YOGA TIP OF THE DAY: TO AVOID INJURY IN YOGA CUT YOUR TOENAILS BEFORE YOU COME TO CLASS !
If you have been practicing Yoga a while you might be familiar with a few of these little common ‘wounds’ that can occur. Tiny bruises on your hip bones from balancing on them in Full Locust (I was very fond of mine, I had them for a year when I started, they do go away). Calluses on your knuckles from standing on hands all the way to the knuckle (minor discomfort, which you get used to). Permanent dry skin patch or callus on chin from chin forward on floor postures. Bruise from pinched skin on top of foot if you havn’t placed your foot properly before going into Fixed Firm (easily avoided).
But there is a lesser known one which I have only just discovered in today’s class (I’ve only been doing this since 1998! 🙂 ); always the beginner eh?. On the sit up for first set of the big seated stretching pose at end, I was in my little Yoga zone (you know how it is) and didn’t check the momentum of the sit up and managed to stab my forehead with my big toenail 🙂 . I was so shocked it threw me completely for the rest of the posture I was all over the shop, my brain kicked in of course “wot, I stabbed myself with my toe”, “that’s a first”, “teeheehee” “Lord, it could have been my eye”, “I hope the skin didn’t tear”, note to self “must cut toenails prior to class”, Oh and “there might be an FB post in this” of course whilst all that is in my head I’m not listening to teach Daz (husband) and setting a fine example by going against grain facing opposite direction to everyone else for sit up and Darren is sighing “there’s always one”…
Seriously ‘tho, take falling out of a posture for instance. We all fall out. Sometime. Hey! Your working really hard and its an ever moving feast ~ your body, the environment. You think when your new you might never nail it. I hear it all the time. But just try, just once to see falling out in a different way, give yourself some brownie points, your working really hard aren’t you? You’re trying aren’t you. That’s why you fell out; because you are trying. hard. If you don’t try, nothing will happen, how dull is that? I’m glad I fell down and picked myself up so many times to get my steady pose in the end, you learn loads doing it this way (and we ALL get there in the end); I’m glad I stabbed my forehead with my bigtoenail today, I learned how not to do that again and to make sure my toenails are trimmer in future! where would the joy/reward be in ‘NAILing’ it first time 🙂 . When you fall out, smile inwardly at yourself, give yourself a break, go “that was a good fall”, have another try.
You gotta grab the funnies and smiles when they crop up in Yoga, they are a gift. If you feel that inner smile, don’t suppress it, let it out, share it or it all gets too serious. It’s highly unlikely that I will ever stab my forehead with my bigtoenail again. But you never know, I might get lucky 🙂
Om Om Om ITS ONLY YOGA 🙂
Namaste ~ Trisha
7/1/14