Theory into Practice

Having read up a good deal on Diastasis Recti (DR) this week, learning what exercises to avoid and what to focus on to help repair my DR, I’ve added a few modifications to my yoga practice. My yoga practice is still only weekly as I am still figuring out how to combine it with motherhood so I want to get the most from my session, and the more positive an experience each one is, the more it encourages me to work my daily life out to include daily sessions once again.

What did I notice this week?

– My limitations have changed.
There are now several asanas I can’t do or find much harder. Not carrying out certain asanas is hard. My heart says “Yes! You can do that!” But then my brain would remind me why I couldn’t. It was also hard not to do the advanced versions of some asanas that I can do. Many asanas that I revelled in holding before I fell pregnant are now a lot more challenging for me. I shake and wobble and over compensate, which actually does more harm than good in the long run as I break form. The asanas I noticed this most with were Forward Fold and Side Plank. I used to be able to place my hands flat on the floor with straight legs in forward fold but now I can only do this with my knees bent. Luckily my lovely yoga teacher, Sue, repeatedly reminds us of the safest way to carry out this asana and why: keep your chest in contact with your thighs, bend your knees as you need so you can keep your hands flat on the floor and with each exhalation increase the stretch through the legs. By keeping my chest in touch with my thighs, my lower back is protected.

– My balance that is directly linked to my core isn’t as good as it used to be.
Again, I wobble and buckle, which throws me out the asana. The temptation is to over compensate through my core, but as I’ve explained above, that will only do more harm than good, especially with DR.

How did I work around this?

– Belly button to spine.
We talk a lot about this in yoga to work our core muscles and maintain good posture, but now I’m finding it more important – and harder to do – than ever.  My ab muscles feel quite saggy so I have to really focus do this, reminding myself continuously to do it throughout the session.  Before I felt pregnant, I would do this subconsciously throughout the day.  In fact, at about 4 months pregnant I had to consciously ‘let go’ of the muscles around my bump as I was unconsciously holding it in (as much as you can at 4 months pregnant!) and it was becoming painful.  As soon as I relaxed my muscles, it felt better.

– Replace the poses.
As discussed in The Core Issue, Half Bridge pose is a good exercise for strengthening and toning the deep ab muscles without causing the “six pack abs” to contract.  This week, Half Bridge pose was incorporated into the session (which was ace!) setting me off to a good start.  When the rest of the class undertook Boat pose, I did leg slides and head raises instead.  I particularly enjoyed the head raises, I could feel it working the right muscles without stressing the weaker ones.  I felt this less with the leg slides.

What did I learn?

– Engaging the right muscles is key!
Regardless of the pose I was holding, I needed to engage my deep abdominals, the ones linked to my pelvic floor but without contracting the “six pack” abs.  The temptation with any abdominal exercise is to squeeze everything, as tight as you can, but with a postpartum tummy its important to be specific.  The best way I have found to do this is calmly, using my breath.  As I breathe in, I focus on relaxing certain muscles, then as I breathe out, I engage others.

– A better yogi in the long run?
I am limited on what asanas I can do and then again on what level I can take the ones I can do to.  Initially, this was really frustrating, upsetting even, but as I’ve thought about it and begun to practice, I’ve realised that going back to basics is actually going to be really good for me.  It is making me very disciplined in my posture, regardless of asana and that is letting me “rebuild” my body better and stronger than before (in good time, obviously).  In the end, I actually think I will be a better yogi as a result.  Any bad habits that I had before I became pregnant should be corrected.

In other news…

When I left dad and baby last week, it was a bit of a tense affair; dad felt nervous about being on his own with little girl and I felt nervous, guilty and a bit frustrated about leaving them for 2 hours.  This week we tried a different approach.  Again, I expressed milk for a “tide over” whilst I was out but also had 4 different bottles ready to go for said milk as little girl is being a bit fussy when food is direct from the boob.  As I went to leave, I said to my husband “I trust you completely and know you can handle anything”  – a mantra to both of us – and he replied “yes I can, now go, we’re fine.”  This lead to a much calmer practice and I felt a lot more connected to it as a result.

My lovely yoga teacher, Sue, suggested a new way to approach a yoga session: dedicating your practice to someone else.  Now this sounds quite out there, I know, but actually, as a new mum, my whole world is geared around doing things for someone else.  It has become second nature, and far easier than doing something for myself.  So, I chose my person to dedicate this weeks session to and then every time I felt myself a bit unfocused I reminded myself “this is for XXX” and that made me work a little harder, focus a little more.  The result?  A better practice and less worrying about getting home.

Speaking of getting home, on my return I walked in to find little girl snuggled up with dad on the sofa, which was delightful!

