Be gentle with knees! Photo by Marco Verch
by Kara-Leah Grant
My knees ache.
They have been since about April of this year – about three months into a regular Mysore-style Ashtanga practice, two or three times a week. I also do a regular home practice of vinyasa, prana-led asana (slow and steady), meditation and pranayama.
I’ve been able to do Half Lotus for some years now, including Standing Bound Half Lotus (without the forward fold).
I have never had any prior knee issues or pain. Although my grandmother (maternal side) and mother have both had knee reconstructions.
In April, when this knee pain kicked in (directly after a Yin practice with long holds in Half Pigeon), my inclination was to regard it was ‘just part of the process’.
I was also concerned that poor alignment in any of the Half Lotus postures could be aggravating my knee. I started paying even more attention to how I was folding my knee, the alignment of my hip and how I was folding forward.
My teacher, Peter Sanson, often reminded me to stop wrenching myself into place – which surprised me. I didn’t think I was doing that at all. but still, he would tell me;
“Gently, gently.”
During my Ashtanga practice, there wasn’t any pain as such, it was just that my body didn’t seem to want to take the same shapes anymore. I went from binding with ease and folding forward into Standing Bound Half Lotus to not being able to bind, to not being able to fold forward, to not being able to even bring my knee into Half Lotus.
The posture completely slipped away from me. What was I doing wrong?
Plus, usually I can sit in Half Lotus for 30 minute plus meditations but found I couldn’t even sit cross-legged and had to prop myself up.
Part of me had a sense that my hips were being asked to open more than they ever had before and there was energy getting ‘stuck’ at my knees, which was causing the stiffness and pain. If I could just allow my hips to open up, my knees would be fine. If I could just release the way I was unconsciously ‘holding’ at my knees, they would be fine.
Curious about this I played around in my prana-led practice doing small-barely-at-all movements that mostly focused on sitting with one leg bent, a hand on that knee and breathing through the hip and the knee allowing it to soften and release. I found this helped enormously.
Peter had left for seven weeks right about the time I realised I needed to talk to him about what was going on. Somehow though, I never found the space or right moment in the yoga room – it was still, quiet and focused with little discussion about this or that.
In his absence, struggling more and more with stiffness, I asked one of his assistant teachers, explaining I was having trouble with my knees.
“That happens sometimes.”
At the time, I took that as a good enough answer – I attributed my knee pain experience to blocked prana and kept working as mindfully as I could.
Yet it still niggled at me. I was still worried – I love my knees and I don’t trust the process enough to just keeping working through pain.
Finally, I discovered something that stopped the pain in it’s tracks. I didn’t do any Ashtanga for about two or so weeks as I was away in Bali on retreat. While I was still practicing yoga, there weren’t all the half-bound Lotus movements and my knees felt almost back to normal.
Almost – but not. While I could sit cross-legged for meditation again, sitting in half Lotus wasn’t an option anymore.
Taking a break from Ashtanga felt good but I also missed the practice and the teaching. Peter usually corrected my alignment in Standing Bound Half Lotus – shifting the placement of my hip. It felt much better when he did that, but for whatever reason, I could never grasp the felt sensation of where he was putting me.
That he made this adjustment suggested my knee pain was coming from bad alignment.
Earlier this month I moved down to Wellington and started Mysore at Te Aro Ashtanga with Mike Berghan. Again, I had a two week break in the move, which helped my knees. Starting back in, I hit the wall again at Standing Bound Half Lotus. It’s become my nemesis as I attempt to find a way to safely work with the posture without skipping it entirely.
Back when I was getting the bind and folding forward I was feeling all kinds of releases through my hip, lumber and thoracic spine. It felt like medicine for my body and I was revelling in it.
Now I can’t even approach it. This is difficult – I want to be where I was and yet know I must accept where I am.
The first session with Mike he sat with me on Seated Bound Half Lotus and gently showed me how to roll on to the outside of my hip . I finally realised what I’d been doing wrong with the alignment of my hip through all the Lotus postures.
