My body and I have been having an intimate conversation for nearly 20 years. It speaks, I listen. I ask, it complies.
This dialogue has allowed me to move seamlessly through a Sun Salutation, to balance with ease, to hold a steady plank, to nail the odd–often assisted–handstand. It enabled me to run, warned me when I needed to back off, and encouraged me when it was safe to push forward.
We spoke the same language, with the same inflection and accent. We laughed at the same jokes. We were afraid of the same threats.
Then, the interloper arrived.
In June 2018 I had a total hip replacement.
Beginning Again
Recovery from this surgery–during which they basically cut your leg off and put it back together with titanium and ceramic parts–was much more challenging than I had anticipated. Every doctor and physical therapist told me I’d breeze through this because, well, all the Yoga, all the mind-body awareness.
Hardly.
I was unable to stomach the big pain pills, so I managed only on Extra Strength Tylenol. That meant learning to walk again hurt my hip and leg and drained my energy.
I was desperate to feel better so two days after surgery, I returned to my Yoga practice. The first pose was a modified Downward Facing Dog with my hands on the frame of a walker and my butt pushed back a mere four inches. About a week later I made my first attempt to get down onto my mat.
This is the part where you expect me to say that it felt like coming home, that through all the pain and stupor and struggle, I realized my Yoga practice was still inside me.
That’s not how this story goes.
Translation
Most of my body responded well. It remembered and eased into that first posture and all the others that followed–including the really ugly, uncoordinated ones. The new hip, however, was like an alien living inside me. It spoke a totally different language.
When I spoke, it didn’t listen. It didn’t even know how to listen. When my hip gave directions, I had no idea how to follow them.
That intense mind-body relationship I had developed didn’t work on this hunk of metal. I wasn’t sure how it articulated. I couldn’t tell a dangerous movement from a safe one. I didn’t know how far to go into a stretch, how long to hold a pose or even IF I should be holding the pose.
It reminded me of a traveling to Norway or Germany, where I had to gesture and mime to converse. And, just like during those trips, the response I gave to my incoherent hip was, “Excuse me, what?”
To communicate with this implant I needed to find some common ground. You know those sayings about music, or a smile, being a universal language? I needed that. But I didn’t find it where I had expected. It wasn’t in the Warrior Poses. It wasn’t in the down dog. It wasn’t even in my beloved Staff Pose.
It was in the breath.
Communication
Breathing was our smile, our music. When I stripped my Yoga practice down to itty bitty pieces and focused on breath instead of body shape, the lines of communication opened. I began with the smallest movement, the slightest hint of a crescent lunge. Then I’d stop. And breathe. And listen. Then, I had to do it over and over again, to make sure we really understood each other.
It probably looked ugly and stilted and gangly. It didn’t matter because eventually I began to feel where the edges were drawn and where the articulation began and ended. I could imagine my muscles growing into the metal stem in my femur, could feel the nerves coming alive again.
My body finally welcomed the newcomer home by engulfing it in my tissue. And the stranger in my body finally began speaking in a way I could hear and understand.
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Theresa Conroy completed her studies with Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy in 2008 and opened Yoga On The Ridge, a Philadelphia studio offering therapeutic and standard Yoga classes. In 2013, she graduated from Inner Peace Yoga Therapy, where she continues to work as a Mentor to Yoga Therapists-in-training. She also is certified in Pain Care Yoga and Curvy Yoga, and trained in Adaptive Yoga for Disabilities. She trains other Yoga Teachers and Therapists in Teaching Yoga for Parkinson’s Disease, Teaching Yoga for Special Populations, and Teaching Yoga for Neurological Disorders.
In 2017, she opened Theresa Conroy Yoga Therapy, a specialized practice offering Yoga Therapy in private sessions and small group classes. Find her on her website, YogaforParkinsons.com, Facebook & Twitter.