tolasana

[Guest guest]

I have a student who has a particular problem

when doing tolasana. She says she has wrist problems,

and that it hurts her wrist doing tolasana with her

hands flat. She gets around this problem by propping up

her hand with her thumb, such that the palm of her

hand is not on the floor, only the top half of her

thumb and her fingers are on the floor. <br><br>I would

think this would put undue stress on her thumb and with

time may cause damage.<br><br>Any thoughts or

suggestions?<br><br>Thanks

[Guest guest]

have her stop immediately!!!!!!!she will destroy

her hands this way, if she hasn't begun to already. I

know a massage therapist with lots of wrist problems

who does ashtanga practice with hands in fists -

perhaps your student can try this for tolasana, check out

her form in down dog and other poses to see what

she's doing to her wrists, also if you checked out Maty

Ezraty's article in last month's Y Journal, she says the

ashtanga practice is contridindicated for people with

carpal-tunnel issues, so keep tabs on how your student does,

anyone have this experience themselves??

[Guest guest]

<Any thoughts or suggestions?><br><br>quit teaching! no offense but if you

don't know this very basic point about tolasana then you are not qualified to

teach! quit before you hurt someone.

[Guest guest]

Don't put weight on tripoding fingers....<br>I learned this the hard way.

[Guest guest]

I have some input here...absolutely check her

hands in other poses first. How long has she been

practicing? Perhaps she is newer...I'm sure you are

emphasizing the proper hand placement in other poses, i.e.

pressing with the fingers, knuckles, etc, rather than just

the heel of the hand, etc...also, I have a carpal

tunnel success story in myself - had it bad with my

first two pregnancies and had to stop my practice - at

least the hand balancing poses, and now, I am on my

third pregnancy, and have been the most consistent with

my practice in the past two years, and so far, at 6

months PG, I am still symptom free. Yay! I also no

longer have to ask hubby to open any jars for me - I am

like Popeye from the elbow down, but love my strength!

And I have a most excellent tushie, like FBL, so

I suppose I have quite the look goin' on!

Anyway, hope this helps...Astangamama

[Guest guest]

I would agree with the others that the tripod

position (using the thumb) is probably not a good thing.

My teacher stressed this long ago. I have also heard

of an advanced teacher who used her fists instead of

flat palms for a while when she had some wrist

problems. The mention of Maty's article caused me to dig it

up and read it. I saw it but had forgotten about it.

Excellent article in the current (JAN/FEB 2002) YJ,

probably still on the stands. She breaks down the "pick-up

and jump-back" vinyasa in great detail. She says it

took her 8 years to get it. The way I read it, she is

not saying that Ashtanga is contraindicated for

anyone with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), but that the

pick-up and jump-back sequence is contraindicated. Many

in the yoga community may say that Ashtanga is not

appropriate for those with wrist or hand problems, and this

may be true. But hopefully most teachers will find

ways to help anyone who wants to work on the practice.

This is an example of why there is no

"one-size-fits-all" and the series may need to be modified for some

people. In my opinion, yoga in general is the "cure" for

such problems. But if the yoga practice is not

modified to suit the needs of the individual, then it can

make things worse instead of better. I have many ideas

for people with hand problems here:

<a href=http://www.ionet.net/~tslade/hands.htm

target=new>http://www.ionet.net/~tslade/hands.htm</a><br>I am not a teacher, an

advanced practicioner, or a

doctor, just someone with some "hand issues" trying to

figure things out. The main recommendation I have for

anyone with any hand problems is to get this book:

Conquering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Other Repetitive

Strain Injuries by Sharon Butler. Though the word yoga

does not appear in the book, it can be seen as a

textbook on specialized yoga for hand

problems.<br><br>Also, my teacher would show people that they can take

some of the weight off in Tolasana by keeping one foot

on the ground. For some reason it is actually a lot

easier if you can get into lotus or half-lotus and lift

it all up, but it may also be useful to take the

weight down. And of course, if Tolasana is hurting the

wrists, then many other postures are probably making

things worse also. I had to stop Ashtanga a couple of

years ago when my wrists made it difficult to do many

postures. After exploring many other approaches and making

some progress, I have been working back towards

Ashtanga.

[Guest guest]

astangamama, i had the same reprieve from wrist pain during pregnancy, but then

it came back afterward -- all those nice hormones went away . . .

