Awareness Isn’t Enough

As much as I love Endometriosis Awareness Month — because for such a common condition, it is too little known and too greatly misunderstood — I kind of hate it as well. Yes, I get that it’s a first step, but really?

I’ve lived more than half my life now with endometriosis symptoms — and I expect they will continue for decades to come. Awareness isn’t enough for me anymore.

I want shorter diagnostic delays. Right now, it sits between 7 and 12 years depending at age at symptom onset and the types of symptoms presenting. Certainly, some of that has to do with the reality that laparoscopy is a rather expensive and invasive diagnostic tool. However, as the same linked source mentions, “Diagnostic laparoscopy is not required before treatment in all patients presenting with pelvic pain.” In other words — and this should be common sense — it is possible to treat a person’s pain without cutting them open.

I want health care providers to make recommendations based on the sum of current medical evidence. I don’t want them to limit their evidence to what published studies were available in 1990 or 2000. I mean, I got rid of all my New Kids on the Block tapes, and I’m no longer worried about Y2K. I have moved on, grown older and wiser — and I expect no less from my medical providers.

I want more health care providers to use patient-centered, multi-faceted management strategies. The main reason I prefer my general practitioner to a specialist is that all the local specialists I’ve seen have been single-mindedly enthusiastic (okay, so we call that “pushy,” right?) about their pet treatment options regardless of my concerns and priorities. Even if it is the next new thing, it may come with risks — and “no long term data” can count as a risk — that make it unworkable for some patients.

I want society to treat pain as a legitimate health issue. Not just when it’s the result of a physical injury, not just when it’s impairing mobility, not just when it correlates with infertility. Significant, persistent pain is a big deal because it is significant, because it is persistent, and because it is pain.

I want family, friends, partners, coworkers, and employers to appreciate the frequency, duration, and severity of endo symptoms. Specifically, that these symptoms often extend past the days of one’s menstrual period, that some people experience symptoms daily, and that living with chronic pain can be debilitating. I want to avoid being trapped into unreasonable expectations of what I “should” be able to do.

And yes, awareness is valuable to the extent that it is the first step to all of these. But on its own, awareness is not enough.

More Endo Talk

I was at the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona Blog again yesterday, talking about endometriosis one last time. That post focused on endometriosis treatment and trying to sort out the pros and cons of various medical and surgical options.

If you are a nerd like me someone who likes clicky links to scientific studies (where free online) or abstracts (where the full text requires payment), this one is for you!

Are you sick of me talking about endometriosis yet?

Because I kind of am. I mean, I’d really this were a much more manageable condition already and be done with it.

Not only is endometriosis not particularly manageable, but it’s also often not easily or readily diagnosable — which is what I wrote about yesterday at the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona Blog. A small sampling:

Wait. So you’re telling me that killer cramps of doom aren’t normal?

It also includes some suggestions I’ve learned may be helpful (either from personal experience or from other people with endo) for dealing with dismissive health care providers.

Admitting

This week’s theme is the social impact that endo has had on my life.

I’ll get to this, I promise.

As some readers might know, I hurt my foot about… a week and a half ago (at least at the time of my writing). I was running, stepped on something funny, my toes were not happy. Now my foot is painful, bruised, and swollen — but healing.

However, my kids have also been working on video research projects, meaning they need space — separate enough so they don’t interfere with one another’s images or sound, open enough that I can keep an eye on all of them at once. Meaning we were on the practice athletic fields, where I could see them all at once but where I had to walk and walk and walk and walk to get from group to group for actual feedback.

On an injured foot. Not my brightest moment.

Our class schedule is set up so that each group filmed twice over the course of three days.

At the beginning of Day 1, I honestly thought it would not be a big deal. “Hey, it’s just walking.” You know, something I routinely do not need to consider as muscular effort or energy expenditure during the course of my day.

Ha.

By the end of Day 2, I was asking my kids to keep to the front half of the practice field (still fine for audio, not so clean for visuals).

“Why?”

Sheepishly, I pointed to my foot. “I can’t actually walk that far all day.” I needed an accommodation.

Here’s the thing. This was pretty much the ideal circumstance to be a person asking for an accommodation. I mean:

1. It was a visible injury. One of the pieces of support tape extended above my shoe. Or, had I taken everything off my foot, there would have been the aforementioned bruising and swelling to show them.
2. It’s a exercise-sustained injury — a pain issue that’s relatively easily understandable as well as one that’s coded relatively positively. I don’t mean that people are all like, “Yay! You hurt your foot!” But I do find that people are more likely to view such an issue as more… noble? forgivable? … than pain from some other causes.
3. It is exceedingly likely to be a temporary issue and one that required only minor accommodation.
4. Let’s face it: I’m an adult teacher in a classroom of secondary students. There’s an inherent power dynamic there that works in my favor.

And yet, despite that not a one of them seemed miffed that I asked them to alter their behavior for me, I felt really awkward and self-conscious in asking this from my students.

Compare that to endo:

1. It’s an invisible condition. From the outside, there’s no proof that it’s happening.
2. It’s often misunderstood. Moreover, endo is part of a broader category — period pain or “wimminz troubles,” depending on how you want to look at it — that are coded more negatively by society. In other words, more people who are likely to dismiss endo as exaggeration or “low pain tolerance,” to judge people with endo as weak, needy, lacking.
3. It is exceedingly likely to be a long term issue and one that may require a variety of accommodations.
4. Most of the people I need to ask are friends and partners — social equals — or employers, supervisors, or health care providers — situations where the power dynamic is skewed against me.

If self shame at feeling physically less than happens in the most innocuous of situations, how much more self shame happens where there’s additional pressure and stigma?

It’s tough admitting that I hurt, that there are things I cannot do — or cannot enjoy — because I hurt, that these limitations are long term and may be permanent. When I do so, I feel vulnerable, deficient. People could choose either not to help me or to demean me while helping me, and I might not be able to do anything about it. I mean, I don’t think my friends would — because there’s a reason I choose to have those people in my lives — but not everyone with whom I must interact socially is a friend.

