From my aerial dance practice {yes, that’s what I call it right now}, I have a chronic rhomboid muscle injury on my right side…

rhomboid muscle: rhombus-shaped muscles associated with the scapula and are chiefly responsible for its retraction

Over the past several weeks I’ve been bouncing around to various yoga studios, classes and teachers hoping to find a good match; someone who is inspiring and skillful. It’s amazing how many yoga classes are only just so-so. I always feel good after a class because of the physical release of tension, but inspired? Not so much.

The other thing I’ve noticed is how little these supposed “body experts” know about my injury. Every teacher asks the class whether anyone has any injuries or pain they should know about and several people always mutter things about their wrists, lower backs, knees and hips…then I raise my hand and say, “I have a rhomboid injury” and the teacher looks at me with a little flicker of “uh oh, we didn’t spend much time learning about that in teacher training” and then they say something like, “oh, gosh, ok, well, let me know if anything hurts”.

This makes me chuckle silently, because I always hurt ~ this injury is chronic, so I walk around and sleep with a little pain or discomfort most of the time.

Well, tonight I found the teacher I’ve been looking for. Not only did she begin the class with some thoughtful ideas and ways to integrate yoga into daily life, but she recognized that I had something going on in my shoulder before I even mentioned it. I was in a cobra pose and she came over and asked, “Do you have some sort of shoulder injury?” I was shocked.

She asked if I was a swimmer and I told her I do a type of aerial dance. She then proceeded to adjust me and help me engage in a way that made all the pain in my rhomboid completely disappear. She complimented my body awareness and ability to take and hold adjustments, which, of course, stroked my ego. She was fun, challenging, grounded and wonderful.

At the end of class she told me about her other class called Theraputics where she specifically works with students with injuries and encouraged me to come.

I feel so refreshed and excited and eager to get back to her class again later this week and in the weeks to come. Sadly she only teaches two classes per week that work in my schedule, but that’s two days per week down, two to go, in order to meet my weekly 4-class goal.

Hooray for finding the right teacher! I feel even more motivated in my yoga journey than before…