[Guest guest]

When I started doing formal yoga classes, I had a

chronic wrist problem that had resulted from many years

of playing cello. No doctor was ever able to figure

out what was wrong exactly, but during flare-ups it

would hurt so bad I could hardly move it, and I

eventually developed a huge, foreboding knot over it. My

yoga teacher at that time was a 73 year-old woman

who'd been trained in Iyengar and Kripalu (at the time

there weren't any ashtanga teachers here), and after

about two months of classes my wrist pain went away,

along with the aforementioned lump. So I definitely

think that you can do yoga with wrist/hand problems, if

not heal them completely. But as with anything

anatomical in nautre, it's just a matter of finding the

right approach. I've been doing ashtanga for about a

year now and have had no recurring wrist issues; in

fact, my wrists are stronger than they've ever been.

But everyone's body is different. I think if I were

still having problems I'd talk to an ashtanga teacher

or teachers who had some Iyengar experience (I know

Catherine and David Garrigues are training under Aadil

Pankhivala and probably have a lot of information they would

be willing to share, as just one example). The yoga

community is full of great resources -- even if other

people find them to be crim, it's better to make use of

them, even temporarily, than to lose your practice

entirely to a preventable injury.

[Guest guest]

hi<br>hope i am not repeating what someone else

already said- i just skimmed over the lenthy tolasana

posts.<br><br>You know the purple lightweight yogablocks? Those

guys make a wedge shape prop. Place the wedge with the

fat side under the wrist. It reduces the angle of the

wrist and for some eliminates the pain. These wedges

are long so your student can order one and trim it to

size for two wedges and there will be some left over.

[Guest guest]

Try to do it on your five fingertips. But take care to keep every joint

straight.<br><br>Got this from the Chinese shaolin monks and I enjoy the firm

grip it gives :-)

[Guest guest]

:-)<br><br>Was just joking.<br>I'm dealing with

wrist problems since several months, having reduced my

practice to the suns by now.<br>My impression is, that my

problems come from misalignement of arm, shoulder and

shoulderblades and I'm working on that.

[Guest guest]

Dirk Drollinger,<br><br>Why don't you add the

standing postures to your current routine, since I can't

see how doing the standing poses could affect your

wrist problems in a negative way. All the asanas from

the standing sequence are *very* important, and just

doing the suns won't be enough.

[Guest guest]

Excellent suggestion from shining_skull. I would

even take that farther and do the standing postures

instead of the salutations. The standing postures

actually help to reallign shoulders, arms, etc, even

though they mainly work on the legs (which also

"indirectly" affect allignment of back, neck, shoulders, etc).

Whereas the salutations can be rough on problem wrists.

Sometimes I have reduced the salutations to just the first

couple of movements - bringing the hands over the head

and then folding into uttanasana, and some time in

downward dog. You can spend a lot of time exploring

stretches just in the movement of bringing the arms over

the head.

[Guest guest]

Hi Shining Skull,<br><br>unfortunately the

biggest problem aren't the wrist problems but to find the

balance between job, family and yoga.<br>Presently, I

have to work much and although Yoga always helps me

getting better, I'm not able getting up early to practise

most of the time.<br>But as you and TL have suggested,

I will try the standings.<br><br>Thank you for

caring anyway.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the discussion.<br><br>This was the

student's first time doing Ashtanga, but she was doing

advanced stuff. So the next time we paid a little more

attention. The other asanas that bothered her wrists wer

Purvottanasana and Urdhva Dhanurasana. No surprise. <br><br>She

then recalled that as a child, she injured her wrists

which caused calcium deposits to form on the back (the

lunate or thereabouts).<br><br>Using her fists works

well for her in Tolasana and Purvottanasana.

[Guest guest]

Hi Dirk,

the human body also need to rest (to sleep). I just try to research

this item of sleeping/rest/practice, but no sattisfying solution till

now. Only: even the sleep in the early morning (let's say 5 a.m., 6

a.m.) is important for the recreation of the day before. If you go to

practice at this time there is a break in this recreation. But may be

that's wrong, I don't know. Lu

[Guest guest]

LU

Roger Cole is a renowned yoga teacher in solana beach and a sleep

scientist. You might drop by one of his classes (tuesday at the North

County Yoga Center near Encinitas and san diego. You might find it

interesting to talk to him. He is an Iyengar teacher.

 

ashtangayoga, lu_38_de <no_reply> wrote:

> Hi Dirk,

> the human body also need to rest (to sleep). I just try to research

> this item of sleeping/rest/practice, but no sattisfying solution

till

> now. Only: even the sleep in the early morning (let's say 5 a.m., 6

> a.m.) is important for the recreation of the day before. If you go

to

> practice at this time there is a break in this recreation. But may

be

> that's wrong, I don't know. Lu