To admit pain, vulnerability to an unknown entity, an unknown response? That’s scary.

I Hate My Hips

In case you read my blog and are not aware, I have endometriosis. (Yeah, that’s what that MenstroMonster tag is doing in the sidebar.) In case you are also not aware, March is Endometriosis Awareness Month. In light of that, I’m doing this whole Blogging for Endometriosis Awareness** thing. The instructions are thus:

Each week there is a different topic that discusses the various ways endometriosis impacts our lives. We all know that the physical aspects of the disease is just on facet of life and it impacts our lives emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

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The prompt for the week of March 4 is:

Physical impact that endometriosis has had on your life

And, well, yeah. Endo has done what a culture of misogyny, beauty myths, and fat shaming could not. I hate my hips. Which is not even actually one hundred percent true. It’s more like endo has caused unrelenting — but changing and sometimes unpredictable — pain and mobility issues in my hips.

It is nice when I don’t need to be plugged into the wall.

Endo makes it feel like my hips have betrayed me.

Some people have endo that blocks their fallopian tubes and clings to their ovaries. Some have endo that lines their bladders and bowels. Me, I have endo that’s crept into the muscles, connective tissue, and nerves of my hip and pelvic region. To get slightly grotesque about it, endo is eating my hips.

When I talk about endo to people, I find there are a lot of folk who want to categorize it as a condition that consists primarily of “period pain.”

I mean, there are the people — including far too many health care professionals — who want to dismiss it as “just” cramps. To each and every one of them I wish a well-seasoned outhouse, copious amounts of urgent diarrhea, and exactly two squares of TP. One-ply.

There are also somewhat more informed people who understand that endo pain is typically more severe than are standard issue cramps — but who still generally think of it as uterus-centered period pain, only more intense. They don’t account for the potential realities of people with endo to extend beyond periods, beyond pelvises, beyond pain.

I don’t hate my hips because they cause me pain, though I don’t exactly love them for it, either. At this point, pain is familiar, predictable. Not that I don’t cuss out my “sawed in half” feeling from time to time, but I’ve had a lot of years to fine tune a lot of coping mechanisms.

But my hips — home of my “powerhouse” muscles, as so many fitness articles like to remind me — are becoming unstable. I get stiffness and range of motion issues that are roughly cyclical — worse when I’m closer to bleeding, better when I’m further away from it — but that still change wildly from day to day. This means that my baseline for how to perform simple physical movements — standing up, sitting down, walking — isn’t something I can take for granted. More complicated movements — running, negotiating tighter quarters (like a classroom with three dozen desks), practicing pretty much any yoga — require additional amounts of concentration and physical negotiation. In addition to endo in my muscular and connective tissue, the endo along my nerves means that my memory of how to perform these actions may need adjusting not just from day to day but from moment to moment.

The upshot is that I thwap into things with my butt a lot and sometimes stumble for no visible reason because I have trouble determining where my hips are in space. Which, in addition to the bruising, leaves me worrying that people are judging my fat ass.

And also leaves me with questions.

Is this my new normal? Will it get worse? Is there a way to predict how I will feel when? What are my new ways to cope? Why does no one talk about this when talking about endo?

Where are the people who can help?

I guess maybe I don’t hate my hips. I hate that my hips bring up so many unanswered — and maybe unanswerable — questions.

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** I want to acknowledge that the author of that post uses some gendered language to describe people with endometriosis. While endo does disproportionately affect women, it’s important to recognize that not every person who has endometriosis — for example, some trans* men or some folks who are genderqueer — is or IDs as a woman.

Stop projecting your misconceptions about fat onto my life.

I’m sure that by now a lot of people have seen Paul Campos’s article “Our Imaginary Fear of Fat” in The New York Times. I read it, but then I made the mistake of reading the comments.

Not the comments on the article itself: I know better than that. But a number of my friends and online acquaintances, all of whom I consider to be reasonably body positive, have posted it on blogs, Tumblrs, and Facebook feeds. What I didn’t realize, but maybe should have, is that comment spaces there are no safer or more fat-friendly than are comment spaces on the Internet at large (pun intended).

They’re also no more accurate. In fact, a lot of them seem to be projecting concerns about “oh, noez! teh fatz!” that aren’t inherently related to fat or BMI (since the article in question actually discusses results related to BMI rather than body fat) at all — and that definitely aren’t true for me. It would not serve my emotional health to wade into all those online spaces to address the projections, but I would like to do that here.

Projection 1: All fat people “do it to themselves” — i.e., “make themselves fat” due to massive calorie intake and far too little exercise.

Yes, there are lots of people (of various sizes) who eat a lot of calories and/or who exercise very little. But this is not an inherent feature of being fat. There are plenty of us who remain in the “overweight” and “obese” BMI categories regardless of caloric intake and exercise habits. (Seriously. When I was exercising compulsively and eating far too few calories — and having fewer calories recommended to me — I was still “overweight.”) But in addition to the fact that genetics plays a significant role in body weight, there is also the fact that it is seriously not cool to make sweeping generalizations about how bigger people eat and/or exercise without actually knowing how the significant majority of fat people eat and/or exercise.

And I’m not suggesting that I know how the vast majority of larger people — or any people — live their lives. However, when other people try to use my body size as evidence of how so many people live their lives, that is grossly uninformed and also anger-making.

Projection #2: Muscular people are “skewing” the BMI statistics, which is what’s creating the idea that fat is not an instant death sentence.

Or, you know, there’s the possibility that muscular people are and have always been a regular part of those heavier BMI categories. Until we use actual indicators of health to measure health and actual indicators of physical fitness to measure physical fitness, we will not know.

Projection #3: That overweight and obese people only have decreased mortality because they get “so frigging much” medical treatment and interventions “for their fatness.”

