yoga

Yoga is working its magic again. To be fair, my improved self-esteem could be attributed to several factors. I’m working out at a “regular” (able-bodied) gym and getting stronger. There’s the almost daily meditation keeping me centered. And I’ve been eating healthier (for the most part). Still, there’s no denying it — yoga works wonders for me.

I had an epiphany last week. For the first time in eight years, I didn’t want to be in anyone’s body but my own. Truly. Not that I spend a lot of time wishing I had more physical capabilities than I have — I don’t. At least I think I don’t. I have spent a lot of time comparing. Comparing my body and its abilities with other disabled bodies. (It’s not even close to a fair fight to compare myself to able bodies, so I don’t.) But if comparing is the same thing as wishing, than I confess, I’m guilty of wishing I was disabled in a different way.

For eight years now, I’ve been trying different adaptive sports through Brooks: wheelchair tennis, handcycling, water-skiing, power soccer, rock climbing and horseback riding, just to name a few. The thing about adaptive sports is that they can be adapted to suit most any disability. This doesn’t mean, however, that just anyone can excel at them. For me, with my poor coordination, attempting almost any sport becomes laughable. Good for my spirited sense of humor. Not so good for my confidence.

My bad eyesight and double vision didn’t help matters. But it did help to explain my poor performance. “So you see two balls coming at you?” the manager of the adaptive program asked me on the tennis court.

“Yes,” I replied.

“So how do you know which one to hit?” My problem exactly.

At most sports, particularly those involving a ball, it seemed everyone was better than me. The grass was always greener. The way I saw it, amputees often didn’t have to be in a wheelchair and paraplegics had perfect upper body control. But me? Take my spastic movements, garbled speech and chameleon eyes and it’s not hard to see why I felt like Goofy on the pity-party train to the Magic Kingdom.

Enter Adaptive Yoga, where volunteers help guide our limbs into stretches. Now this I can do! My muscles remember the poses and with a little help, I can still get there. No ball involved. And I don’t feel goofy. Not even a little bit. Yoga teaches me to treasure me. I relish the fact that I can move everything and still have everything. I’m reminded to be grateful that I’m not in pain and don’t need to take medication. Yoga fertilizes my lawn till it looks just as green. Right where I am.

The intention, of course, is not to make anyone feel bad about their own abilities or lack thereof. It’s to remind you that regardless, there’s something out there for you that supports you where you are right now. That makes you feel good about yourself, too. Maybe for you, it’s basketball, or an adaptive sport. Maybe it’s not a sport at all. Maybe you’re a mean knitter. Maybe it’s your mind or your voice and you have some story to tell. It took me eight years, but I’ve found my thing and I’m celebrating it. Find your thing, too.

I’ve been getting into something lately. I should say back into something, because certain things never really leave you. It’s yoga. I’ve had an on again, off again relationship with it for decades, but when I first became disabled it took a definite backseat position in my life. After all, many of the poses were simply not an option for me anymore.

Enter Brooks Adaptive Sports and Recreation Program once again. In this class of non-ambulatory participants, led by instructor Anna Dennis, we get out of our wheelchairs and onto big, thick mats. Volunteers assist us in moving into poses that stretch our tightened limbs. For many of us, it’s the only time of day we’ll leave the cramped confines of our chairs and assume any other position. Shortened hamstrings and hip flexors are lengthened, spines are twisted, rib cages and hearts opened. It’s downright delicious. I’ve written about the Brooks programs before and told you about some new sport I’ve tried (like rock climbing!), but this is different. This is less a “what the hell, I’ll try it” kind of thing and more like coming home.

I think I discovered yoga back in college, at the gym, before even step aerobics was popular. Back then, I liked how pretty the poses looked in the mirror and was encouraged to learn I was naturally flexible. It’s fun to find something you’re good at when you’re not even trying. Yoga’s not supposed to be competitive, but others were impressed. It fed my ego. I went on to become a certified yoga teacher in 2001 and toyed with the idea of instructing others — until I remembered during my first teaching experience that I hate being in front of a class. I was so nervous, both before and during the class, that I could barely remember my sequence of poses, let alone correct anyone on how they were being done. I was in high school all over again with an overdue presentation. I left shaking, and aside from subbing a few classes, that, as they say, was that. I went back to being a student and saving for the latest cute yoga outfit.

Then in 2006, I had the brain hemorrhage. Luckily, my time as a yogi and a massage therapist had impressed upon me the importance of keeping limber and the dangers of prolonged sitting. As soon as I was strong enough to get in and out of the wheelchair, I took to the floor to see what I could still do, what was left of my practice.

Yoga then, was something to be done in the privacy of my own home where I was free to be not so pretty about it. These weren’t perfectly balanced trees or eagles that looked good in the mirror, this was sliding out of my wheelchair like so much dirty laundry to land in an ungraceful heap on the floor.

Over the years, I’ve kept at it — even trying some standing postures in the pool where it’s okay to fall. And passions have a way of bubbling up. I even found yoga during my month in Mexico, just blocks from where I was staying.

Now that I’m back to enjoying yoga in a group setting, I dare say I might have an advantage over some able-bodied yogis. I think real yoga is about the breath. About learning to look inward and settle your gaze there. My hemorrhage took my ego further out of the equation for me. It cured me of any desire to look in the mirror and compare myself and my abilities to those of the rest of my classmates. I turn inward more easily. My breath is different now. The inhales no longer match the exhales, but there is a deeper sense of gratitude for having the breath at all. And a greater compassion for and sense of oneness with my fellow yogis. And isn’t that what yoga is all about?

Amy F. Quincy Author/Freelance Writer

Tag

Find Your Magic

Yogi in the Mirror