NEMESIS YOGA: What To Do Until The Cortisone Kicks In

If you haven't had a yoga injury that sidelines your fave - at the moment - pose then it sounds like you're not trying hard enough. Get back in there and crush that sucker.

Jokin' aside, yoga injuries are a reality for us goal oriented westerners. Now don't go gettin' on your yogic moral high horse about Ahimsa (non-violence - to the self included) and other yogic principles.

We are westerners, and it's gonna take a while for this yoga stuff to sink in. Plus, we have a whole culture working against us. The folks in India, back in the day, weren't gettin' bombarded with advertisements 24/7. So give us a break. Whatever.

Where were we? Ah, yes, you've injured yourself doing your fave yoga move...so what are you gonna practice now? You guessed it...your most hated yoga pose aka...

NEMESIS YOGA

Nemesis yoga is usually the way your body doesn't want to bend. For us bros it's usually hip opening or back bending, with our fave yoga revolving around strength poses like arm balances.

Sure there's other things to practice while you are recovering, but that is 'the stuff in the middle' which is B...O...R...I...N...G...pasty vanilla yoga. Yuck.

Here's how you turn the negative of practicing nemesis yoga in a positive...

You know how pissed you are, that that press handstand, that was coming along nicely, thank you very much, is now sidelined - until the cortisone kicks in. Well take that ball of negative energy and sick it onto your nemesis yoga.

Remember when you were younger and your boy/girlfriend broke up with you? And then you re-wrote  that break up in your mind, so it was the other person's fault? Same yogic principle applies here...

Rewrite the injury in your mind, so that nemesis yoga was the cause of your injury. This will help you focus that anger onto nemesis yoga.

And notice how we used the word 'focus', in that last sentence, which is very yogic of us. So we must be doing it right. This will give you the motivation to attack nemesis yoga.

After a couple of weeks of focusing on nemesis yoga, things start to loosen up a bit, and it becomes less nemesis. Which is good...

...good that a couple of weeks are up, not that nemesis yoga is getting better (who give a flying fig about that).

The GOOD news is that your injury is gettin' better and you can start getting back into the good yoga. Woo hoo.

Kirk out.