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Holy shit… I’ve been meaning to reach out to you. I am about to teach you the most important lesson in Ashtanga - NEVER ignore your body’s warning signs. No matter what your teacher says about ashtanga and “pushing through the pain." Or no matter how much you think things are just “shifting” or “moving.” Pain is pain and that’s your body telling you something is not right. I wish I listened to my own advice…

I have had low back issues for a few years - I’m talking 5 years or so. Pain that comes and goes. It’ll tighten up randomly. But in the last two to three years, I’ve had this weird right hip issue - sometimes sharp pain that radiates down my right leg. Again, comes and goes. I talked to my doctor and I saw a PT. Most of the poses they gave me were actually yoga poses for extension - think cobra, updog, bridge, etc. No forward folding until the pain would subside. I had typical signs of a herniated disk, which the yoga was actually healing. Except, I was doing a few poses that are just no-go poses for herniated disks but the pain would eventually leave so I just went on.

Rewind to Monday, January 5th when my right low back tightened up and the right hip/right leg pain followed. Being the typical old school ashtanga yogi, not to mention a stubborn irish one, I ignored the pain and muscled on. Until the following Wednesday, when after my practice, all the muscles in my low back and hips locked. By Thursday, I was in my ortho’s office ready to do whatever it would take to get rid of the pain. The Xray of my hips came back clean so he made me get an MRI of my spine which showed that I have TWO - not one - TWO herniated disks in my lumbar. Good times, right?!

The cause definitely was not the yoga and to be honest, the yoga is actually what was probably temporarily healing it. Except my practice was so insane that a few of the poses would aggravate my back no doubt and cause the inflammation again. Nuts, right? So he put me on a steroid to reduce inflammation and hopefully that’ll be all I need. Then, I’ll obviously need to adjust my practice to make sure this doesn’t happen again. To be honest, I’m ok with never putting my leg behind my head again!

So there’s your lesson for the day - focus on the breath and do not ignore your body! Oh, and I had to skip the workshop because I literally couldn’t walk this weekend.

Everything good with you?

> On Jan 20, 2015, at 1:49 PM, Hunter Biden <hbiden@rosemontseneca.com> wrote:
>
> Your wknd workshop?
>
> RHB
> 202.333.1880