Which fails to note, as Melissa McEwan and Marilyn Wann recently did, that there’s significant evidence of weight bias leading to fat people getting condescending, dismissive, inadequate, or even harmful health care.

When I say “condescending,” I’m talking about things like former doctors: telling me to lose weight with each office visit, no matter what I was there for, often spending more time on that than my actual complaint of, say, what turned out to be a broken foot (aka. the “I slipped on a vibrator” story).

And when I say “harmful,” I’m talking about things like the delay in my endo diagnosis, which exceeds even even the frighteningly long average diagnostic delay of 12 years. Which in no small part took so fucking long because doctor after doctor after nurse practitioner after doctor after naturopath after doctor gave advice, advice, advice, and more advice that often amounted to, “Sometimes these things will go away on their own once you lose weight.” (When they weren’t giving medical advice of the “suck it up and deal” nature. But that’s another topic for another time.) Certainly I can’t state a definite causal relationship between the diagnostic delay and the endo-related damage that has shown up in places like my sciatic nerve and pelvic floor — can’t state a causal relationship because no one bothered to consider it before — I am relatively certain that this measure of care harmed rather than helped.

So now I’m a clinically obese person with chronic hip and low back pain. To quote the eloquent Taylor Swift, I am “never, ever, ever, ever” leaving my current health care provider because I do not want to risk setting off another chain of “Just lose weight!” initial visits.

Projection #4: Living in an overweight or obese body is a “quality of life issue.”

You know, there are a lot of things related to my body that affect my quality of life. I have mentioned the endo-induced pelvic pain and the encompassing medical douchebaggery; that affects my quality of life.

Not being able to find appropriate clothing to comfortably participate in activities that help provide me with joy, physical health and fitness, and stress reduction: It’s maybe not the most profound thing ever, but that affects my quality of life.

When other people interpret my body size as an opportunity for unwanted comment or unwanted touching, that affects my quality of life.

When people assume that my body size makes me incompetent to witness and interpret my own life experience — as a lot of the Facebook and Tumblr and blog comments have done — that affects my quality of life.

But those are quality of life issues that stem from other people’s projections; none are actually inherent to my body.

In the future, Internet, I would appreciate it if you would kindly keep your douchebaggery to yourself.

And We All Fall Down

Given the number of times I declare my undying hatred of standing balance poses, it may be surprising, both that I put together a sequence — for my school students — building toward half moon and that I enjoyed doing so. Regular half-moon — as opposed to revolved half-moon, which is a tool of the butt-burning devil, I say affectionately — has never been a pose I love to hate. Perhaps because it’s a hip-twisting-open pose, at least for the standing leg, which is a direction my body likes to go naturally. Perhaps because the most common expression of the pose involves keeping the bottom hand or fingertips on the floor, so it’s not really a standing balance in the way that some others are.

I now have a core group of students who are getting decidedly more adventurous with their pose preferences, so I thought this might be a fun way to challenge them. That said, I can have new people — new to me, totally new to yoga, whatever definition you please — show up at any time as well (something I’m sure is true for any number of people who lead yoga sessions). Because of that, I wanted something that had a lot of flexibility and options built in. This is what I came up with.

Judging from student feedback, I think I may have skewed it a little too far toward the physically vigorous end of the spectrum. Good for me to keep in mind for next time, but not a big deal in the moment on account of some of the built-in options.

Also, before we started, I made sure to let them know:

1. Every single vinyasa was 100% customizable. This includes skipping any given — or all offered — vinyasas entirely.
2. It is totally normal to fall the first time — or the first several times — one tries half moon. In fact, it is good to plan for it and so to position oneself where they won’t accidentally kick another student in the face.

Warm Up:

All variations on uttanasana, including:

• 3 repetitions of ardha uttanasana to uttanasana.
• 3 repetitions of an uttanasana twist (links to PDF; I’m referring to first option pictured), holding for 1 breath on each side.
• 1 more repetition of the same twist, this time holding for 3 breaths on each side.

Sun Salutes, C Series:

The ones we do here are still sort of an extension of our warm up:

• For the first round, I incorporate an open twist in the lunge for each side. That is, we twist the torso toward the back leg, sort of as is pictured here. It’s a gentler twist than the one more often used here, but it more closely mimics the body position in half moon. We hold each twist for 3 breaths.
• For the second round, we do the more common bent knee lunge twist, both as a counterpose to the first twist and because there’s an option for revolved half-moon later. We also hold each of these twists for 3 breaths.

Sun Salutes, A Series:

With add ons.

• The first time through, we add on some warrior 2 — 3 bend-straighten repetitions, then a hold for 3-5 breaths.
• Next comes a sun salute with reverse warrior to extended side angle. Again, 3 flowing repetitions, then a hold of side angle for 3-5 breaths.
• Another one, this time with triangle, held for 5 breaths on each side.

Standing Series:

• Goddess, 3 1-breath repetitions, then 1 hold of 3-5 breaths.
• Wide angle forward bend for 5 or so breaths.
• Down dog, because it’s a nice starting position for half moon.
• Half moon for 10 or so breaths. I know that might sound like a long hold for someone new to the pose, but I found that my students needed that much time to figure out how it actually worked. From down dog, we stepped forward into lunge, then stepped the back foot up, then worked on hand position. Then we just lifted the back foot, talking about engagement and rotation, for a couple of breaths; then a few breaths rotating the top hip up with both hands on the floor; then bringing the top hand to the hip. And then we all fall down.
• Either uttanasana or revolved half moon — the latter bringing both hands back to the ground — for about 5 breaths. Then back to down dog and repeat on the other side.
• At the end of the second side, we all took a few breaths in uttanasana, or — as it was then known — “the heck did we just do?” pose.

Core Work:

Abs and back.