I’d been missing the scoop down and under and toward the other leg of the hip, which results in bringing the bent knee toward the other leg, rather than out on a 45 degree angle.
This care and attention from Mike helped enormously. Now I knew how to work with the hip better. Likely that movement wasn’t even available to me six months ago because of the extraordinary tightness of my lumber spine and pelvis.
Unfortunately, after four Ashtanga session in two weeks, I hit the mat today and my knees were just stiff. Not pain as such – but stiff.
In Standing Half Bound Lotus I felt like crying because I couldn’t even figure out how to approach it. Even all the hip tucking in the world and gentleness with my ankle and knee didn’t change the fact that it felt like I was going to break my knees by bringing my foot anywhere near my groin.
And I don’t want to break my knees
I’m not interested in pushing through the pain, or getting to some fabled place that could take years.
I’m on the mat to love myself and my body as it is.
So I gave up. I flexed my ankle so I could be sure that the knee was as protected as possible, and allowed that ankle to sit down just above my knee.
This made binding impossible and the hip tuck almost impossible too. But my knee felt safe. From this position, it was impossible for me to fold forward and get my hands on the ground, so I didn’t. I tiled forward, engaging my core and rested my hands lightly on my thighs for some support.
Seated Half Bound Lotus has been slightly easier over the past few months. Sure, I was binding and folding forward with ease, and now I don’t, but I could still get into the Lotus at least. Not today.
Maybe it was because my head was full of thoughts about my knees – I was worried. Why? I’ll say it again:
I don’t trust the process. I don’t trust what we’re actually doing in asana because I’ve read of too may injuries even in experienced practitioners who are mindful in their approach. I was afraid.
Maybe this was blocking me. Maybe this was making me stiff. Maybe. Or maybe I was applying discernment to my process.
At Seated Half Bound Lotus I made a decisions to ‘fuck the process and do whatever it took to look after my knees’. As I made that decision, I felt hot tears well up inside me. Ah… now I know what these particular tears are. They’re shame.
This feeling, it’s shame.
I felt ashamed that I couldn’t do the practice, I felt ashamed that my body is not good enough – that I’m not good enough.
There was a sense that because I can’t do this, I won’t attain the Golden Fleece as such… that I won’t be loved.
I felt all of this rise and I could see into the heart of it and I allowed it to be as I continued on in the practice, slow and mindful and ever protective of my knees.
At Marichyasana B I paused and considered. This posture has been attainable for me the past six months, but I didn’t want to force my knee into it. Instead, I took the Half Lotus aspect and placed one hand on my bent knee and breathed there, allowing prana to guide my hip in small tidal motions – in and out, in and out, in and out.
I wasn’t doing Ashtanga anymore, I was back in my home practice which is prana-led. Surrendering to this organic flow of the body I made my way through Marichyasana C and toward D. Again, I started slow on the Lotus knee. Usually Mike adjusts me into this posture and I’ve been making good headway in releasing tension around the back of the pelvis.
Today he just looked at me and said:
Gently, gently.
I felt seen and understood it that moment – that is was ok to look after myself and my knees. That I wasn’t opting out, I wasn’t weak, I wasn’t shirking… I was simply caring for myself.
On my way out the door Mike nodded at me:
Great practice. Really good today – you were gentle with yourself.
Maybe so, and yet I’ve also touched the core of something. There’s tears in my eyes as I write this now. This giving up and accepting myself where I am – being gentle and accepting – it’s like shedding a skin.
Yet in Ashtanga there is this idea that we practice through pain as the body makes itself new. Witness this article on Rebelle Society by Anne Finstad: The House of Pain Ashtanga Yoga
After seven years of practice, my knees stopped hurting. And as people will tell you or you can see if someone sticks with the practice over time and through these things, the body is made new.
Seven years of knee pain? Really?
But there’s other articles out there which take a different perspective – the kind of article I wish I’d read before I started my Ashtanga practice. While I knew to flex the foot to protect the knee, I didn’t know that this also helped engage the muscles of the leg and should be done even when the foot isn’t going to be flexed in the posture.
