One reason I practice yoga.


One reason I practice yoga.


Yesterday in yoga class we sat against the wall while sitting on a block. As I pressed my back against the wall, I had a revelation. The muscles along my spine touched the wall on the left side, but the right side did not!

“Big deal” you say? For me, a VERY big deal.



My “fitness life” as an adult has been quite varied (as a kid I was a “slug”...fitness, schmitness). I served in the Marines, and the Army. From Infantry to Operations. I worked HARD. I ran, marched, and “PT”ed daily (Physical Training).  When I ran people remarked, “What the hell are you doing? How are you running like that?” (Apparently I have some weird “up-and-downess” in my running gait.) I couldn’t explain it, and never needed to. I was strong, and performed my duties like everyone else.



When I left the service, I became a “gym rat”, and even pursued bodybuilding for a couple of years. I made great gains. But when I performed squats, my spotters always remarked that I “came up funny”. Sorta twisting, or favoring one side first. Or something. Again, I was strong, no big deal.



As I aged, I tired of the gym scene. Tired of the posers, the “thong-butt goddesses” hogging the equipment. The roid-heads. The nasty folks who wouldn’t wipe the machines off. And some old injuries began to “catch up” to me. I had blown out my knees and ankles as a foot soldier. Rucksacks aren’t light, and some parachute landings were hard (it only takes a couple). I started having troubles on my right side. As time progressed, I started having some paranoia too. I’ll explain.



About a decade ago I had tried to donate a kidney to my (now deceased) brother. A full days screening at UAB (University of Alabama, Birmingham) revealed a genetic malformation in my right kidney. I could never donate. I was told I would forever form, and pass stones on that side. And I do.



My brother eventually succumbed to the effects of 40 years of type 1 diabetes, and acute renal failure. (He had a “good run”. He was a strong man of God too, btw!). Before that, our had Daddy passed away from a cancer that had begun in his bladder, and later metastasized in a kidney, and elsewhere.



I have “played” with yoga my whole life. I was a very limber kid, and my sister had a book of yoga poses. I could “flop around” into most of them (ahh youth!). And a few of those poses I remembered my whole life. Often, after PT or weight training, I would assume them to “stretch out”, or to hit that spot that I couldn’t reach any other way.



A couple of years ago I recognized the need to adopt a permanent fitness lifestyle. Yoga was a natural choice. Despite the incredulous remarks of my gym-rat friends (YO-guh!?? Chicks do that!”), I joined a studio. I soon began yoga teacher training. And started having a debilitating pain in my right kidney area. I couldn’t even put on a shoe. I couldn’t deal Craps at work (I’m employed in a casino). I could barely take stairs, and getting in and out of a car was an ordeal.



I scheduled an appointment with a urologist. One thorough exam later (joy) he tells me I’m fine. My brothers renal failure was from decades of diabetes. My fathers original cancer was from cigarettes. (The doctor assured that 90% of his hundreds of bladder cancer patients had been heavy smokers. My Daddy stopped smoking immediately when he was diagnosed. He fought for TWELVE years, and those were good years. STOP SMOKING my friends. Please, stop).



Whew! No cancer. But why in the hell am I hurting? I modified how I sat. I got new spine-friendly chairs. I started pushing the “edge” in yoga class. And the pain went away. Most of it. It has been a constant thing I’ve “powered through” and lived with.



And then yesterday I felt it. I was fascinated, and mentioned it to the instructor. Her eyes got wide, and she remarked “That’s great, really awesome!”. I thought so too. Then she said, “You know, they say things like that have an emotional anchor”

.

Scratch the record. What?! Is she crazy? What the heck is that supposed to mean? And immediately it hit me. Like a ton of bricks.



When I was 13 I was jumping on a neighbors trampoline. And I racked my ASS. I landed on the bar. On the right side of my lower back. It hurt so bad, I couldn’t walk. For weeks.



Before I tell you the rest, I must say this. My Daddy was a good man. The best. I grew up with him, and my brother. Three guys alone. Life was tough, but the old man loved us. He worked hard. He provided. He instilled the very things that made me the man I became. Honesty, integrity, hard work. He cooked breakfast every morning. EVERY morning. Worked a hard day in the construction business. And was usually home to cook dinner too. I miss him. I loved him. And he loved his kids.



My parents split when I was 12. My brother was the athlete. I was the nerd at home reading books, preferring the company of “Mama” (Sadly, she also would later become a tobacco victim). I was suddenly sent to my Daddy. I was the “baby”. I was the “mama’s kid”. And I was intimidated by my beloved Daddy. My Daddy grew up tough. A share cropper around the Picayune, Mississippi area, during the depression. 5 brothers, and his mother. His Daddy died in the middle of the Depression. Life was hard. He never talked or complained about it though. He just did what it took to grow up. Life was tough, love was tough. As a 12 year old, I didn’t understand all that.



That day I hurt my back I was afraid to tell Daddy. I came home, and made myself a “cane” out of a copper pipe that I bent. I duct-taped a bottle cap over the end so it wouldn’t stick into the ground when I walked. And when Daddy came home I would hide that “cane” and deal with the pain. I never let it show.



37 years later I’m sitting in a yoga studio on a block, with my spine against the wall. And I feel the bar of the trampoline once again. And I now realize that so many years ago, I tore a “serratus posterior inferior” muscle in my back. And now I design my personal practice to help rebalance my body. I can see a day soon where my pain will be gone.



And the pain of some past emotions will be going as well. I miss you Daddy. You were the finest man I ever knew.