• Boat, either toes on the floor, knees bent, or legs straight. I think we did 2 rounds of 5 breaths each.
• Bridge, first in a flow of 5 repetitions for 1 breath each. Then they chose whether to repeat that or to hold bridge for 5 breaths.

Floor Work:

• Dandasana for a few breaths to prepare for some seated twists. We also came back to dandasana in between each subsequent pose.
• Seated spinal twist for 5 breaths on each side.
• And also janu sirsasana in the same way.
• Then savasana because savasana.

It was fun when we did it, but it was after this class that my students requested a yin series the following week.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Colposcopy

I wrote about it here, at the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona blog. Though, in the interests of full disclosure — While I’ve done my research and while I’ve probably talked to more people about their personal colposcopy experiences than is strictly average or normal, I’ve never had a colposcopy myself. If I’ve gotten something dreadfully wrong about what it feels like to experience the procedure, please feel free to let me know.

The Biggest Loser & Internet Vitriol

A few days ago, I posted #stopbiggestloser, my explanation of why I support Golda Poretsky’s Twitter campaign — which has since been joined by this petition, started by Ragen Chastain and Jeanette DePatie — to request that NBC keep teenage participants off of the next season of The Biggest Loser.

Since then, my notifications icon has been lighting up like an… I don’t know… figure out your own simile for something that lights up many times in rapid succession.

Most of them I have deemed not fit to print on my own online space. In fact, going one step further, I want to make clear that I am not referring to any comments or commenters that I’ve approved, even if I’ve disagreed with them while doing so. Rather, I’m referring to people who began not with disagreements — or even attacks — on my ideas but with attacks on my person.

There have been just over forty unique troll commenters, and they’ve all been supremely unimaginative. I mean, yes, there’s been some variation about the harm they intend to inflict on me or the harm they believe fate will inflict on me. But their reasons for such all fall into three main categories, none of which is particularly relevant to my original explanation.

Reason the First — My argument is invalid because I am ugly.

Which, I have been called ugly since before I started school. It has long ceased to make an impact on my psyche and has, in fact, become evidence to me that the caller has nothing relevant to say.

Because let’s face it — Whether it’s a good idea or not for The Biggest Loser to have teens on their next season, the relative worth of that idea does not change because I am pretty or because I am ugly.

So why make it, I have to ask? I can only assume it is to make me feel more insecure, less worthy. To make me question my right to have such an opinion against a show that promotes a narrow, stereotypical beauty ideal that does not reflect in my person.

Said argument is invalid.

Reason the second — My argument is invalid because I am a bitch.

Again, for the assclowning, cactusfucking love of the Baby Jesus pissing in my morning Cheerios, let us not believe that “bitch” is either the most creative cuss I’ve heard nor the worst name I’ve been called. Moreover, in a lot of society, “bitch” is code for a woman who is straightforward and unapologetic about holding and expressing opinions. Though callers often mean it as such, I don’t particularly consider it an insult.

Even if I did, name calling for my lack of apology regarding me opinion — or even the strident terms in which I expressed my opinion, though in the grand scheme of things, I don’t believe mine were particularly grating — does not begin to tackle the relative merit of the opinion itself.

Therefore, calling me a bitch to invalidate my argument is invalid.

So why ask it? To shame me for daring to possess an opinion?

Finally, my argument is invalid because I do not exercise.

Compared to measures of ugliness or bitchitude, both of which are highly open to interpretation, the fact of whether or not I exercise is considerably more objective. Which means it is considerably more open to being proven right or wrong.

And this argument is objectively wrong.

So why make it?

This one is more interesting to me.

One possibility is that they simply disbelieve — or do not value — any of the exercise I do, on account of I am still arguing that minors should not be placed in situations where they are expected to exercise until they vomit. Perhaps they straightforwardly believe that this is the amount and type of exercise I should be doing, as it produces weight loss at any cost — and fat people should be pursuing weight loss at any cost.

Another possibility is that they know full well that these endeavors are unhealthy but that they expect fat people to engage in them anyway — because they depend on fat hate — internal and external — to help them feel good about their own bodies. And so they gaslight in hopes that I’ll relegate my own estimation of my activity levels to “not enough,” as if I should place more stock in their derision than I do in my own experience. As if by doing so, I will judge my own argument unworthy.

Here’s the thing:

The Biggest Loser is a television show with a bad track record for healthy practices or care for its contestants. They’re now seeking to add adolescents — people whose bodies are still growing and developing and people who are generally not able to give their own legal or medical consent for most purposes — into the mix. Even if I am the ugliest, non-exercising-ist bitch on the face of the planet, that is a bad idea. And that argument is valid.

Talking About Cervices

At the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona Blog. Specifically, the post I wrote this time is about interpreting abnormal Pap test results. You know, what the different medical acronyms mean, what the recommended follow up steps are for each one, that sort of thing. Hopefully useful to people who’d like to know why certain actions are recommended — or not recommended — for certain Pap results.

A Small Endometriosis Rant

Partly on the endo classification system itself, partly on how people tend to interpret it.

Short text explanation of how endo classification works — Upon observation (usually via laparoscopy), the surgeon makes note of the size and location of any endometriosis lesions they find. Each one gets a certain number of “points,” depending on size and location. (It’s like a game, whee!)

Interpretation mistake number one — Equating Stage IV (severe) endometriosis to more pain and Stages I and II (minimal and mild) to less pain. As many other sources will explain, there is no particular correlation between endo stage and pain. It is quite possible to have Stage III or IV endo and have minimal or no pain or to have Stage I or II endo and have frequent or severe pain.

Interpretation mistake number two — Failing to recognize the strong reproductive bias in the staging system. For endometrial lesions of comparable size, lesions rate anywhere from twice as many to four times as many “points” if they’re on the ovaries as opposed to the peritoneum (pelvic cavity). As for adhesions, the only ones that rate points are those that involve the ovaries or fallopian tubes.

