Frederick

I was reminded of this book when my son wrote that one of the things he was grateful for was color. The story is about a family of field mice preparing for winter. The mice worked hard to gather food and supplies for winter, except one mouse, Frederick. Frederick chose to prepare for winter in another way: gathering sun rays for the cold dark winter days, gathering colors for the gray winter, gathering words for the long winter days.

Once winter hit, the mice happily went through all their supplies, but soon they were cold and without food. The mice asked Frederick about his supplies. He asked the mice to close their eyes while he talked of the golden glow of the warm sun, the vibrant colors of plants and flowers, and shared his words in poetry.

As we experience the Winter Solstice this week, let's remember that we can carry the warmth, vibrancy, and imagination of the other seasons with us. It's also a time to invite more relaxation into our lives.

Sleep

How have you been sleeping?

The quality of my sleep is usually a reflection of my movement that day. Incorporating walking, yoga, or some form of exercise is as fundamental to me as eating food, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Even if I’m relaxed that night, my sleep is disturbed from being sedentary, and I’ll wake up often with pain in my lower back.

Don't forget your practice this busy time of year. Maybe that's just ten minutes of a yoga practice, but it still matters.

Early scoliosis

This is a picture of me at 8 years old. Besides the obvious stage of growing into my adult teeth, I now notice my scoliosis from seeing my uneven shoulders.

School based scoliosis screening isn't as widespread as it once was, and I can't say that it made a difference for me. However, we all have access to much more information and resources, so it's not necessarily a 'wait and see' approach.

It's definitely nice to not travel this road on your own, and connect with someone else who's also living with scoliosis. It was more than 15 years after my spinal fusion when I went to a yoga class with other students who also had scoliosis or a spinal fusion. The experience was emotionally overwhelming, I cried on the ride home after class, but I also felt happy to have found a compassionate community.

I'm very happy to have found yoga on this journey and couldn't imagine my life without the practice.

Be grateful

Be grateful for what you have and resist the energy drain of dwelling on what you don't have.

Neck traction

My neck and upper trapezius muscles were incredibly sore on Sunday. I used a massage wand on these muscles a couple times, and gave a half attempt at using Yoga Tune Up massage balls. My favorite go-to would be an epsom salt bath, but I didn't want to crank my neck in the position necessary for it to be submerged.

After dinner I decided to try this neck traction while resting on the floor. It took a few minutes to fully relax the neck muscles, and ended up giving me the most relief. This prepared my neck to sleep well, and wake up a better neck.

Where would I be without my beloved yoga strap!

Scoliotic patterns

Your yoga practice shouldn't encourage your scoliotic patterns.

In elementary school I remember doing the Adam's Forward Bend Test in the nurse's office to detect scoliosis, and my form was marked as having mild scoliosis. This forward flexion shows the maximum vertebral rotation in order to see asymmetries in the trunk more clearly, such as rib rotation. If this forward bend brings out one's scoliotic patterns, is this a desirable exercise? *Don’t do this test if in pain or with hardware in your back.*

Uttanasana (forward bending pose pictured on the right) is a very common yoga pose that you'll find in most yoga classes. Depending upon the style of the class, this forward fold could easily be done a dozen times or more.

When practicing yoga with scoliosis &/or spinal fusion there are certain poses that aren't beneficial, but may be practiced differently based on your spine. Instead of falling into your scoliotic patterns, practice in a way to encourage spinal lengthening and opening in the torso.

Difference between scoliosis and spinal fusion

What’s the difference between scoliosis and a spinal fusion?

A friend asked me what’s the difference between scoliosis and a spinal fusion. She thought that the fusion was something present at birth. There is a bone disorder in which two or more bones of the cervical vertebrae have fused together. However, a spinal fusion due to severe scoliosis is a surgery that permanently connects two or more vertebrae and eliminates your motion between them. The goal of the surgery is to stop the progression of the sideways curvature of the spine, provide stability, and hopefully reduce pain in some cases. Besides scoliosis, there are numerous other conditions which may lead to a spinal fusion, and these tend to be shorter fusions.

Pictured here is my spine after spinal fusion, and Harrington rods were used to provide stability for my new spine as it fused.

Reflexology

A student gifted me this book recently. She said she had a new appreciation for working on her feet after what she has learned from me. What I love about the practice of yoga is not mastering some challenging pose, but having this new awareness and appreciation of ourselves as a whole being working in unison.

Reflexology is based on the concept of pressure maps, which resemble the shape of a human body and are found on the feet. Every part of the body has a corresponding relex location on the foot.

There are more than 7,000 nerve endings in each foot! Messages travel through these nerve pathways to corresponding parts of the body.

