Sallyanne

I was lucky to discover yoga as a young, healthy and relatively fit woman of twenty six years. I was actully almost dragged to my first class by a friend I met on a Fine Art Degree Course. I hadn’t imagined it would be the kind of thing I’d be drawn to. However, I bought the recommended book and began to work through the suggested daily practices, along with attending a weekly class. When friends came round I’d say ‘Try this, its amazing – you’ll feel great!’ At the time I didn’t realise this was quite an unusual response. Coming from an arts background, I was accustomed to practice, though I’ve come to appreciate that an inclination toward practice doesn’t often come so naturally and easily to many, its a potent seed I love to plant and nourish in myself and others.

A few months into my initial Iyengar Yoga Teacher Training Course, I was in a dramatic car crash – hit from behind by a seven and a half tonne lorry and then my car was propelled into a tree. I was subject to major impact from both back and front which knocked my pelvis ricocheting my entire spine, breaking two ribs, one of which punctured a lung and I was knocked unconscious from an impacting blow to my head.

I felt as if I’d literally had the life knocked right out of me. It was devastating at the time as I had felt so ready a vessel to to absorb and impart the art of yoga.

As I’ve come to realise can be so with seeming tragic occurence, treasure likely lurks therein.

For a while I had to eschew the phsically challenging yoga poses which had imbibed me with vigour and vitality, as I tentatively reacquainted myself with a very different being reeling from shock and injury.

I began to suffer from migraine headaches, likely as a result of my spine having been thrown out of kilter by the impact. I found that if I lay in the semi supine position (with legs bent and feet flat on the ground), my particular ways of sensing, along with consciously giving weight into the ground, magically realigned me while literally unravelling any neck and shoulder tension and any headache.

The semi supine position still forms the basis of my own practice and teaching as the spine is completely supported and tensions can easily be released, preparing the ground for a beneficial practice of more challenging poses.

I was struck by even those who could yoga pose well, may then stand up in a way which put strain on the skeletal structure, rather than support its integrity. Almost as if a switching in and out of a kind of mode occured.

It became a primary concern and puzzle to ensure that the benefit and poise gleaned from yoga would transfer effectively into the rest of life, as it were, in order to maximise the effect. I found the key to lie in awareness and ever endeavouring to notice how we move and ‘pose’ day to day, moment to moment.

Young children naturally tend to have a sound physical relation to the ground they move on, yielding to the gravitational pull and receiving support from the rebounding force. As we age, we tend to be subject to conditioned forces which need to be unravelled for us to regain our natural balance and ease.

As I witness people struggling to get up from the ground or chairs, I get more interested in what we need do, or indeed not do, to maintain our optimum function and well being.

By not only keeping all our joints well maintained, we need to uncover any tensions which may impair their collective part in our effecive and balanced locomotion, so we can move and sit and lie down and stand and even dance through life with ease and joy!