For instance, I have dozens — if not hundreds — of small endometrial implants in my peritoneum, at least some of which (the ones biopsied) are deep. Two points.

There is some posterior cul de sac (basically, the way back of the vagina) endo going on, but not enough for my surgeon to deem it even partially obliterated. Zero points. (Though the gynecologist I saw after I left that surgeon wondered if he hadn’t miscategorized it — so maybe four points?)

And there are also multiple pelvic cavity adhesions — at least some of which, as evidenced by biopsy, have endo involvement. Zero points.

So there’s basically a situation where endometriosis is running deep and wide throughout my pelvis but where the classification system labels it as “minimal” or “mild.” Not only is that a piss poor way of categorizing pain (which, fortunately, most people who are familiar with endo understand), but it’s also a woefully inaccurate way even of classifying the physical impact — the physical presence — of endo on my insides (which, unfortunately, even a lot of people who are familiar with endo do not understand).

Hating Gym: Liking Gym Edition

I have admittedly invested a lot of both time and effort in chronicling why I despised my ninth grade gym class:

• Scale Edition and the competitive BMI portion of my PE grade.
• Menarche Edition, complete with gushing and dodge ball.
• Volleyball Edition, where the teacher expected her gym class to be as competitive as her interscholastic team.
• Square Dancing Edition, in which sexual harassment was sanctioned.
• The Last Mile, menstruation revisited.

I’m glad I’ve done so, both because it’s helped me see some of my adolescent experiences through adult eyes — a teacher’s eyes — and to name inexcusable educating and caretaking behavior for what it is.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t dedicate at least one post to tenth grade gym.

The class was called Muscle Development, and — for name alone, I expect — it had acquired the reputation of being a class dedicated to “bulking up.” Consequently, there were about four sections of Boys Muscle Development and only one of Girls Muscle Development — and that one included a lot of students who, like me, had selected “no preference” for their specific tenth grade PE class. The class itself was an unlikely mix of students — half hardcore, four-season varsity athletes and half people who looked like they’d been plopped in from another dimension. I was in the latter group.

“Your grade in this class will have three parts,” the teacher explained on the first day. “The first is what you know. For example, can you explain how muscles use oxygen or how to use a particular piece of equipment in the weight room? Being able to lift weights is great, but it’s even better if you know how lifting is affecting your body. And it’s crucial to be able to do it safely.”

As someone who’d grown comfortable in traditional academic settings, I breathed a sigh of relief. Explain the steps in a process? Easy. Conceptualize some human anatomy and physiology? No big deal at all, even if it was only a portion of my grade.

“The second part is participation. Showing up, dressing out, and trying your best every day will get you some points. Because a person who does that regularly is setting themselves up for more longer-term benefits than the person who might only work out once in a while, even if you can’t do very much right now.”

I’ll be honest: Even then, I considered participation grades as ways for teachers to pad their students’ grades. But after my experience with the gym class from hell, I was still worried that I’d need as much padding as I could possibly get. Additionally, I continued to worry about how the whole “needing to skip gym and/or school for horrific period pain” thing would affect my participation grade, as we’d not yet found a doctor who would sign off on a note for it.**

“The last part is goal setting and reflection. You will have to set fitness goals for yourself — reasonable fitness goals — and work toward them. If you’re not meeting them, you’re going to have to figure out why not and what is the best way to change. I don’t mean that you’re going to be able to do anything you want, but there are a lot of different goals you could set, and a lot of reasons you might need to modify. But we’ll talk more about that as we start each unit.”

And she was basically as good as her word on that, too. Things I learned in Muscle Development:

• There is a whole spectrum of combinations between a million reps at a teeny tiny weight and one rep at your complete max for that weight. Different combinations have different purposes, but a good rule of thumb is this: If your weight lifting routine is hurting you or boring you, it’s probably time to switch.
• Form really does matter, both for keeping vulnerable body parts safe (hi, knees and low back!) but also for making the exercise harder.
• You will probably always have particular exercises and/or muscle groups that you struggle with. So will the person next to you. Their struggles may not be your struggles. It doesn’t mean that either person is better or worse; you’re just different.
• Squats were designed by the devil herself.

And even with the squats, it was okay.

** I eventually solved this problem by being totally absent from school and having one of my parents call me in sick (and, slightly further down the road, posing as my mother to call myself in sick — with my mother’s knowledge and consent). While I suspect some people at school may have noticed the cyclical nature of my absences, there were really no solid grounds for them to voice any objections.

More Political Postings

I’m writing this on the last evening of the Democratic National Convention. Probably — I’m not watching TV and not keeping track of time zones — even as I’m writing this, Barack Obama is giving his speech to the DNC delegates.

And that is fabulous, but tonight, I’m thinking about politics back home.

Because I’ve spent the past week-ish contacting six Democratic candidates for the state House and Senate. I’ve played email tag; I’ve played phone tag. I wrote up two interviews — for Tucson area Senate candidate David Bradley and for Phoenix area House candidate Matthew Cerra — and am trying to work out the timelines for more.

Here’s the thing: None of these candidates — to-be-interviewed or already interviewed — is seeking to represent my local legislative district. And yet, their elections matter to me.

Because as a woman, I cannot afford even one more legislator who votes against the interests of women.

Because as a queer woman, I cannot afford even one more legislator who votes against the interests of LGBTQ people.

Because as a teacher, I cannot afford even one more legislator who votes against the interests of education. (People — schools or prisons: YOU MUST FUND ONE.)

Because as a teacher in a high-minority, low-SES district, I cannot afford even one more legislator who votes against the interests of poor people or of minority ethnic groups.

Because as someone committed to as much social justice as I can manage (and I’m way not perfect on this, at all), I cannot afford even one more legislator who is committed to the opposite.

And really — who can?

Guest Post — Hating Gym: Guest Blogging Edition

Closetpuritan is a self-described nerd and skeptic who writes about fat at http://closetpuritan.wordpress.com/. She likes to involve her dog when running or hiking, and not involve her dog when swimming or doing yoga. She still doesn’t play team sports.

