Yoga for Recovering Injured Foot

In a hurry to get out of the shower to close a banging door on a windy stormy morning, I kicked my left toes against the ridge of the shower door. Oweeee, yoweeee…. was that sore and blood all over, and the worst of it all – I had a Yoga class to teach 20 minutes hence. Cleaned it up, wrapped torn toes with a band-aid, took loads of arnica, other homeopathic remedies and of course my own home-made FlexiBod (for healing and restoring muscles, ligaments and joints) and hobbled off to the class. Ironically the theme for the week’s classes – was – you guessed it – feet…. Grounded-ness; stability; taking weight down through our feet; balance; deep gratitude for what our feet do for us each and every day. Managed to get through that one hobbling and wobbling.

Repeated the remedies all through the day as well as binding the toes (thought by now, one was broken) and added a few rounds of tapping - for the pain, the discomfort, the bruising, the embarrassment of kicking the shower after 20 years of daily use, the thought of a lengthy recovery period if a toe was broken… and other aspects that presented themselves. The following day I taught the yoga class and still my achy, oh-so-sore toes and foot, but it wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be! The next day I was scheduled to teach for an extra long yoga class/workshop – two and half hours of “Yoga for the Core” – managed to get through it okay but by the end the foot was super-sore. After the class continued the remedy/tapping routine and took some rest. Was amazed that there was hardly any bruising, swelling was already down, and when there was no pressure on it – no pain either. The following morning apart from the lacerations it felt astoundingly better, just a bit of a bruised feeling in that second toe and under the foot in that vicinity. Even went for a long walk with the dog. Yay….

But never-the-less now have to plan the week’s morning Yoga classes, so decided to do a routine that does not require putting much pressure on the feet or too much standing, etc (quite the opposite of last week’s classes!) So here it is – a ‘floor yoga class’ for a winter’s morning:

• Centre in Sukhasana
• Kapalabhati – 3 rounds
• Optional Sithali 3x (cooling breaths for those with the hot-flush reaction)
• Neck & shoulder looseners
• Baddha konasana and variations for opening the hips and preparing the lower back
• Side bends in sukhasana
• Twists in sukhasana
• Baddha konasana forward bend
• Janu sirshasana
• Pascimottanasana
• Uppavista konasana
• Gomukhasana for shoulders and upper back
• Navasana and variations
• Rolling ball with all variations; ending with plough to pascimottanasana rolls - 6x each
• Sarvangasana to plough to bridge to matsyasana sequence
• Apanasana both legs 4x
• Cobra sequence to warm up and energise
• Balasana
• Sit up for pranayama: repeat kapalabhati and sithali as above
• Yoga nidra in Savasana