Restorative Yoga for Sports Fitness, Healing, Durability, and Rejuvenation: my personal story, by Steve Bickel the director of MyYogaVideo.com

By: Steve Bickel

About 9 years ago my stress levels had been increasing slowly. Computer project deadlines always seemed to happen faster than I expected. Managers in the software industry regularly underestimate the effort required. Why is that? An internal time estimation malfunction? I am not sure but it was happening again and with the impending separation from my girl friend the stress was slowly building. I thought I had a good solution to it all. I would simply increase my weekly running mileage from 20 to 25 miles, throw in a few hills, and it would be smooth sailing. In the past a bit more exercise seemed to work well.
One day I ran halfway up the 600 ft Mount Soledad in La Jolla, Ca, turned around and started back down. It was always fun running down except that morning was a little different. The extra mileage had been building stiffness into my hips, low back, and hamstrings and I had been busy. Too busy to slow down and stretch like I wanted to. On the way down I stepped off a curb in an ordinary way and planted my foot â€¦ Ouch! Now there were tingling pains shooting down my left leg. I stopped, evaluated my leg a little and thought, â€œNo biggie, I can stretch this out when I get home. I have felt this kind of thing pain before.â€, so I walked a mile or so back home, stretched a little bit and went to work which meant 6-8 hour in a chair. All day long I had a low level dull ache in my left hip. â€œNot too badâ€ I thought, â€œIâ€™ll stretch more over the next few days and it will be fine.â€ But by the end of the week my hip muscles were still tight and there was some nerve pains that were distracting.
I decided to rest it well and really stretch. I knew all the muscles, Hamstrings and Glutes â€¦ they were all involved and I would just spend the extra time to stretch them just like the athletic trainers had shown me. I would put the extra time into the stretching that I was not allowing because of my busy schedule and everything would be fine right? Well, the next few years of my life would be dramatically different. I would not exercise regularly and I had low back pain during my long days of sitting in an office chair.
I was in my mid thirties and things were getting stiffer. For years I had a minimalist stretching routine, a regular exercise schedule, and I was spending long hours in a chair. It did not seem like a â€œreallyâ€ big deal; the big Ouch!, but that pain was sitting on top of a mountain of muscular tension that I was mostly unaware of. For years I was not doing any deep stretches. I was only doing quick stretches that I thought athletes should do. I did the stretches I liked before I had to hurry off to work or to dinner or anywhere else. I did not do any long slow stretches. Just like most people who donâ€™t stretch enough I had been slowly increasing my muscular tightness in the legs, hips, and back and slowly decreasing my strength in the core abdominals muscles. I simply did not know about the tiny spasms that occur for everyone in deep stabilizing muscles. I was getting tighter and tighter in certain muscles and weak and weaker in others which is a recipe for disaster.
For a full year following the big â€œOuch!â€ I stopped running, increased my stretching routine, visited chiropractors, got MRI scans, got foot supporting orthotics for my shoes, adjusted my chair posture, tried some acupuncture, and took plenty of Ibuprofen. Things got better but were never right. I had a chronic postural issue.
Eventually I decided to try a yoga class that I had been to years before. Fortunately for me it was a class taught by Rama Birch the founder of the Yoga Alliance. The Yoga Alliance creates the standards for certified yoga teachers nationwide. Rama is a very wise yoga teacher. Her conviction and experience were amazing to me. I told her about my dilemma and she said something like, â€œWell, I saw you walking across the room and your spine is all locked up. You need to unwind your spine. Itâ€™s going to take some time.â€ I thought to myself, â€œgeez, my spine is locked up, hmmm; I can touch my toes and get my legs into a semi lotus position.â€ I had even done extra stretching the month before class so how could I be that locked up?