Gym class is frequently touted as a way to lower children’s BMIs. There are many reasons to be skeptical about this*, but I have one reason in particular: my own experience. Gym class for me neither encouraged me to be active during the class itself, nor outside of class. I am fairly active as an adult in spite of, not because of, my gym class experience.

What I mostly remember doing in gym class is standing around. When I was really young, maybe kindergarten or first grade, sometimes they let us scoot around the gym on little scooters or play with hula hoops or things like that. When I was older, sometimes they’d have us run a mile, and there was a weightlifting and aerobics unit, and there was even one brief unit where we did cross country skiing. But mostly we played team sports, and for me that meant standing around.

I wasn’t standing around exclusively. Once in a while I would move to Do Something with a ball. More frequently I would move out of my teammates’ way. I was the stereotypical last kid picked in gym class. (Well, except for the fact that these days that stereotypical kid is probably fat; up until middle school I was thin enough to have a flat stomach.) Perhaps not coincidentally, one of my favorite sports games was badminton; I thought at the time it was because I didn’t suck quite so badly at badminton, but it might be partly because I could actually participate.

About running a mile once in a while: The first time I did it I was in 7th or 8th grade. After countless gym classes full of Standing Around, they just announced, “OK, we’re running a mile today.” I wasn’t able to run the whole mile; I was just about last, along with one of my friends. (I have reason to believe that in addition to not having any practice, I’m just not naturally very good at running. It also would have helped if I’d had some idea of how to pace myself.) We might have done the mile run one more time before summer, but that was it for the year. It was the same for the couple times that we ran a mile in high school. No preparation, just one or two times running a mile in isolation. It could have been worse: our grades were participation-based, not time-based.

But it could have been a lot better. What if they had had us run a mile twice a week over the course of a couple months? Then maybe we could have had the pride of seeing our times improve, instead of just a ranking showing how badly we’d done. What if they had given us some feedback besides our times, such as making pacing or form suggestions?

My gym experience left me feeling like I was just not good at physical activity. As an adult, I’ve come to discover that it’s a bit more nuanced than that. I’m not good at vigorous endurance exercise. (Moderate endurance exercise seems to come more naturally to me; for example, I had no problem hiking up Mt. Elmore.) I’m also not good at anything that requires bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: I’m not good at hitting a ball or other object that’s flying through the air, predicting its motion, remembering sequences of movement, or figuring out how to imitate new poses and positions–the few times that yoga is frustrating for me, it’s usually because of an overload of new positions that I’m having trouble figuring out–or just one that’s particularly difficult. But for most of the things I like to do, I don’t need to be good at any of those things. Now that I’m done with gym class (and homework–I “only” have a full-time job now), I’m free to pursue the things that I like to do and have become a lot more active. I’m even finding the joy in running in the knowledge that I’m bad at it, being happy at how much better I can run than in high school while not constantly being reminded of how much worse I am at it than everyone else.

*Scientific studies have had mixed results: see here, here, and here, for example.

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This post is part of a Back to School Guest Blogging series. If you’d like to guest blog here, please email Tori at anytimeyoga@gmail.com.

Playing with My Playlist 3: Your Mojo Is in Your Hips

You know how when you’re going through your stuff, you sometimes find things that make you go, “What made me think it was a good idea to own this in the first place?”

I do not own it, but that’s what happened when I found this clip on one of my playlists:

[Chaz Rough instructing for Yogamazing. Video via YouTube.]

Its title is “Yoga for the Libido,” but as it turns out, it happens to be a fairly nice series of hip openers. Could be useful for runners, desk-sitters, people who store emotional tension in their hips, etc.

And that’s plenty of comment for something I said was going to involve minimal comment.

Playing with My Playlist 2

I’m not sure how much I love this one for me, so I’m considering deleting it from my personal playlist. That said, nothing about it is terrible for me, so I don’t want to get rid of it entirely.

Ah, indecision.

[Chaz instructing for Yogamazing via YouTube.]

For me, it’s a comfy blend of seated, kneeling, and standing work — sans energy-demanding vinyasas. It’s not quite a low energy or lazy day practice for me — on account of I’m no good with standing on a truly low energy day — but it’s getting there.

Obamacare, Birth Control, & Me

Today is the day. As part of the Affordable Care Act, insurers will have to cover some preventative services — birth control pills among them — without copays or cost-sharing, in the first plan year that begins on or after today’s date.

Okay, so my plan rolls over in September. Technically, the first of next month is the day for me. But today is the day I am going to start thinking about it.

Because this pill, I’m not so sure it’s working out for me. I woke up in too much pain to get out of bed on the first try. And between the desert summer, my sweat, and the amount of fluid coming out of my vagina, I’m finding it awfully hard to stay adequately hydrated. Not to mention that what I’d really, really like is to be able to stack pills and — as long as I’m spewing out fantasies here — suppress pain and bleeding completely. (I would say “at least down to normal levels,” but at this point, I believe I have already had enough extra pain and blood to feel like I deserve to be done now.)

Cost-wise, I’m pretty lucky already. I have health insurance, for one. For two, I’m on a pill that my insurance plan considers Tier 1, which makes the copay pretty affordable. But that’s balanced against, you know, the fact that these pills aren’t really doing their job so well. But that’s more a “medical science has shit-all to treat my endo” issue, not so much a health care affordability issue.

Which is why I feel a bit guilty for hoping what I’m hoping and considering what I’m considering.

