Farewell, My Yoga

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​Farewell, My Yoga

      Several days ago I returned to the doctor for an x-ray to determine how far along my fractured foot was in the healing process (see post from 8/19/2023,  https://www.ailantha.com/blog/i-invalid-part-one-four-insults-and-an-injury).
​       After examining the x-ray and my foot, the doctor pronounced that, while my foot wasn't yet one hundred percent healed, I had turned a corner and it was now time to get up and start walking and otherwise moving around. "But take it easy for the next month," he said, "and don't overdo it."
       Now, if he had told me to stay off my foot altogether, I would have understood what he meant; or if he'd said to go back to doing everything I'd normally do pre-broken foot, that likewise would have been pretty clear. But take it easy and don't overdo it? Exactly what, I wondered, did that mean? How easy was I supposed to take it?  How close could I  approach a normal day's activity without the risk of                 re-cracking my metatarsal? 
            I posed these questions to my doctor. He thought a moment then said,  "Okay, tell me what a normal day is like for you."
          "Well," I said, "I would normally wake up, do fifteen minutes or so of yoga, then go out and walk around the neighborhood for a couple of miles, and then some more yoga, and then...wait a minute!" 
            A light bulb flashed in my brain.
            For the past two months that I'd been laid up I'd been tumbling around in my head the question of exactly what  might have precipitated the web of cracks in my foot bone. Too much walking? Too much gardening? Too much housework? (Nah, probably wasn't too much housework).  But the one thing that had never occurred to me was too much...yoga.
            "Do you think the yoga could have caused a stress fracture?" I suggested.
            "Oh, yes," the doctor quickly replied. He admitted he wasn't a fan of yoga. Too much torking of the toes, by which he meant the sort of bend that occurs when you stand on your tiptoes.

      He asked if I did poses that involved torking of the toes or putting stress on the feet.  I thought a minute.
       Well, there was Chaturanga,

​...Cow,

...Camel, 

​...and Wild Thing, among others,

​...and then any number of poses that put all the weight on one foot, such as:
​      Tree,

...Dancer,

...and Eagle,

...all of which I normally did.
       "That could well be what caused your stress fracture," said the doctor. "I wouldn't do any more yoga that torks the toes or stresses the feet." He was kind enough not to add, "After all, you're 72 years old."
          It's not easy giving up something that's been life-giving for so many years. And yet, as that famous verse tells us, for everything there is a season and a time for every activity under heaven.
           Good-bye,  yoga, 

...hello,  ukulele.