My advice for yogis entering poses with external rotation of the hip and knee bent, and particularly for Ashtangis, would be to bend your knee fully and engage the muscles along the entire length of the leg –- i.e. flex (dorsiflex) your foot with toe spread — before entering a full pose that requires hip external rotation. ~ Yoga Injury & Safety: Ashtanga & the Knee
It’s not an instruction I’ve ever heard from any of my teachers either – which is not to say they haven’t given it, just that I didn’t hear it. Plus, all the Ashtanga I’ve done has been Mysore so there’s been little alignment instruction.
Unfortunately, that kind of care of the knees and acknowledgement of how we can practice more wisely is not held by all teachers.
Some have this kind of attitude:
Forgive me but I don’t care about your pain, small or large, because it is infinitely tiny and nothing at all compared to the possibilities for healing that are right in front of you. ~ David.
You know what? Screw that too. Pain is an indication that something needs to be taken care of and those kind of dismissive statements shame students who are experiencing pain.
Like me.
Even worse, now that I’m doing research on knees and pain, I’ve realised that I didn’t know how to optimally enter any Half Lotus posture in a safe manner. Just knowing that might have protected my knees more.
********
After writing this article, I hit the yoga room determined to care for my knees. I even brought a small towel to place rolled up under my knee joint when the leg is bent, experimenting with creating space in the joint.
Mike came over to adjust me in Marichyasana C. As he helped me move into position he said:
You’re doing all the right things to manage the pain but don’t let it distract you. Keep the focus on Mula Banhda and creating heat to burn away the tightness and emotions on the back of your pelvis.
It was an astute observation.
In a flash I saw the middle ground – I saw how we can become identified and distracted by the pain we’re experiencing and let it take us away from what we’re doing on the mat. This is as unfortunate as completely ignoring the pain and breaking our bodies because we hold fixed ideas about the magic of the process.
Somewhere in the middle lies discernment.
Somewhere in the middle lies wisdom.
Somewhere in the middle lies our yoga practice.
Here we neither identify with the pain nor give our power away to the practice. We hold firm and steady but with ease, exploring our bodies through breath and movement.
My knees don’t hurt during the day anymore.
I can sit cross-legged again and when warmed up I can safely enter and sit in Half Lotus.
More than this though, I can sense where the tightness is around my pelvis that needs to let go and I know how to bring my awareness to that place.
Best of all, I’m not going to break my knees for the practice.
Interesting. – you had a good practice and then why did you change it into another (Ashtanga) practice? It seems like you were adding a lot of confusion. Why is that?
The process was teaching too but still… Why?
Glad you’re oke,
Like your site and bio!
Anneke
Hey Anneke,
I added Mysore-style Ashtanga classes to my practice because that is where I finally found a teacher I wanted to study with. I didn’t change my practice into another – I added another element. As my practice is mostly Vinyasa Flow, generally Prana-led and sometimes sahaja (spontaneous arising asana), Ashtanga Mysore-style fits right in. It’s the same family you might say, applied differently. The big thing for me was going from having a totally home practice to consistently working with a great teacher. This was huge. No matter how tuned in and sensitive I was in my home practice, there’s still many things that a teacher could offer that I don’t get working by myself. This is the attraction of the Ashtanga practice – not so much the particular method, although I do see value in that as well – but the teacher.
I’m not sure where you get the idea that I’m adding confusion. Can you clarify? Or what you mean by “The process was teaching too but still… Why?”
It is interesting how so many of us yogis and yoginis are experiencing so much of the same pain and discomfort that you describe in your practice, particularly as we age. Having practiced for some 40 years, I have found that during and after any true Yoga samadhi or higher state of consciousness, that your posture or asana has little bearing on the true Yogic state. My first early samadhi was during a painful yogic posture, which receded into the farthest distance of my mind once I experienced the blossoming of my heart and discovered my true center of being. But that experience had zero to do with Hatha Yoga, my focus at the time. That experience was only setup by the posture, and had everything to do with transcending the physical.
