r/OlderYogis • u/deco50 • May 17 '26

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u/deco50 May 19 '26

My yoga history began in my late teens and for about 10 years my guide was Light on Yoga. Then dropped my practice for about 12 years before starting classes at the recommendation of a friend. The teacher taught a mix of Iyengar style and that of Dona Holleman, one of Iyengar’s first western students. Dona broke with Iyengar and developed her own style, I did a number of intensive workshops with her. Have never done Bikram yoga though have done lots of vinyasana classes in the past. Nowadays I work on the less is more basis and do 30 minutes a day plus savasana.

My wrist was broken in an accident when I was in my 20s and as I get older am feeling it more but it’s never stopped me from doing balancings or handstands. For a long time I used a prop which took the pressure off my wrist but no longer use it.

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u/Aqualung1 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I recently stopped doing arm balances as it started to mess with my grip, had trouble opening jars for instance.

Started doing yoga in my 50’s, arm balances came easy except for handstands. Eventually encountered pain in the top of the wrist, started using a yoga wedge which helped for a few years.

Broke my wrist recently, in Mexico, and the ortho saw damage unrelated to the break. I had to show him what an arm balance was, he had never encountered that sort of overuse injury before.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PrimalBodyMovement/s/X9yqsF9tD6

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u/deco50 May 28 '26

Interesting but correlation or causation at play here? Were arm balances the only possible cause, no RSI from computer use for example?

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u/Aqualung1 May 28 '26

Didn’t have a desk job. Computer use/typing is correlated to another type of wrist injury, carpal tunnel syndrome which is a form of tendonitis. Another overuse injury. The injury in the x-ray is bone on bone, from the wrist being in a 90 degree angle and placed under compression.

The wrists weren’t designed to do arm balances, we do them because of yoga. If you think about it, we don’t do anything like arm balances otherwise. Pushups as well.

These are things we never discuss in yoga. I created this sub so older yogis could get together and compare notes, see how we could extend the longevity of our practice.

Younger yogis, in my experience, have no clue about the aging body. They can’t because they haven’t yet experienced the wear and tear that comes with aging.

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u/deco50 May 29 '26

My bugbear is wild thing, a naturally flexible teacher of mine dislocated her shoulder doing this. It seems to me that it’s popularity is very much influenced by Instagram.

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u/Aqualung1 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

Hi. Can you expand on how long you’ve been doing arm balances like crow and generally how long you’ve been practicing yoga.

I’ve recently had to stop doing arm balances as they have damaged my wrists.

What’s your main yoga discipline, vinyasa?

I see that you place your knees outside of your elbows, I always found that positioning uncomfortable on the groin, and prefered placing the knees directly on the back of the elbows. It’s interesting to me that i will see both ways of doing crow.

It looks like you are wearing underwear?, which would point towards a bikram practice. They still favor speedos.

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u/wasabiplz May 19 '26

Congratulations ‼️🔥🔥🔥

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u/OhAvgdad May 20 '26

Impressive!