YOGA AND ME
When I was 2 8 years old I woke up with a backache that got progressively worse until one morning I couldn’t even brush my hair. It was that painful. So I went to see a doctor who scribbled something unreadable and sent me down to X-ray. The technician had to help me get into the prescribed position. I saw stars and immediately knew whatever the doctor thought, that was it. Finally the doctor told me I had rheumatoid arthritis of the lower back.
“Take care of it,” he reprimanded, “or you will be in a wheelchair in your middle age. Exercise your back but do not do strenuous exercise. No competitive sports. Consider going somewhere for acupuncture. There is no cure for your arthritis.”
This was 1972. There was no acupuncture here yet, no outstanding physiotherapists. I remember poking around one of the bookstores looking for a book that would help me stretch my back.
On one of the bottom shelves I found Richard Hittleman’s 30-Day Yoga Plan, or something like that. It had photographs of the positions you were supposed to take and detailed instructions. I bought the pocketbook and began to study yoga on my own. That was how my relationship with yoga began.
The book included instructions on meditation, which I followed. I liked yoga so much that I began to do it — the exercises and meditation — at least twice a day. I would meditate every morning after everyone left (I was a full-time housewife then) and at night lying down and closing my eyes before going to sleep. Then one night I found myself looking down on a little mouse in my basement as it prowled around. Suddenly I panicked. The basement was across the house from my bedroom and it was a great big house. That realization broke my meditation. I wondered why I was looking at the mouse from above, if I was truly in my workroom in the basement or was I simply imagining things. If I was imagining things, why did I have to imagine a mouse?
The next day I began to call friends who knew a little about yoga. Maybe you did astral travel, around three of them said. That’s dangerous to do without someone guiding you. That scared me so I gave up my yoga practice but have never forgotten how much I loved it. So now, at age 72, I’m once again taking yoga at The Sunshine Place.
The first time I asked if they had yoga the answer was no but soon they had a class called “Yoga for the Elderly.” Elderly?!? That verges on the insulting, I thought, but I went anyway. The class is taught by a young Rina Nakayama, who speaks perfect English and who, to me, is the world’s best yoga teacher. She gives you articulate, detailed instructions to stretch, twist and do whatever. And you know what? I have never felt better.
My yoga class is every Thursday at 10 in the morning. I have been absent a few times but each time I regret it. When I started I would rest after yoga then go on to chair dancing. I have been taking exercise classes at Sunshine Place for a year now and my resistance has greatly improved. When I started I couldn’t finish a Zumba class. I would die of exhaustion a third of the way through. Now on Thursdays I take an hour of yoga, followed immediately by a half hour of cardio exercise, followed immediately by chair dancing. I am not the type who sweats but when I do chair dancing, I sweat. Not because it’s strenuous. It’s the accumulated sweat from yoga and cardio that releases itself profusely during chair dancing.
When I get home I am exhausted. but happy. I think: I am way past middle age and I am still not in a wheelchair. The doctor who told me that would happen? He has serious Alzheimer’s. That’s one of the reasons I don’t very firmly believe in medical opinions.
Sometimes when I walk around on very strong legs watering my plants in my home I regret not being in a wheelchair. I could get one of those push-button models that will bring you anywhere you want to go, that you can drive on streets with those scooters and motorcycles. But then to have a wheelchair, I would have to be unable to walk. Then I would have to hire a tall, dark, handsome man as my caregiver. Maybe someone young and strong enough to carry heavy me. But then maybe if I couldn’t walk anymore I would be crabby instead of my usual silly, cheerful self. And I should remember he would have to bathe and dress me…
Stop right now! Just do your yoga. Just keep exercising. Just keep up the good work! Please text your comments to 0998-9912287.