There is no need to despair when there is physical discomfort or pain with our physical body. It is natural for us to experience a gradual moving of our focus from the physical to the more subtle, our core spiritual nature, especially as we realize the disappointment of continuing to invest in just our physical body.
After all, isn’t Yoga defined by Patanjali as “Yogaś citta vritti nirodhaḥ” which is classically defined as “Yoga is the restraint of mental modifications”? With the proper steadiness of mind, one transcends the imperfect physical body, even when the body is in pain. I like Swami Venkatesananda’s description of that Yogic state: “Yoga happens when there is stilling (in the sense of continual and vigilant watchfulness) of the movement of thought– without expression or suppression – in the indivisible intelligence in which there is no movement.” That state of exquisite peacefulness can be experienced on one’s knees, on one’s back, or even in a wheelchair.
The result of calmly witnessing your discomfort in an asana or posture can be to peacefully adjust one’s physical body out of the posture, modify your practice to avoid the continued pain, the realization that the posture or asana attainment is not the attainment of Yoga consciousness, and even the ability to transcend your physical limitations to achieve that Yogic state, release the grasping at any physical attainment, and move directly to live and love in a life free of worry and anxiety over physical limitations and the natural beauty of aging into wisdom. Blessings.
Hey Jeeva,
Thank you for the depth of your comment – much appreciated. It’s important to remember that Patanjali’s text The Yoga Sutras is only one of many yogic texts, and while the focus of that particular text might be on transcending the body there are other yogic approaches about embracing the body.
Distilling everything back to the Sutras and saying that makes it ok to be in pain is like a spiritual bypass that can ignore the hard physical reality that we live in our bodies. We can both understand that we are ‘not our bodies’ while also loving and caring for them because without our bodies, we wouldn’t be in this human life.
I feel like I’m doing very little yoga on the mat right now – sure, the postures are there, and some of them may look more or less like they’re ‘meant’ to, but internally, I’m all over the show. Yet this is the place I’m in, this is what happens when I get on my mat to practice ‘yoga’ – it’s revealed how far away from ‘yoga’ I actually am and all the things that are standing in the way as my mind goes over here and over there and back again some more.
I find ‘yoga’ far easier to drop into when I meditate, or chant, or do pranayama. Yet for that reason, perhaps Hatha is a better practice for me right now – more challenging to the mind state.
Regardless, it’s all fascinating, and as I find my way through, I’m inquiring into every element. More to come on this!
Somewhere in the middle lies loving yourself…and your knees. i too have noticed my knees over the past 6 months, and I have also connected it to my hips and groin – if I can release the tightness here, then my knees feel better. We seem to either want to transcend the body entirely (ignoring the pain) or become so transfixed by the body we forget everything else. The body is the doorway, that I believe, but like you say, the middle way…xo
I feel kind of strange about this article. I get that you are telling your own personal story and it was a good one. However, I always get a little bothered when it is made to seem as if Ashtanga was the culprit. I can tell by your account that you were not going for that and that you enjoyed your Ashtanga practice, however, your title and your constant referral to it sends that message. When I write about my injuries, I try to never refer to any particular style of yoga or even blame it on the pose because I honestly don’t know what exactly caused 99% of the injuries I have had. I am just guessing. I don’t know rather it was my approach to the pose or the pose itself. Maybe it was past abuses from daily life that finally broke the camels back. It seems like from your article, that you were not sure either. This is your blog and you can do what you want but I kind of wish you would not have made it be about Ashtanga and just about your experience in your practice because rest assured, the yoga police is going to use your article to demonize Ashtanga.
Hey Shanna,
Thank you for you article. It’s true, it seems sometimes that Ashtanga yoga can come in for some bashing by the yoga police. I don’t want to add fuel to that fire.
However, the fact that it’s Ashtanga practice is key to the exploration of what’s happening. It’s important to note that my knees aren’t injured as such – they’re just sore. Although this seems to be a weird distinction too – if they’re hurting, then there must be something wrong right? Well, I don’t know…
As you rightly point out, when we injure ourselves, it’s usually our approach to the yoga, not the actual yoga itself.