The first session.

My daughter arrived 9 weeks ago. It felt like I had been hit by a train immediately afterwards, which – foolish as it may be – surprised me. For weeks afterwards, I felt horribly tired and weak. Anaemia didn’t help much but after about 5 weeks it felt like I turned a corner and I began to feel much better. By the time I had my ‘6 week check’ (at 7 weeks) I felt strong enough to start planning my first session. I knew that I needed to have all eventualities covered to give me reassurance when I went to my class that baby girl’s needs would be met and daddy would feel confident doing so. If any of the basics were to go wrong, I know that I would struggle to leave next time round so this was going to be key for me! Basically, i just wanted everybody to feel happy and calm.

Anyway, milk expressed, nappies stocked, baby asleep and handed over to dad, I was out the door and off to my local class with the lovely Sue, who also taught me whilst I was pregnant. This helped for two reasons. Firstly, Sue understood that I had a very new daughter so if my phone (on silent of course) rang, I’d be dashing out and secondly, she understood the physical state my body was in after having a baby. This is important. Yoga teachers naturally want to encourage their students, and if the postpartum body isn’t carefully considered, more harm can be done than good. Sue was going to look after me.

I was a bit nervous as the practice began. My mind was racing and racing, worrying about how dad and daughter were coping in my absence. It did feel great to be back but I had to keep reminding myself to take it slowly, that I wasn’t going to be as strong or flexible as before. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t but my balance wasn’t half bad! It takes about 4 months for abdominals to fully knit back together so all direct ab work was off the cards. This means plank, low plank, boat pose all needed to be modified. As tempting as it was to plank, I recalled looking at my pregnant belly when I did this a five months ago and seeing that my abs had pretty much shrink-wrapped my growing baby. I knew that I would only cause my abs to separate if I rushed into this so carried this out on my knees, I didn’t even try to hold it in full. When it came to boat pose, I reclined slightly and kept my knees quite bent, again allowing my back muscles to do the work and my thighs. Instead, I focused on engaging all the other muscles around my core, in my legs and in my arms instead. It felt good. My pelvic floor was naturally still a little weak, and although I didn’t have any ‘new mummy accidents’, I did find that I had to focus on these muscles a little more than normal too.

Following my first session, my top tips are as follows:

• Preparation
  – Give your partner reassurance that you can be contacted. This will keep both of you calm and settled.
  – Make sure your phone is actually charged and has signal!
• Practice
  – Don’t be tempted to work your abs – they aren’t ready yet!
  – Use the other parts of your core and legs to hold certain poses instead of your abs. This will be harder when it comes to balancing.
  – Focus on you and you alone. It is totally irrelevant what the person next to you is doing, remember you’ve just had a baby!!

After an hour and fifteen minutes, I packed up my stuff, said good-bye and headed home. The house was still standing and both dad and baby were fine. It was straight into feeding and sleeping on mummy, but everyone was happy enough and I really felt like I had taken the first, healthy step to getting myself strong and fit once again.  It felt good.

Why am I writing this blog?

I have practiced yoga since 2006.  I’ve loved every minute of it, from seeing my body physically achieve new things beyond what I thought it could to the quiet peace it gives me when the rest of my world seems like chaos.  In November 2013 I fell pregnant with my first baby and my yoga practiced changed.  In fact, for the first 3 months I’d say it ceased to exist.  This isn’t the first break from yoga I’ve had but this time I couldn’t just pick up where I left off, my practice had to modify to accommodate – and care for – my growing baby.  I started pregnancy yoga classes and eventually even returned to regular yoga class, for a short while until I couldn’t move around my bump any more.  It’s been something that gave me relief throughout my pregnancy, physically and emotionally.

Now my daughter is here and once again I’ve had to take a little break from yoga, 8 weeks this time to give my body sufficient time to recover after a slightly complicated birth and also allow little girl and daddy enough time to adjust.  I know I want to restart my practice but how do I do that with a new born?  There are a whole host of issues that I need to consider before I go back.  For a start, who will look after little girl?  How will my body cope with the physicality of yoga?  How will my brain cope with leaving little girl for something selfish (on the surface) and with not being able to do what I could do a year ago?

I decided to write this blog to document my experience of returning to my ‘usual’ yoga practice now that I am a mum.  It’s a personal endeavour that I hope may be useful to other yogi parents but principally I thought this would be a good way to motivate myself to continue with something I’ve passionately enjoyed for years during the biggest change of my life.  I know it’s a fundamental part of my life, my identity but have no idea it fits in with motherhood!

I am a frank person who whose aim is to give an real account of combining yoga with parenting, it won’t always be pretty but it will always be honest.