Monday, November 30, 2009

Fatigue Leads to Bad Things

When the alarm rang to wake me for practice today, I was in the middle of a really hectic dream. This is how much of a yogadork I am: I dreamt that I was trying to get into tripod headstand, but for the life of me couldn't get my bent legs straight no matter how hard I tried!


So in the dream, my legs were bent and resting on the back of my arms, like in this picture. And no matter how much core I engaged, and how much lift I tried to get, my legs were stuck to the back of my arms and if I tried too hard, I'd just tumble over. I was stuck on that spot and it was so irritating and frustrating and bloody frickin' tiring.

(Photo credits here)

And WHY am I even dreaming about it when I'm not even working on the pose?!

I suspect this is why I felt so absolutely shattered when I rolled out of bed. I mean, I went to bed at 9pm the night before! That's almost 8 hours of sleep, so there's no reason why I should've been so tired. (I had a throbbing headache from lunchtime yesterday that lasted all day. Maybe Lew is right about applying Sharath's theory here... No Coffee, No Prana).

As a result, I had one of those blah practices today. And my left inner elbow again got a bit of a jam on my last dropback. I suspect more and more this has to do my pelvic rotation. Every time I stand up from a backbend, I notice a slight twist in the way I come up - I can't help it, it just happens no matter how I tell myself "GO STRAIGHT!"

So, maybe a similar thing is happening on my way down and as a result my left arm isn't landing on the floor straight, causing that jam from the misalignment, which I feel is worse when I get tired (coz I'm not so sharp with keeping alignment straight). Like today, for example. I'm seeing my Osteopath again tomorrow, so maybe he can help shed some light on this too.

To top it all off, after practice, I was running up the escalators at the train station to get home to shower and change, when I tripped over a step and fell (ON THE ESCALATOR!! IN PUBLIC!!) I wasn't embarassed at the time, just more in shock coz the last thing I remember thinking was "Poor me, I'm still so tired after practice", and the next thing I knew, poor me was splattered across the escalator.

And yes, I grazed my knee and shin too! (you can even see the individual escalator grooves - thank goodness I had my yoga pants on or I would've had deeper cuts and bled my way home!)


Come to think of it, all the grazes happened on my left leg too. Hmm... if I wasn't so tired I'd probably string together some conspiracy theory about how my screwed up pelvis is affecting my entire left body today.

And no, it's not a new moon tomorrow, it's the full moon, so WHY do I feel all this apana?!?

Looking forward to tomorrow's detox, maybe it'll help cleanse away all this tired juju.

My detox drinks get delivered this evening. YAY! And apparently they're testing a few different mixes from their regular recipes, so I get to be the guinea pig and give feedback on how well the new mixes work (or not). Yay!

I did pretty well on yesterday's pre-cleanse prep. Didn't have any coffee AT ALL. Here's what I had yesterday:
Post-practice: 1x Banana
Breakfast: Muesli with soy milk
Mid-morning snack: Raw nuts with dried dates
Lunch: Spinach salad with chick peas, green beans, artichokes, brocolli (spelling?), sun-dried tomato, carrots & sweet corn.
Mid-afternoon snack: 1x Oatcake (it's almost like a savoury biscuit)
Dinner: 1x mango and a few apricots (I probably overdid the number of apricots so I wasn't counting!)

13 comments:

  1. Ohhh I get that sometimes, practicing in my dreams, and when I get up, there's also this feeling of tiredness. amazing how we feel this connection in our mind and body!

    i have to be honest, i chuckled a little bit imagining you splattered on the escalator (sorry that's not very nice of me) but then i saw your scratch, and OW OW OW, girl! I hope you have Arnica in oral liquid - it would quickly fix that up for you

    so apart from your painful escalator trip, i couldn't help but cringe everytime you mentioned jamming elbows, misalignment, etc - i do hope you get to your osteo soon and see what he could do about it.

    xo

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  2. Thanks K! Appreciate it. It didn't really hurt on the escalator, only hurts a bit now if I accidentally swipe against it. I would've laughed at myself too, but was just more in shock than anything.

    I just hope I haven't buggered the elbow too much for chaturanga - it hurt in the last few vinyasas during closing sequence. I'll be bummed if I had to stop practising for a while! Good thing for moon days. ;p x

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  3. owie! Not fun. One of my boys got his shoelace caught in an escalator once and got the same kind of stair-bites. We both feel your pain!

    I have yoga dreams too; I often dream that I can backbend like gumby, and it feels amazing. From those, I wake up feeling incredibly invigorated and ready to take on anything. Weird, isn't it? The other night I had a great kapo dream, after watching a youtube thingy. Was going to smash out a quick post, but have been very scattered the last few days - lots of kid stuff going on.

    heal fast! xo

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  4. Hehe! I love yoga dreams! Your gumby backbend dream sounds like a delicious one. I just don't understand why in the world I was dreaming about tripod headstand when I haven't been practising it and it's probably been a year since I last tried to. Trying not to pseudo-psychoanalyze it too hard and just let it be. Hope you & your gland have been well! xxx

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  5. My yoga dream has me doing perfect Hanumasana! LOL. I am nowhere near 3rd series in real daytime life.

    Back in August I fell down a concrete step and banged my right knee. According to the physio, my "fat pad" was bruised. Although painful, I found the term "fat pad" hilarious! Who would have known?

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  6. Well don't women's bosoms count as "fat pads" too? That's a funny term (coz it's so unsexy & almost clinical!)

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  7. Lol! Gland is behaving, more or less, I think! Excellent.

    Hey, I tore a bit of fat pad off the back of my knee as a teenager, and it floated around for years, slowly calcifying and occasionally locking up my knee. Then one day I crunched it and it started haemorrhaging (who knew a fat pad would bleed?) and needed surgery. Dr said he'd never seen that before - I was pretty chuffed!

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  8. Oh, I posted about the yoga dream, too - I'm on a roll today - hello procrastination.....

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  9. Er... OK, I'm either *really* tired today or I've had a major blonde moment. When Anne said "fat pad" I thought she was referring to her bum (hence my reference to women's bosoms)... but... after reading Lew's comment, I'm beginning to think "fat pad" refers to the fleshy part behind your knee? DOH. Gonna read Lew's blog now.

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  10. LOL, yes, the "fat pad" my physio was referring to is the one right below the knee. I sort of wish I did fall on a more cushy fat pad though. I have a feeling the human body has more than a few fat pads.

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  11. oi, sorry about your fall. glad it wasn't worse, like getting your clothes stuck in the machine. i've seen people fall in airport escalators, when ladden with luggage.
    hugs
    Arturo

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  12. fat pad!!!

    ouch! That looks painful. I hate falling because there's the moment of total helplessness.

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  13. There was a case in Singapore where a 5 year old girl had her baby toe RIPPED OFF by an escalator coz her Crocs shoes got caught some how. Lesson learnt: Don't wear Crocs. Haha.

    My left knee's quite sore this morning. It hurts when I walk and I thought it was my misaligned pelvis screwing up the rest of my body again... but I think it's just a bruise from the fall. Can't wait to see my Osteopath later today!

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