What I’m interested in though does seem to be embedded in the Ashtanga Yoga culture – a sense that as a direct result of the Ashtanga practice that the knees will start to hurt at some point, it’s just a part of the process, and they will eventually stop hurting. That it’s part of the hips opening up. I haven’t heard this in Iyengar, or Bikram, or Anusara, or Vinyasa.
So it is about Ashtanga – not whether it’s good or bad or wrong or right – but that there’s this thing that seems to happen with knees & pain and people seem to write it off as part of the process. And I’m not sure about that. I don’t trust it enough. This alone could be my failing – maybe I have trust issues. But I want to be cautious and not accept something just because that’s what’s said.
What I would really like is some concrete information as to what’s going on… I’m done some Google research and found very little so far. I’m going to talk to a few Ashtanga teachers and see what they say.
Is it something you’ve come across before in Ashtanga? What’s your take on knee pain and the process?
I don’t see it as a cycle though it is true for some people. It was not true for me. I actually had a Power Vinyasa teacher come push my knees down in lotus. That is when my knees started to hurt. They don’t hurt anymore so there may be some truth to the fact that they go away. I know many people who are long term practitioners who have not had knee problems. I believe in the power of yoga and while I would never encourage pain, I believe that the practice can take the pain away. I have practiced Ashtanga through all my aches and pains and they always go away. I have been practicing for about 11 years.
oh inappropriate adjustments! So not good… I do believe in the power of the yoga but I also know that our minds & egos can get in the way and learning discernment is a huge part of the process. I’ve got another article coming on this that may shed further light…
I am not going to blame it on the adjuster. She did everything right. She asked my permission. I said yes. She went in slow. Once I felt the pain, I didn’t say anything because I was full of ego at the time and I didn’t want to admit that my hips were not as open as I made out to be.
Thanks for writing this, could have been written for me! I have enjoyed reading the lunchbox for ages but have never settled to a ‘style’ of asana practice til recently when I started doing astanga. I really love the internal focus that a self-paced, non-led class leads to, and how a repeated practice has shown me my own desire for distraction/novelty. But sure enough, a couple of months in and my knees are NOT HAPPY. I can’t do poses I could do before, and currently getting through a lot of arnica cream and not running to look after them.
My thoughts are that this is not due to the Astanga style per se, BUT, that style has aspects to it that have interacted badly with my own (and it seems perhaps others) inexperience at listening to the body, controlling nature, and desire to push/achieve/succeed. All good old ego stuff, but in combination with the various half lotus based postures has done some real harm. To their credit, the teachers have been constantly reminding me gently, providing bolsters, and recommending alternative poses to go easy on the knees. But they can’t be expected to be responsible for when I push my knees past a point of pain, just to satisfy some conditional sense of achievement!
So thanks for writing, it’s helpful to me in the unwinding path towards being a better listener to and inhabitant of this body. 🙂
Hey Rose,
I’ve been loving the shift to including regular Ashtanga as part of my practice too. As you say, it’s not the Ashtanga Yoga per se, but how we approach it… although it does seem more likely to show up issues due to the number of half-lotus postures down fairly early.
In the last two weeks since I’ve been working far softer and only going part-way into postures, my knees have settled down remarkably. Plus I’m feeling the internal aspects of the postures far more – I can feel my body organically taking me into Mari B & D. I’m even back to a very modest un-bound standing lotus that’s able to fold forward. It seems letting go and giving up while staying with the process works 😉
Thanks for linking to my article on the knee and lotus! I regularly post on anatomy, yoga and alignment issues over there, so stay tuned: http://www.sacredsourceyoga.com
My pleasure – it was an awesome article with some great information.
Thank you for this article. I’m sitting here post Mysore class googling knee pain. But I’m not sure it’s really pain as much as stiffness. I was feeling sad because I was able to do lotus and all the poses in the first series easily and just recently as I move through second series I can no longer do many of the first series. Your article was very interesting and reassuring to me. I love this particular quote – “This is difficult – I want to be where I was and yet know I must accept where I am.” I think it’s the most important idea and I can’t believe how often I need to be reminded of that. Thank you again!
