MS, Yoga, and Me

spotlight BY SU S AN DOBROF MS, yoga, and me have known I had MS almost as long as I have been doing yoga. Taking yoga I classes started out as a fun activity to share with my partner at the time. She had a bad back and needed a gentler activity than the rugged hiking or hours of frisbee throwing that we both enjoyed. 48 InsideMS www.nationalmssociety.org/InsideMS.asp Now, after 20 years of MS progression, yoga class, I was too busy checking out I use a cane, braces on both legs to help other students’ superior strength or svelte with walking and standing, a mobility bodies to follow the instruction to focus scooter, and hand controls for driving. on my breath and awareness of my own Yoga is now much more than fun: it helps body as I entered and held each pose. me stay strong and flexible, it is the basis I don’t know exactly when it dawned for important connections to a community on me that my physical losses because of MS comrades, and it helps me learn of MS did not have to mean I couldn’t compassion and acceptance of my own be physically vibrant, strong, and flex- body and other people. But mostly, yoga ible. But at some point, I started actu- lets me experience, express, and expand my ally listening to yoga teachers when they physical and mental vitality; it also pro- said that if you keep doing the poses, vides me a lovely sense of well-being. they get easier. They get easier because You may have seen a picture of your body has capacities you don’t know Madonna with her leg behind her neck. about unless you pay attention to them. Many yoga poses look way too difficult But who wants to pay attention to stiff or for a person who may have weak muscles, reduced flexibility, limited mobility, muscle spasms, and not much energy. Today I practice “gentle yoga” with Iyengar yoga teachers who have modified the poses. Students are in chairs (including wheelchairs) or standing with a chair or the wall nearby At the Long Island for support/balance, or on the Chapter, people do the floor with or without back sup- “tree” pose with yoga therapist Shelley Sidelman. port from a wall. All of my teachers in the last seven years have some knowledge of MS and/or training from spasming legs that have increasing diffi- teachers committed to tailoring yoga prac- culty walking? Did I really want to focus tice for the benefit of people with MS. on this faltering body? Twenty years ago, when I was 30, I As they say, “denial ain’t just a river could swim a half-mile and jog three in Egypt.” Denial helped me pretend for miles in the same day. I exercised to be years that I was not afraid of or limited healthy, strong, and to look good. But by MS, even as what I described as my I didn’t pay much attention to how my “funky feet” couldn’t distinguish between body felt as I exercised. Oh, I noticed if clutch, brake, and gas pedals. In a period I got a cramp, and always liked the good of five years, I switched from standard to feeling after exercising. And in my first automatic transmission, and then to hand August–September 2006 InsideMS 49 controls in order to drive. I am guess- say, an ongoing project). In that process, I ing that I am not the only person who discovered I had the nonphysical strength thought that as long as I didn’t act like a to face myself, and a means—yoga!—to disabled person (whatever that means) explore my physical, emotional, and spiri- then I wasn’t disabled. tual capacities. It took a particularly scary exacerba- I had been stuck hating my body, feel- tion, coupled with panic attacks landing ing robbed, full of envy toward people me in the hospital in 2002, for me to face strolling/running/cycling by. The feeling what this sad charade was all about: my that all the good stuff was in the past grew unwillingness to acknowledge, accept, and out of my refusal to tune in to my life, and grieve the permanent loss of the me who especially my body, as it really was. could hike or swim a half-mile. So even though I now get too fatigued When I was finally sad and grieving, I to walk (with braces and cane) more was also hugely relieved. Pretending that than two or three blocks, and my 25-foot everything was hunky-dory was exhaust- walking speed has slowed from when my neurologist first timed me, I have become strong and flexible enough to attain the V-shaped downward dog pose and hold it for about 20 seconds. In downward dog, only the feet and hands are on the floor and the butt is in the air. The teacher may attain this in one fluid motion, starting on People do poses according hands and knees. With the teach- to their ability. er’s guidance I can get there, but only if I’m willing to listen to my ing. Actually peeking inside myself and body and be patient. seeing what was what, freed me from all Some days, when I have the energy, I that desperate and useless effort to act as try a standing pose, and when I have less though MS wasn’t doing what it does. energy, I do modified versions in a chair. In the rehab hospital, the physical That downward dog I am so proud of can therapists were surprised that my weak be done over the back of a chair with your legs were so flexible and muscular. I had weight supported by the wall where your been taking gentle yoga classes for about heels rest, and by the chair, where your three years at that time and used my upper body and head can rest. Sometimes teacher’s stick-figure drawings of poses to I do the modified version even if I have practice on my own as I recovered. I was the energy for the regular dog, to give a also in psychotherapy, which helped me better stretch to my arms. get acquainted with myself (needless to Teachers, and sometimes students, 50 InsideMS www.nationalmssociety.org/InsideMS.asp Eric Small: Yoga guru for people with MS Eric Small was diagnosed with to Health and Healing. Yoga for people MS in his 20’s. Soon after, he with MS is presented through photo- became a student of yoga as a graphs (see samples on this page) and way to help him manage the descriptions of adapted poses along with effects of the disease. He has explorations on their effects, advan- been teaching internationally for tages, and contraindications. There over 40 years since then and has are also posture recommendations for developed both yoga and well- fatigue and spasticity. ness programs for the Society’s The book is coauthored with Dr. Southern California Chapter that Loren Martin Fishman, reach thousands of students a certified Iyengar yoga with MS. For more information, instructor and assis- visit www.yogams.com. tant clinical professor in Eric’s passion for helping Rehabilitation at Colum- people with MS through yoga bia College of Physicians is finding new and Surgeons. Contact expression in Demos Medical Publish- his about-to-being at www.demosmed published book, Yoga and pub.com or 800-532-8663 Multiple Sclerosis: A Journey for more information. August–September 2006 InsideMS 51 ADVERTISEMENT devise many ingenious ways to modify breath, slowly roll over to one side and poses and accommodate limited strength, rest for another moment before sitting up. flexibility, and energy so that even signifi- She may also say: “Feel how good you feel cantly disabled people can enjoy the ben- at this moment and take that with you efits of yoga. into the rest of your day.” Our teacher often begins class asking Yoga is not about attaining the buff about our energy levels today and any and svelte body I so envied when I first aches or pains or new symptoms. She took a class. It asks what your body, just may ask what poses or parts of the body as it is, can do today. Even if it is less we want to work on. She sometimes starts than you could do yesterday, you still get with a breathing exercise that helps us the benefits. Yoga has helped me make transition from the effort and flurry of friends with my body, instead of seeing it getting to class to a calmer, more inwardly as the enemy. focused mode. As she leads us through I have been taking yoga with many of the movements of a pose, she might say: the same people for about three years. “Stretch your arm toward the sky, any Many of my classmates have experienced amount,” or “Can you straighten your leg, some worsening of symptoms. It feels and if you can’t, that’s okay too.” liberating to exercise with people who have various limitations, but who are undaunted by them. We are willing to challenge ourselves physically, despite occasional uncooperating limbs. (Being rescued by our teacher or by each other is just part of the fun.) We also share information about mainstream and alterna- This pose aims tive MS treatments, our doctors and other to stretch and practitioners, what’s going on in our lives improve balance.

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