The Yogi is back flying ;)

I should have written this post a long time ago but then the title would have been “The Yogi has landed… badly”.

So this dates back to the great “Flight of the Yogi””-workshop held by the amazing Kathryn Budig. Kathryn came to Helsinki and I had the possibility to attend her two day workshop with arm-balances and inversions. To prepare for the workshop I practised a lots for the handstands as well as many of the arm-balances.

Entering day 1 I was full of energy – ready to take on the world (well at least anything that would come up). So it was a workshop and we go straight to business after a few sun salutations. Starting with basic Bakasana (Crow) and then building up to more difficult poses such as Eka Pada Galavasana (Flying Pigeon) – which I manage correctly for the first time!

Eka Pada Galavasana (shooted now when I can fly again):

The endorfines are rushing in and I start pushing the new more difficult poses with transitions… with power and with ego + not warmed up properly and already exhausted from the previous moves. “I must do this, I must show that I can do this”.. ending up trying transitions like Mayurasana (Peacock Pose) to Eka Pada Koudinyasana II. Then I hear a sligh crunching sound from my left shoulder, feel huge pain and drop to the floor and like everyone normally would do… continue doing more difficult moves (with pain for sure).

Luckily it’s at the end of the class so I don’t manage to hurt myself more. When I walk to my car the pain hits.. and it hits hard. Can’t turn the wheel with my left arm, need to stop at my own gym on my way home to pick up some ice-packs. Then to the doctors.. luckily nothing is broken, seems like my shoulder has popped a bit out from the socket.

It took me 1,5 months before I could do a single push-up. It took over 2 months before I could do basic Bakasana.. and almost 3 months before I was back doing most of the arm-balances – and I even didn’t break anything on my shoulder..

What can we learn from this?

• Always prepare yourself well before doing new or difficult stuff – warm-up properly at your own time if it is not possible within the workshops timeframe
• Leave your ego home – it doesn’t work by forcing it, the poses will come when the time is right
• Know when you are exhausted – that is not the time to do the most difficult things
• Always focus heavily on the correct technique and how to build the positions – this has been a process for me during my recovery, now I focus much more on the correct way of doing things rather than using just power to build up the poses

So on the next day I was just watching others doing the inversions, made tons of notes and learned a lot by just watching. Kathryn was really really nice to me, she took genuine intrest on my accident, offered things to heal it and even cookies to make me feel better!

In the end I got to make an interview for a Finnish Jooga-site Himajooga.com, check it out: