Yoga, anyone?

Anything by Rodney Yee will be excellent....his Power Yoga one is pretty challenging, but he has DVDs for a variety of levels. Check amazon.com

~Marin

I got them at Borders. They're three of them. Two are about tennis ball size, the third is smaller than a kickball. It came with a DVD. You roll around on them and place them strategically to cushion yourself.

But I can't find them! I'm thinking I might have left them at the YMCA by mistake. 

This discussion about yoga balls reminds me of a workshop that I took with Keli Roberts, a well-known fitness instructor for fitness instructors. She has a DVD out detailing how to achieve enhanced flexibility by using foam rollers. Gioogle her or foam rollers and check it out. The workshop was like an hour of deep muscle massage....pretty dramatic but it felt wonderful!

~Marin

Hi Erica,

Glad to see you are looking at yoga.

I pretty much swear by my Iyengar teacher for this type of thing and have recovered well from my surgeries because of it. There really is no substitute for a great teacher and going to class so that they can correct your form. A DVD pales in comparison. Go to class, take notes and start a home practice on what is hard for you to do. Iyengar Yoga is all about proper alignment and keeping the body open in poses and is ideal for post op recovery. If you have limited yoga experience and are doing the poses *properly* things will be challenging enough for you. Remember....and this is something hard for us Americans to understand....yoga is not something that should exhaust you, it strengthens and restores. Over the last 13 years I have done Bikram yoga, Kripalu based, Vinyassa and Iyengar and I have found that for beginers the Iyengar is the best way to come into a sound practice.

Where are you living and I will ask my teachers who they can recommend. I have three good ones here in Boston, all different types of Yoga but all of them are either Iyengar or heavily Iyengar influenced.

Cheers,

Climbergirl

The local cancer group has a free weekly restorative yoga class that I have just started to attend and I find it interesting. The oncology nurse from the hospital leads the class. She did yoga for herself and took a class on leading yoga to help the people in her groups.

Sheila

Rose, have you been doing downward facing dog or plank?   Those postures can be hard on the wrists.   Try not doing those poses and see what happens.  If the pain doesn't improve, the fact that the wrist pain started up after you started doing yoga may just be a coincidence.  Then maybe you could look at your computer use.

Lisa, I was doing a plank before, but I was resting on my forearms.  With the yoga, I have been doing the downward dog and the yoga plank, which I see is different, the hands get used.  I am trying to let myself recover and for now am avoiding these postions.  So hopefully, these symptoms will subside.  I also am on tamoxifen, so maybe this makes me more susceptible too.

Koshka1 - thanks for your input - I just signed up for a "Gentle Yoga" class that uses a lot of props and is designed for those "who need a slower approach to beginning yoga" - sounds like what you're describing.  It starts tomorrow night, so I'll see how it goes.