THE THIGH BONE'S CONNECTED TO THE KNEE BONE?

I have three photos of the inside of my husband's knee on my phone!  This is like a goldmine of personal information about anatomy of the knee joint.  So. Much. Fun!  I'd show you those instead of this diagram, but the surgeon who texted me the pix warned they might not be to everyone's liking.  I've learned that some people do look a bit green around the gills and need to look away when they see the muscles and tendons pulled away and the bones exposed, ends cut off of parts of the tibia and femur and the patella moved aside, to make room for placing the new joint.  My husband had total knee replacement surgery two weeks ago -- an old college football injury finally caught up with him and was interfering with his snowboarding obsession, hence: surgery.

I think the insides of people look a lot like the insides of any animal.  Bone, muscle, tendon, fascia, blood.  Chop up a whole chicken into parts -- you'll see something similar.  Seeing the photos reminded me of my husband's medical school years when we'd meet for lunch in the anatomy lab and I'd munch on my PBJ sandwich while quizzing him on anatomy as he poked around in his assigned cadaver.  This sounds weird and gross and it was, in retrospect, but at the time it was a normal part of our lives.  (I assure you, we were very respectful and appreciative of this person who ended up the object of a med. student's attentions; what a gift to science.)

In yoga teacher training our instructor has shared stories of her own experience with having the opportunity to do cadaver dissection.  She has advanced training in yoga therapy and her knowledge of how the skeleton, muscles, tendons, and facia interact is immense.  She is doing her best to teach us a rudimentary understanding, at the very least, of what is happening inside the body when we move through our asana practice on the mat.

I admit that of my teacher training texts the anatomy book is, to me, like reading a foreign language.  I am lost and have to go over and over the assigned reading, including getting tutoring from my husband.  But what I have learned is that every move we make, the way we hold our bodies, the way injuries and maladies impact our bodies has a profound effect on how we live and move.  I love learning that yoga therapy can help address and correct many of the misalignments we have habitually formed in our bodies.

I know so much in fact, that in sitting in on my husband's post-op home physical therapy sessions I was able to speak with a modicum of knowledge about how I felt he was "compensating" by raising his hip to get his knee flexed and elevated.  I even threw out the term PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) as if I was intimately familiar with the therapeutic benefits of such an approach to muscle strengthening (instead of having heard of it for the first time only a few months ago.)  I realized that in spite of my overwhelm when pouring over my anatomy text, I'm actually learning a few things that are helpful.

What does all this have to do with YOU?  I just want to point out that yoga instructors who are well trained and knowledgable don't just pick out a pose from a list of cool pretezel-y body tricks; there is a reason for what they offer in class and how one pose should follow the next in a logical, body-friendly sequence.  They are aware of the internal workings of your body, the ways in which to best address your shoulder stiffness, your sore lower back, your tight hamstrings.  It may all seem random, but when done well, it's most definitely rooted in anatomical knowledge and expertise.

And good yoga teachers keep learning and growing in their professions.  I know I will need to keep up my anatomy studies to become as proficient and knowledgeable as I want to be.  That's OK.  I have some great photos to study right here on my iPhone.

Namaste,  donnajurene