I started taking classes and did the extra homework that Rama suggested. For a one hour a day for a few months I did this: 1, the chair forward bend (head hanging between the knees), 2, the seated cross legged forward bend for both legs (in a chair, ankle on opposite knee and fold forward), #3, kneeling lunge for both legs (knee on the ground and opposite foot out in front and bring the front leg to vertical), 4, lying stomach twist both sides (lying on your side you look like your in a chair with you head looking the opposite way of your knees). I added a few more yoga poses and some abdominal exercises given to me by a chiropractor that also helped relieve the small muscle spasms and tightness. Slowly over time my spine released. The pains started disappearing and a few months later there were significant changes that allowed me to jog a bit and go dancing. After awhile I was taking regular Vinyasa yoga classes at the gym I had joined. I was going to yoga every other day and feeling great. I was jogging 1 mile a day and cycling a lot.
I lived this way for a few years and I was doing ok but it was never really enough. I was more restricted than I wanted to be by the pain that was waiting if I did too much. I wanted an exercise level that made me feel alive. I wanted to feel really healthy. Every time I tried to increase my running mileage the pains would come back and linger throughout my day. I tried to work out the pains in the Vinyasa yoga classes and that helped but not enough.
Rama retired from teaching and started working on the Yoga Alliance all the time so I made it my goal to find another yoga teacher. I wanted a teacher trained by Rama because I sensed that I needed to release the deeper muscles that Rama would talk about. I found Skyler Myers at yoganic studio and I started taking her bliss classes (restorative yoga). After several months my body started changing on a deeper level. I was slowly releasing more of the years of bound up tension from deep within my spine, tailbone, hips, hamstrings etc. With these classes I was doing a larger variety of yoga poses and I was discovering new poses that I needed to add to my regular routine. After many months of yoga with Skyler I started running a few miles at a time again without any difficulties. I was gliding like a gazelle as if I was still in my early 20s. Everything started getting easier. My stress level was dropping and the 2-3 colds I used to get per year were now either mild or not happening at all.
I was thrilled and one day I decided to share my enthusiasm for deeper yoga with the world. I borrowed a friendâ€™s video camera and created a yoga DVD with a few friends. After struggling and learning a lot I purchased a few more cameras and other equipment. Over the next couple of years we produced several yoga DVDs spending many hours waiting for nice sunsets and just the right tides (beauty was very important to us). I am especially fond of the Therapeutic and Restorative yoga DVDs because it had helped me so much. The DVDs are for sale online at Amazon.com and at MyYogaVideo.com Search for myyogavideo on Amazon.
Over the years I have tried many styles and teachers of yoga. My deeper healings happened by really slowing down and paying close attention. I also needed to try different things, experiment with positions, and find out what it was like to really relax into a pose. Without restorative yoga I doubt I would have discovered what my body needed. In regular types of yoga classes there simply was not enough relaxation. My mind did not slow down enough and release the deeper muscles. There are so many muscles in the body and these muscles store tension in layers. Some muscles like those in and around the coccygeal nerve need to release before you can get a good release in the sciatic nerve area, the piriformis. And to do this you need to find out if they are tight. Right now can you feel whether the muscles in and around your tailbone are tight? It is a feeling thing that takes time, patience, and the right poses with a possibility of deep relaxation.
The DVD projects were gaining momentum and as they progressed it became important to me to create DVDs that would help yogis move deeper into their practice. When I practiced yoga it was not always helpful to hear the instructor talking. I liked it when her instruction was directed at what she saw in me that helped me explore my body but often she was saying things that distracted me from noticing the deep subtle muscles and my breath. I needed to escape the mental nature of the instructorâ€™s voice. This type of mental chatter is almost always present on DVDs where the instructor is talking about alignment and it is there every time you play it. So we created a series of Vinyasa Yoga DVDs where you can choose how detailed the instruction is. You can also choose the music that inspires you, that helps you go beyond the mind, or choose no music or no detailed instruction. And we tried to make them beautiful to inspire you further.
The DVDs can be found at MyYogaVideo.com
I hope you enjoy them
Namaste,