Recovering

I've now had time to recover and think Sarah's workshop over. I say recover, because my back is still very sore from the backbends we did on Saturday.

The basis of yin yoga is to do all poses for extended periods - this allows the muscle tension to subside and starts to work on the fascia and connective tissues. The way Paul Grilley teaches yin is to put great emphasis on safety: to make sure that you're not hurting yourself and learning to understand your body, it's limitations and capabilities. The way Sarah Powers teaches yin is to put all the emphasis on mind over matter: she does say that you shouldn't do anything to hurt yourself, but she talked a long while about how meditating on pain will make it go away.

I'm kind of on the fence about it. While I'm willing to believe that certain individuals are indeed able to control their mind such that physical pain is no longer an issue, I do think this is extremely rare. And I'm not sure if I'll be able to ever do, and I'm certain it won't happen anytime soon. So it makes sense (intellectually and physically) for me to listen to Paul for now and keep Sarah's teachings in the back of my mind.

The truth is I overdid the backbends on Saturday, and I know how my body works and what it is capable of. But my other teachers have always been very careful and taken care of me - we normally do Seal pose (which is yin's version of cobra, Bhujangasana) for minute, two minutes top because my teachers are aware of how many people have lower back issues. With Sarah we did this for 15 minutes and while I though it was intensive I didn't experience any pain - in retrospect I know it was too much for me. For few coming days, I'll be taking it very easy.

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