My sacroiliac joint healing journey and how I reframed my yoga practise.
DOWNLOAD MY FREE YOGA FOR SI JOINT LOVE - Pose Modification Guide here:
cathyaganoffyoga.lpages.co/si...
When you’ve been practising for a while, sometime in the first couple of years of your yoga journey for many, something may, seemingly out of the blue may come up and ‘bite you on the butt”.
For me It was late 2017 on a 300 hr YTT with my teacher Noah Maze and I was on my jade yoga mat, sounds of ujaii breathing were permeating the atmosphere in the room, but I was becoming increasingly distracted by a sensation in my left buttock. There was a sharp grabbing sensation as I transitioned from triangle pose to half moon pose and as the practise progressed my discomfort increased.
I desperately tried to conceal my discomfort and pain from my teacher, as I didn't want to make my mentor who I looked up to know that I was struggling. This was probably my people pleaser part showing up and clouding my judgement.
This was the onset of my SI joint dysfunction. It was when the pain started, but really it had likely been building for some time.
Fast forward to this scene and I'm deep into my yoga journey both as practitioner and teacher and so committed to my practise and the yoga lifestyle. I had on some level become identified with my role as a yogi and yoga teacher and now I had this injury. I felt to be honest slightly embarrassed and ashamed that I was also the physio yoga teacher and I should know better!! I had this kind of crisis of confidence and I had to now figure out how to heal this issue in myself.
I didn't want to have to stop practising yoga and give up my regular practise that had given me so much grounding and mental and emotional clarity. I also didn't want to stop progressing my asana practise and progressing my teaching. I wanted to be a yoga teacher and a yogi more than anything, and before this point I'd felt really connected to my purpose, but I now felt like a failure. I felt out of control and powerless.
That's when I really started to shift my intentions and was the beginning of a totally new way of practising.
I knew I had to be more sensible and try to build a sustainable yoga practise, a way of practising that would allow me to keep practising for my whole life and not have to stop when I reached a certain age or had an injury.
The first reframe for practising asana I experienced that I want to offer you here too is the teaching within the yoga Sutras of:
1. Sthira & Sukha.
This idea or teaching, that in each pose we are seeking to balance 2 energies. The energy of effort with the energy of ease or surrender and the ability of this intention in our practise to bring about Autonomic Nervous System regulation and emotional resilience.
The 2nd reframe I want to offer you in your Asana Practise I think is spoken to beautifully in this quote by B.K.S Iyengar:
2. Consciousness finds its level in the body, through the practises of asanas and pranayama.
The extension of your arm or your leg in say warrior 2 pose, is not the extension of your leg or arm, it's the extension of consciousness to reach that area.
So its about expansion and extension of consciousness in what we do on the mat, which then has the capacity for the same off the mat, so that we can live more consciously.
if you're feeling inspired to start incorporating more pose modifications into your practise.
Here is the link again to my FREE pose modification guide:
cathyaganoffyoga.lpages.co/si...
If you have any questions about your pose modifications or I can help out in any way please comment here or reach out to me via my insta DMs:
cathys_yoga...
From my heart to yours,
Namaste x
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See all of my classes and offerings at cathyaganoff.com.au
Yoga is one of the best ways to build functional strength in the body :)
Let me know how these instructions went for you in the comments below!