Ow, Pt. II

I'm sure this only *looks* painful. But it looks
it a lot.
I like being sore. It's a reminder that I've actually done something.

In that context, the occasional shouts today from my back, arms and legs are a good thing. For two months, I haven't been able to do anything. That changed yesterday.

Three weeks ago, my doctor removed a bone growth on my femur. He told me not to run for six weeks and to be careful about my exercise. Yesterday, I left the house and played 9 holes of golf. It was my first golf "action" in two years. I walked nine holes at the local course and had a legitimate birdie. I'm a firm believer that nobody cares about your golf game as much as you do, unless you're Tiger Woods. So I'll end the story there.

I came home, walked the dog for half an hour, then went to bikram yoga. If you've never done yoga, the following description is going to sound like hell. The room where you practice yoga is heated to between 105 and 110 degrees. The theory is the heat loosens your muscles and joints and makes you more flexible for the poses. You have to put a towel over your yoga mat because it gets soaked with sweat and becomes slippery.

The session is an hour and a half long and you can leave the room, into air conditioning, to get more water. I did so twice. If there were antics to report, I would report them. But I did or attempted to do all but one pose, wherein you your butt on the heels of your feet and try to bend backward as far as you can. I couldn't do that pre-surgery, much less now.

The result of the workout is quantifiable. It was a great workout. But I'm not sure it was for me. I like the pace (fast, for yoga) but I felt the poses were pretty advanced for a novice such as myself. Yogies are already yelling at me for typing that. But whatever. The good news is there are about a dozen places where I can practice yoga in Portland. The search for my next exercise obsession continues.

Comments

  1. David CorriveauJuly 14, 2011 at 6:18 AM

    Maybe swimming?

    ReplyDelete
  2. JillJuly 14, 2011 at 7:50 AM

    You should do Zumba. It's all the rage. It might be hard on your knee, but we'd get interesting stories. And, clearly that's really what it's all about. 57-5-6.

    ReplyDelete
  3. CatherineJuly 14, 2011 at 11:28 AM

    Two things about the pose where (eventually) your butt's between your heels and SOME PEOPLE go back: 1) it's the best thing ever for fixing knees, I swear to G (as they say) and 2) for the past couple months, I've had more weight in my hands than in my hips/knees. And it's perfectly OK, allowed, encouraged, even. The knee stretches a little further every class.

    I did NOT in fact yell at "poses are pretty advanced, etc" because to yell would be so terribly unbecoming of a yogi. :P BUT: The very first step of each posture is not advanced. Do that, and do it the best you can. Then do the next step. It doesn't matter what the people around you are doing.

    Hijack success?

    ReplyDelete
  4. CatherineJuly 14, 2011 at 11:29 AM

    P.S. It doesn't hurt that much. The studio owner in Sandy surfed my back, once.

    ReplyDelete

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