Working on the feet can break down blockages and congestion that occur around nerve endings in order to experience relief.

Guided meditation for children

On Monday night Dash was about to get ready for bed when I asked him if he'd do a guided meditation with me. I can't say how many times I've asked this, but it was the first time that he agreed to do it.

Since my eyes were closed, I didn't know what he was doing, or if he was even listening. At the end, I was pleasantly surprised that he did pay attention, and he started asking me questions. What color did I choose? How he changed his color to be a "happy" color...

Just like encouraging our children to make good food choices, we can keep offering, and one day we may be surprised by the response.

Let's see if he takes me up on my offer next time!

Yoga tune-up balls

What would you do with a yoga studio all to yourself for almost an hour? There's a lot to do, but my first choice was to do self massage on these Yoga Tune Up balls. I massaged my glutes, hips, and pecs. I wish I could say that I get regular massages, but I can work in self massage with these amazing balls!

Pelvic floor

Our pelvic floor is important for many functions and support of the body, but it's not an area that we tend to give much attention to. Strength is an important part of support, but equally important is relaxation.

Psoas

The psoas is a very important muscle that connects your torso to your lower body. It acts as a hip flexor, and plays a strong role in supporting the stability of the low back.

We'll explore these deep muscles in Tuesday 9am Back Health class, and use the breath to soften the grip of the psoas on the spine.

What is scoliosis?

What is scoliosis?

Some of us know very well what scoliosis is, but I do get asked about it.

Scoliosis is a sideways curvature of the spine with vertebral (the small bones that form the spine) rotation, which is visible from the ribs moving. Most cases of scoliosis are idiopathic, which means that there is no definite cause.

The human body is intelligent and learns how to compensate for scoliosis by moving into the path of least resistance. That path will be into the scoliotic curve pattern and rotation, which will bring the body further out of balanced alignment.

Yoga isn't going to cure scoliosis or straighten the spine. However, keeping the back strong and moving while keeping your curve patterns in consideration may help the curves to not progress or possibly improve. Yoga teaches us many approaches that are helpful in managing discomfort or pain.

End of summer

This is the last full week of summer break for our teachers who are returning to the classroom. Let's show our gratitude to all the wonderful teachers in our lives.

My grandparents were high school teachers, and they loved their profession. They always wanted me to go into early childhood education, but that didn't interest me. However, we never know where life may lead us. I now teach yoga, mainly to adults, and homeschool our son who admitted this summer that he likes me being his math teacher. Never say never.

Move in the direction of…

I heard Judith Lasater speak about "moving in the direction of." Our goal in yoga is not to create a certain shape or perfect alignment, but just move in the right direction. Our practice may challenge us at times to not do more, but know when to do less by tuning into our body.

Water

Today I learned that you can lose a pound of water overnight through perspiration and respiration! That's a lot of water, so if you're out much in this summer heat, you especially need to hydrate all during the day.

When our body begins to dehydrate, fluids are pulled from your tissue, which may explain more aches and pains. If you're not in the habit, start your day with a glass of room temperature or warm water (add lemon juice if you like) before eating or drinking caffeine.

Sharing my passion

I'm really excited to share what I'm passionate about: yoga with scoliosis.

Peak summer

The recent heat has been feeling like we're at the peak of summer. Super hot sand at the beach, drinking copious amounts of fluids, eating super ripe tomatoes, and maybe feeling like you need a nap around 3pm.

Change

Do you change your clothes with the seasons?

Do you change your diet with the seasons?

Do you change your movements and exercises with the seasons?

I think change is necessary and healthy. You won’t find me snowboarding or tubing in the winter, nor water skiing in the summer. However, walking is a favorite exercise. I walk all year, but the surface changes. Summer walks in the sand, fall hikes on the trails, bundled up winter walks to beat cabin fever, and spring just feel like the ideal time for most everything.

New t-shirt

I love my new shirt that I ordered from Strength & Spine. What I love even more is being able to connect with fellow scoliosis warriors who teach various forms of movement through yoga, pilates, strength...

When our son was a little over a year old, I started having more back pain from carrying him around. My exercise regime of walking and yoga was not enough for the demands, so I decided to join a gym in order to incorporate strength training. It's been a lot of trial and error to figure out what and how to modify exercises for my scoliosis and spinal fusion. I wish I had someone like Beth from Strength & Spine to lead me from the beginning in order to train safely and effectively.

Finding the right balance of building strength, flexibility, and stability is worth the effort. Most days I have no back pain if I stay consistent with my movement practices while giving equal importance to rest and sleep.