There are some pills that my insurance will never classify as Tier 1 because they cost approximately eleventy billion dollars per pack. They are, however, of such a variety as to lend themselves toward stacking. In the past, I’ve been afraid to try them for two reasons: fear they might not work and fear they would. If they didn’t work, that meant I would have spent a ridiculous amount of money to trade a known set of symptoms and side effects for another set that was equally craptastic — or perhaps even more so. (Not to mention, the joy of adjustment side effects.) If they did work, that meant I’d either resolve to try to go on them permanently — which, in reality, would likely mean I delayed refills some months due to lack of sufficient monies — or know that there was something out there that did work but that I couldn’t afford it reliably.

Except now — well, in September — I would be able to afford it. Which doesn’t mean it will work and still leaves the question of whether the hormonal side effects are worth switching (could get better, could get worse). However, financially, I could afford to risk it — and if it worked out, I could afford to continue taking a medication that actually helped me. That’s no small thing.

And I understand, yes, that this is not what this provision of the Affordable Care Act was designed to do. Access to affordable contraception is not the same thing as me wanting to try some brand name pills on the chance that they’ll help my endometriosis symptoms. For folks using hormonal contraceptives for, you know, contraception, not being at risk for unplanned pregnancy due to lack of finances is a big fucking deal.

And yet, this is also true for pain management. Starting September 1, I may no longer have to tell my doctor, “If it’s not generic, don’t even bother.” Being able to choose a medication based solely on how well it works (or might work), rather than how much it costs, is a big fucking deal.

Hip Yoga: Build a Stronger Butt?

First off, if you do any kind of YouTube, Google, or other Internet search for “yoga butt” — or even the somewhat more technical “yoga and glutes” — you will find a plethora of pages promising to tighten one’s butt, tone one’s tushie, or remove the “junk” in one’s trunk. (Truth: The only time I consider my trunk to have “junk” in it is in the moments before an impending bowel movement.) My point is, if you’re looking for an asana routine for your butt — a lot of them focusing on outward appearances such that I’m not thrilled linking them here — there are plenty of online spaces to find it. This post is not going to be that space.

I am, however, interested in talking about the type of movements that strengthen the glues-as-hip-extensors (as opposed to the glutes-as-external-rotators, which is coming soon to a yoga blog near you) as a complement to this post. What you choose to do with this movement knowledge is up to you.

So. To recap, in terms of its extension properties, the gluteus maximus stretches when the hip is in flexion, as is the case during forward folds. Conversely, the gluteus maximus is contracting and strengthening when it is working to bring the leg back behind the torso in hip extension. I say “working to bring” because for me, one of the most common times I feel my glute working is when I’m sure my hip is not actually in extension but when I can definitely feel my butt working to get it there.

I am talking, of course, about down dog split (aka three-legged dog):

A capture I took while making the photo post for wild thing. I am not sure if this is as high as my lifted leg goes — with level hips — or if I was just more focused on the different stages of getting to wild thing. Either way, what’s important is that the Caseydog is Not Impressed.

In my asana practices, I do this pose about eleventy billion times per day: stepping forward into lunges and warriors, moving into wild thing, prepping for pigeon. Because of that, it’s useful to me to know what’s happening physically in this pose, particularly as compared to variations — down dog with the top hip externally rotated, for example. Here, because the hips are level, the glutes (and probably the hamstrings — they’re a team like that) on the lifted leg side are working to bring that hip into extension. Because of the positioning — working against gravity — the muscles are contracting and strengthening to perform the action of lifting, even if the leg doesn’t go high enough to be in line with the spine and torso. Basically, gravity is working to pull the leg down; the butt is countering gravity to pull the leg up.

If the goal is to keep the leg lift about hip extension rather than rotation — which, as always, depends on a person’s intent — this is done by keeping the hips level. A good reference point for this is to make sure the toes are pointed straight down and that you’re flexing out through the heel. I think it’s fair to say that most people can’t lift the leg as high when the hips are level as they can when they allow the lifted leg to externally rotate. I’m guessing that has something to do with how the femur head sits in the hip socket, but I haven’t actually looked into it in detail.

For folks looking to extend or adapt the idea to different poses, the same basic principle holds true for the lifted leg in sunbird as well as in standing split.

For folks who are like, “Quit typing. I need to see a video explanation already,” here is one from YouTube:

[Anita Goa instructing for AnitaGoaTV via YouTube.]

DVD Review — Total Yoga: The Flow Series — Fire

This DVD will not be up for giveaway.

Given that I’ve reviewed the first 2 DVDs in this series, I figured it’s only fitting that I review Fire. However, this is one DVD I’m going to keep for myself — on account of sometimes, I need a reminder on what ass kicking feels like. Because while I made the mistake of openly declaring Earth and Water to be physically easy for me, I will not make the same mistake with Fire. Because I have now remembered what karma can do once you piss it off.

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Specs for Total Yoga: The Flow Series — Fire:

Yoga Style: Vinyasa. And it seems to bear a pretty close — though not perfect — resemblance to traditional Ashtanga series.

Suited To: Experienced yogis, particularly those accustomed to fashioning their own modifications — as well as those comfortable with deeper backbends and inversions.

Props: A blanket is suggested for shoulderstand. I used it for headstand as well.

Run Time: 63 minutes from breath instruction through the guided portion of the relaxation.

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Ideally, folks using this DVD would have practiced using the Water edition until they were comfortable with it. If that’s not possible, I’d suggest that folks using this DVD be comfortable with unmodified sun salutes, common standing poses, safe backbending practices, and inversions.

As its name suggests, Fire is a very fiery, energetic practice that assumes a certain amount of physical stamina as well as yoga knowledge from the people using it. The active portion is also about 15-20 minutes longer than are either of its previous counterparts.

Breathing — Same pranayama instruction as in Earth and Water.

Sun Salutes — In addition to those practiced in the Water DVD, Fire includes 3 rounds of the B-series sun salute — that is, the one that incorporates both chair pose and warrior one as part of the sun salute. In addition, all sun salutes are presented without modifications. If one is familiar with, say, bending knees during ardha uttanasana or dropping to one’s knees during chaturanga, those variations are quite easy to take. However, the explicit instructions in the DVD are for the “full” expressions of each pose only.

