Over the past two months I’ve visited several Western and Eastern healers and amassed prescriptions that ranged from steroids, pain killers, lotions and potions. Most of them are sitting in a pile on my desk untouched. I may need them down the road, but for now I decided to seek the kind of medicine that you can’t bottle.
One sunny afternoon I invited my yoga teacher Karen to work out the ideal yoga sequence for healing my back. She spent some time watching me practice, thinking and taking notes. She then promised to send me a routine.
A few days later a 3 page PDF arrived in my inbox with a detailed list of asanas, breathing exercises and notes. Finally, a prescription I can swallow and more important believe in.
Leafing through the 3 pages of notes, I realized I will need to let go of my beloved Ashtanga Primary Series that I committed to memory, the same brilliant sequence that became part of my identity during countless early morning practice sessions.
Karen’s sequence is sweet, combining both gentle and advanced poses, some flow, breathing and a general softening. But it is very different than what I’m used to. This is going to be an exercise of letting go of any past expectations. This is going to be about applying the essential yoga principals in a very specific way to accomplish a very specific goal. Can it work?
Yes, let yoga, meditation and my body be my healers. After all, I spent a lifetime devoted to training my body and perfecting my yoga. It’s payback time. It has been prescribed.
