Do no harm

I was taking yoga last night and in the middle of class, the instructor said, "Do no harm. Start right here, with yourself."

It should be an unnecessary reminder for me, as I spend much of my time teaching working with people with injuries and structuring workouts to challenge them within the frame of their abilities but I get on the mat and just want to move to my limits. And it is different in a packed yoga class than a private session. The teacher structures the class for the group and can't possibly give everyone feedback all the time so we fall into the poses that we own and push a little to get to the ones we are learning and fall completely apart on others, moving to the rhythm of the class not our own rhythm.

I love yoga class, I love being in a class working within myself but sometimes it is hard to pull back where I need to or to even know where it is that I need to pull back. It's easy to get so used to doing something wrong that it's hard to know what it is that needs changing.

Last night, my quads and hipflexors were locked up and I had to keep my stance really short in lunges to keep from collapsing in my low back but the thing is, I love wheel (a full backbend) so even though I stayed conservative all night,  when we got to wheel, I jumped into it without being open enough for it and felt an old, old low back injury flare up.

On the next repetition, the teacher said, "Do no harm, starting right now, with yourself."

and finally, I got it. Not honoring where my body is, where I am in the moment but pushing to where I have been able to go in the past or where I would like to go in the future without listening to my needs at the moment is hurting me. I stopped and stayed with bridge pose, focusing on the hip extension to begin to release my quads and it felt so much better to come out of it and feel a little looser.