Standing Poses — This sequence is even longer than the Water series. Additionally, with Fire, all of the standing poses are taken as part of more sun salutes. I often take vinyasa classes that operate on this same practice; generally, they advise students that they should feel free to skip or modify vinyasas as they need. In the DVD, there was no explicit instruction to that effect, though again, actually doing it would be easy to incorporate. The standing poses include triangle, warrior two, extended side angle, half moon, warrior one, warrior three, and revolved triangle.

Core Work — Includes both lying boat (locust) and seated boat (navasana). Also includes some half sit ups as well as some lying leg raises.

Backbends — Camel, repeated twice. Then one series where bridge only is offered for the first option. For the second option, the instructions offer the choice of repeating bridge or moving to full wheel.

Floor Work — The forward bending segment is longer as well, including some standing forward folds, janu sirsasana, paschimottanasana, and a seated wide legged fold. (And bound angle? I remember bound angle in there somewhere.) There’s also a seated spinal twist as well as a seated hip opener with the option of moving into seated archer and/or putting one’s leg behind one’s head. (I already know that there is no fucking way my leg goes behind my head — at least not without placing strain on my ankle and my neck — so I did not attempt this.)

Inversions — The series starts with dolphin and offers the option of moving into headstand. For me, the hold length feels long for headstand (meaning sometimes I’ll come out early to play it safe with my neck) but is quite manageable for dolphin. Next, the series moves to shoulderstand, entered and exited through plow, practiced with a blanket. Finally, there’s fish: this DVD offers options for flying fish and/or fish with the legs in lotus.

Savasana — Like the other DVDs in this series, it’s long, partially guided, and fades off into music after the voice instruction.

Overall, I’d most want to recommend this for fairly experienced yogis. For one, some of the poses offered — wheel, the archer progression, headstand, some of the fish options — can be fairly involved. And while the instructions the DVD offers are by no means bad, they are also not pose tutorials — and I don’t think they’re meant to be. Similarly, all of those more involved poses come in the later portion of the practice, after some vigorous sun salute and standing work. So it requires some good gauging on whether it’s safe or serving to take every asana offered or whether some modification (either in the sun salutes or in the second part of the practice) is a better personal option.

Hip Yoga: Is Ass Stretching a Thing?

So I’m looking at the gluetus maximus as hip extensors (accurate, though it has other functions as well), and I am starting to realize — I am not sure I have ever consciously stretched my glues before. I’ve had instructors mention a glute stretch in pigeon, but I definitely feel stretch predominantly along the outside of my front hip. Similarly, I may actually feel it a bit in fire log, but there’s still something on the outside that feels it way more.

Maybe I just have a loose ass? Or maybe stretching my butt — as opposed to building strength there — is just not something I’ve paid much attention to over the years.

I figured the latter was probably more true than the former. That is, that I probably have felt some gluteal stretch over the years, but I maybe haven’t paid the most attention to it. Going with that hypothesis, I’ve done a fair bit of experimenting in my private yoga studio — er, the bit of floor between the couch and the TV — over the past few days. I have determined that I do, in fact, feel some straight-on gluteus maximus stretch in various forward folds. Which fold, exactly, depends on when and how I do it. Because of this, I am going to detail the fold that works best for me (as well as the modifications and attentions I use to maximize the ass stretch). You should feel free to experiment with the forward fold that works best for you.

I find that prasarita padottanasana (standing wide legged forward fold — the English really isn’t any more convenient here) is what gives me the most room to be able to work into my glutes. The standing position means that my butt is not on the ground, which gives it some maneuverability to find the best stretch. The wide stance means it’s easier for me to find some internal rotation in my hips. (Another gluteus maximus function is to externally rotate the thigh, so that opposite movement — internal rotation — helps create some stretch.) Finally, gravity working on my upper body lets me get the hip flexion I need to feel a glute stretch.

But, here. Let me show you the pose. Or rather, let me embed a YouTube video of someone else demonstrating the pose:

[Brenna instructing, Heather instructing -- at Bend Yoga Studio for GeoBeats.]

Things that help me shift the stretch toward my glues and to maximize the stretch I feel there:

1. Opt for a wider stance. I hear different recommendations for stance length, with the feet anywhere from three to five-and-a-half feet. While neither of those extremes works for me, I find that there is a sort of range that does. Being on the narrower end of my workable range tends to emphasize the stretch in my hamstrings whereas being on the wider end of my comfortable range tends to emphasize the stretch in my glutes.
2. Watch my feet. Again, I hear different recommendations for how the feet should be — insides parallel, outsides parallel, midlines parallel, toes turned in — so I do the one that works for my anatomy. This involves keeping the outside edges of my feet parallel to the short edges of my mat (or where those edges would be if I’m not using a mat), which for me, does mean that the inside edges of my feet are angled slightly toward each other (heels slightly out, toes slightly in). It also helps me to double-check to make sure I’m not feeling any strain in my knees or ankles, which means that internal rotation happens from my hips.
3. Play with bending my knees. Whether I do this depends on how loose my hamstrings are feeling. If I’m doing both of the above steps and am still feeling the stretch mostly in my hamstrings — and also if I want to be feeling it more in my glutes — sometimes bending my knees slightly helps facilitate that.
4. Really focus on keeping a straight spine — and therefore reaching back through my tailbone and sit bones — even if I have to prop the shit out of this pose. Generally, I’m flexible enough to reach the ground easily (at least on my fingertips), but I still have my days. I know using blocks is a common prop to “raise the floor.” And I’ve seen folks — particularly practicing at home — use the seat of a couch or a chair or, for additional height, using a wall.

I’m not totally sure how well these principles translate to other bodies or to other types of forward folds. But I’m also not too sure what other types of stretches best get at the glutes. Suggestions, anyone?

If not — and even if so — I’m off to do more geeky yoga research!