Hey Joyce,
Yeah, determining what one is exactly experiencing is an important step – pain or stiffness? It’s so easy to get attached to attaining postures and focused on that… which takes us away from the yoga. That’s the irony huh?
Thank you for sharing your journey with knee “discomfort”/pain and Ashtanga yoga. A great deal of what you have experienced has recently happened to me and I am currently trying to figure out how to approach my daily Mysore practice without compromising my knees as my right lateral collateral ligament is not happy.
To push or not to push? I think we can refer to Patanjali when considering ahimsa and satya in our practice. I certainly don’t want to harm myself and only through being honest with myself can I maintain a healthy practice. So not doing padmasana and other knee rotation postures at the moment is the right choice, even if it feels like I’m “not good enough” or falling backwards in my practice. If we truly call ourselves “yogis” and want to follow the yogic path then it starts with loving ourselves enough to know when our body needs a break. Sharing that with one another and supporting each other in whatever choices we feel are right for our bodies is a great way to promote a truly yogic approach to life.
Thank you for sharing. I am thinking of giving up Ashtanga and finding another style.. I am a new yogi (18 mths) dedicated to Ashtanga exclusively for 3 mths but the knee pain is ringing alarm bells. Plus I have obsessive tendancies and am scared this practice is feeding into that. I want yoga to help, not exacerbate current mental problems.
Hey Erika,
Finding the right style for you is important – a style that brings you into greater balance. However, it’s likely that finding the right teacher that you can work closely with is even more important. If you have obsessive tendencies, a good teacher will help you work mindfully with them, regardless of what style you are doing.
After I changed the way I was entering all Lotus-style postures, and working slowly and mindfully, the knee pain dissipated. Now, my hips have opened far more, and the knee pain is gone completely. How I worked within Ashtanga made all the difference.
Hi Kara-Leah.
Thanks for your reply. I’ve started to lose too much weight doing an hour and a half of practice as well which I’m worried about. I really hope to find a way that yoga can be a part of my life, right now it is actually scaring me a little.
I haven’t been able to work with a teacher for about a month. Perhaps that will make a difference, otherwise I will go back to other types of exercise. It would be sad if I can’t find the ellusive balance and harmony that so many people talk about.
x
Hey Erika,
Working with a good teacher does make a big difference, as they can help you determine what yoga practice is suitable for you. It may be that Ashtanga is not the right practice for you to be doing at all.
Bear in mind too that yoga is not a ‘type of exercise’, it’s a path to self-realization which does involve being in the body and moving the body, which can have some fitness benefit.
Keep searching for that right teacher and practice. Sometimes it takes awhile. Have you tried Yin Yoga?
Hi there.
I’ve tried yin yoga and I practice it from time to time at home. I understand that yoga is not considered to be exercise and and that asanas are only part of yoga but I feel like a failure because I want to exercise and I want to do yoga so how do you separate the two and how would I ever have time to work out and do yoga and what is wrong with trying to combine the two?
Hey Erika,
It all depends on why you want to exercise – what benefits you’re looking for. Strong asana practice does have physical benefits. However you’ve said that you’re losing too much weight with Ashtanga and you’re scared it’s exacerbating your obsessive tendencies.
There’s nothing wrong with reaping the physical benefits of a yoga practice, and therefore not needing to do additional exercise. Assuming those physical benefits are the ones you’re looking for through exercise.
Getting clear on what you’d like to experience and what you need right now is part of the process. This is where working with a good yoga teacher can be very beneficial. Even doing a one-on-one session once a month can make a huge difference. Yoga is very much an individual practice and so a great teacher can help you determine what the appropriate practice is for you, based on what you need to balance you out and what it is you want to experience.
Many blessings,
Kara-Leah
Thaks Kara-Leah.
I’m sorry for the rant, I guess I feel a bit frustrated and burned out right now.
I’m going to take a week or two off practice (even though most in the community would say you should practice anyway!) and hopefully find a teacher soon.
One thing that confuses me is that ashtanga yogis say the system is perfect and that would mean that it should be the right practice for everyone.
