david

Tell us about your Stone Wave experience! 

Love Stone Wave! As a Gardiner resident for more than 30 years, I am excited to see the new influx of businesses that have sprouted up lately. Stone Wave embodies the type of  locally-owned, health-oriented place we need here.

Were you a beginner before you started classes with us? 

No. I started yoga in Dec 2016 after a serious illness made me re-think my body and lifestyle. When I started yoga, I was in recovery from partial paralysis due to a brain infection called Accute Disseminated Encephalo-Myelitis (ADEM) which put me in the hospital for an extended period of time and forced me re-learn the use of my left side, including walking and simple tasks like writing, holding a fork, and picking up a glass. Once I started Yoga, I noticed the incremental advances in my recovery were much faster, and my strength and balance came back more quickly.


How does your life/health compare now with before you joined? 

I actually think yoga has been a life saver. One of my big problems when I started was keeping my balance and getting my motor skills to come back (I couldn’t get my leg to navigate stairs when I first got out of the hospital and used walking sticks to keep my balance). Yoga has helped tremendously in that respect as the conscious effort it takes to do poses and create the correct alignment forces one to think in specifics not generalizations. This philosophy has made a huge difference in my ability to move fluidly again.

Another way that Yoga has helped is with the left side Neuropathy (phantom tingling) I developed as a side effect of my illness. At first it was constant and pretty consuming, but once I started yoga, I found it became less so. Now I find with regular movement, the neuropathy, while still there, is less of a distraction - and sometimes I don’t notice it at all. 

What goals do you have for yourself/what have you already accomplished?

Accomplishments: 

Too many to list. I never thought I would get this far, actually, but the human body is an amazing thing.

Goals: 

  1. I have a goal to practice yoga 2-3 times per week - though I travel a lot for work and sometimes miss that mark by 2-3 classes…per week.
  2. To successfully keep an uninterrupted Tree pose on both sides for THE ENTIRE TIME Liz asks us to.
  3. Increase my core strength and continue to work on my balance
  4. Do Crow for as long as I want.
  5. 3 minute plank.

Any other comments?

#thatswhytheycallitapractice