body. I know we’ve all heard it before in virtually every Yoga class or workshop “Just listen to your body”. Well it took a very painful experience for me to start listening. If you’d asked me 2 months ago if I was “listening to my body” I would have been rather offended at even being asked.

I now have a zero tolerance attitude towards any pain in my back when I practice, I bend my knees as much as I need to when doing forward bends and I’m real gentle on my back-bends.

As some of you know I’ve been going through a difficult time with a lower back injury over the last 6 weeks.

It’s been nagging me for a while but I’d chosen to ignore it until it got too painful! Not very clever, but I’m stubborn and need teaching. Sometimes pain is my best teacher.

I particularly want to thank: Sarah, Shari, Chris, Simon, Louise, Sally, Mary and Davy for your support. Without you guys I would have stopped practicing completely.

It’s the first time I’ve been forced to face my limitations in this way. It’s been a real opportunity to inventory my own attitude to my practice and experience the damage that ambition, competitiveness, impatience and grandiosity can cause.

With guidance, I’ve changed my practice to make it safer for my back and been rewarded by gradual improvements in mobility and lessening pain. I’ve had to surrender and let go of my ideas about my practice and what I think I should be doing and accept what actually happens in my body each time I get on the mat.