Hey Erika,
Yoga is an individual practice and that means you need to find the practice that is right for you. This depends on your temperament, your bone structure, your level of strength & flexibility, your emotional and mental state of being… So many things.
The Ashtanga sequence itself is meant to be modified according to the needs of the student, and taught according to the needs of the student. It takes real skill to know how to approach the postures, how to modify them, and which posture to work up to at any given stage. This is why working with a skilled teacher is so important. It’s not a cookie cutter system where everyone does the same thing, the same way, although it may appear that way to the outsider, or be taught that way by an inexperienced teacher.
I’m going to send you an email, because I do offer one-on-one mentoring through Skype, which may be of use to you.
Many blessings,
Kara-Leah
Thank you so much for this article. Everything here resonated so strongly for me. I switched from various vinyasa styles to a daily mysore practice a month ago and started getting knee pain after a week. This has really affected my relationship with my practice and my enjoyment of it – I find every pose after half bound lotus uncomfortable and that is a long time to be uncomfortable and mentally and physically struggling. I have been wondering whether this is “normaL’ – and your article has provided some comfort that there is a way through. Thank you for sharing.
Hey Michele,
There is definitely a way through! Kindness, compassion, love and patience helped me approach the practice in such a way as to stop my knees from hurting. I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
Thank you for your article. I find myself in exactly the same situation – after many months of practicing Standing Half Bound Lotus at a Mysore practice with no difficulty, I strained my left inner knee doing a long hold of Pigeon at Yin Yoga. It felt stiff for a few weeks but I kelt practicing through it, including full lotus, until I began to feel pain about a week ago and talked to my Mysore teacher. She recommended I back off it for 3-4 practices and then we will revisit the issue and she will make further suggestions if it is still hurting. So today I was very gentle with my left knee and modified any pose where my left foot goes into my right hip crease. I can relate, it is frustrating to feel like you are going “backwards” and I suddenly felt old – I’m 45 – but we are such a linear culture! Trying to let that go.
But I’m concerned in a way I wasn’t when I worked through hip or shoulder pain. I took Iyengar Yoga years ago and the teacher always recommended ways to work through back, hip, and shoulder pain – even lower back pain – but said NEVER work through knee pain. I’ve since learned outer knee pain is OK to work with but inner knee pain is not.
I’m wondering, now that some time has passed, how are your knees? I hope they feel better. Are there any other things that were beneficial to you? I would love to hear your perspective now that your knees have had some time to hopefully heal.
Hello Kara-Leah,
I’m so glad that Google had your article two years old showed up on the top of my search list today. Thanks for sharing your insights on the knees, patience and relationship with the practice.
I recently became a very dedicated Ashtangi that I would practice Mysore 5 – 6 days a week. I love the discipline and the strength the practice gives me. I thought this is the practice that will stick with me for the rest of my life, until a couple weeks ago, my right knee (inside) start to hurt when I deeply bend it to lotus. Now to look back, I shouldn’t have forced my knee into the post to accommodate my very tight right hip.
I have been modifying in my practice by leaving a block underneath my right knee in many seated poses. It is very distractive in the flow because I really can’t do much. Not half lotus standing forward fold, not Janu Sirsasana, not Marichyasana, etc… I get very frustrated that sometimes I feel like to walk out the studio sinceI could barely do anything in the series.
I’m not sure if I should completely stop practicing Ashtanga till my knee completely heals. or should I also seek any medical treatment outside of the practice? I’ve tried acupuncture with not much improvement… Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
love,
Maggie
Hey Maggie,
I’m glad you found this article too, and that it’s of value to you. Unfortunately, I can’t offer any suggestions via comment. If you’d like to set up a Skype Video session with me, send me an email on klgrant@fastmail.fm and we can talk further.
Much joy,
Kara-Leah
After 2 yrs of the article, people have commented on it… says it all. Nicely written.
We all know why we ended up reading this article, I have started my 5-6 days practice of ashtanga yoga since a month now and I am still learning Marichyasana B, it has begin to pain but yes I will take it slow.
Thanks for the article.