Self Reliance

I have always been the sort of person who wants to do as much as I can for myself. That is part of the appeal for me both for practicing yoga and for learning feldenkrais method.

I don't like going to doctors, nor going for acupuncture and other alternative therapies. Some of that is due to not finding an acupuncturist I really like, I suspect. Still, acupuncture seems to never quite work the way I would like for injuries. Massage has been mostly good, and feldenkrais has been excellent for some things (my ankle for instance where nothing else worked..and it worked without being a painful method in itself..did I mention  that I really don't like pain?).

This book -  The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook - is AMAZING. The website for the book gives a lot of examples from the book so you can get a feel for it.

 















A characteristic of trigger points is that the pain that you feel is not necessarily in the same location of the trigger point! Although when you massage the trigger point..oh, that spot will be tender.(But this method is way less painful than going for a massage)

I bought this book last month and have already used it for various gimpy areas: my wrists/forearms, my shoulders, and a weird lower leg strain which turned out to be a trigger point in the calf. The illustrations in the book are easy to understand, and the methods for massaging these points are not too difficult..a tennis ball or two is all you need for many of them. What is great about this book, is that it gives you a way to control the massage pressure, since you work on yourself and it gives you the tools to prevent soreness from getting out of control. That is really nice for me, since each new pose or new attention to the vinyasas = new achy areas much of the time.

I had a great result with it this week, on my right shoulder/underarm area, which was wicked sore after getting bhujapidasana (surprise!) on Sunday, and playing smackfu in Central Park later that day. By Monday night it was so sore, that I would normally have thought of going for a massage and taking a few days off practice..but I used the book, and by Wednesday morning, the pain was almost all gone, and I could complete my full practice (and tonight..I don't feel sore)