Fw: Paraplegic becomes an unlikely expert on yoga

[Guest guest]

-

" Mano " <rmanoharan

Thursday, August 05, 2004 8:00 PM

Paraplegic becomes an unlikely expert on yoga

 

 

> Search: for News |

Business | Sports | Entertainment | Living |

> Shopping | Classifieds | Jobs | Cars | Homes

>

> > Posted on Tue, Jun. 22, 2004

> Paraplegic becomes an unlikely expert on yoga

> DONNA HALVORSEN

> > Associated Press

> > MINNETONKA, Minn. - Tickle Matt Sanford's

> toes and he won't feel a thing. Ask him to stand and he cannot. Ask him to

demonstrate upavista konasana, and he makes this yoga pose look easy,

gliding gracefully out of his wheelchair and onto the floor.

Legs wide, hands by his thighs, toes pointing up, upper inner thighs pushed

in and down,

> stretching out through his heels, he lifts his chest and collarbone. It's

a difficult pose, but Sanford has an agile body that belies his condition.

He's a paraplegic - and also a gifted yoga teacher who has

founded Mind Body Solutions, a nonprofit Minnetonka yoga studio dedicated to

showing others the benefits of awakening the connection between mind and

body. His journey began 25 years ago when his

> family's car hit ice and went off a bridge. He was 13, an athletic boy

from Duluth who awoke from a three-day coma to

learn that his father and sister were dead and that he would never walk

again. Paralyzed from the chest down, he was urged to accept his condition

and move on. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester told him that any

sensations he felt in his legs were " phantom " feelings, not real ones.

Forget your body below your chest - it's lost to you, they said.His mom told

him he should focus on his mind, and he did, eventually graduating from the

University of Minnesota Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum

laude, with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. He also received a master's

degree in philosophy but stopped short of getting a doctorate. He couldn't

see himself in an ivory tower. Something was pulling him away from the safe

world of academia. It was his body. He wanted it back. He intuitively

felt there was something more to the mind-body relationship, and he set out

to find it. He wanted to live in his body - his whole body. At the Mayo, he

learned to disconnect from his body to avoid pain as

doctors and nurses worked to mend it. His back, neck and wrists were broken.

A lung had collapsed.

His internal organs were damaged. His digestive system had shut down. He

spent two months in

intensive care before returning home for rehabilitation. Sanford spent the

first 12 years after the

accident following his doctors' advice, treating his body as something he

had to tote around for the rest

of his life. It had become an object, he said. While looking for remedies,

Sanford found Iyengar yoga,

which stresses stretching and proper body alignment in a variety of poses or

postures. Modern medicine has begun to affirm the importance of a mind-body

relationship, and alternative approaches such as yoga have gained

credibility. Yoga is seen as a way for people to relax, limber up, even

relieve pain. Sanford doesn't see yoga as the only path to a

mind-body connection, but it worked for him, awakening his paralyzed body to

sensations that he couldn't have imagined possible. They were not the same

sensations that he feels in the upper third of his body, but they are

sensations nonetheless. He describes the feeling as that of a " hum " or a

" buzz, " a surge of energy that travels through his paralyzed body. Feeling

the presence of his lower body not only gives him the connection he was

seeking but also

> helps his balance, he says.

Yoga is an ancient discipline that has a mystical, 1960s-type aura about it,

but Sanford wants to make it more accessible. He tries to make it practical

when he conducts a program called " Bringing Your Body to Work " for employees

at Twin Cities-based corporations.

\What can yoga do for employees? In a study conducted at Carlson Companies,

employees said they had better energy levels, sleep quality, stress

management, overall health and job outlooks after Sanford's 10-week,

yoga-based program, said Loila Mickelson, Mind Body's business programs

director. Members of the work force are ignoring the mind-body relationship,

Sanford contends. " It's not that different from me disassociating in the

hospital to avoid pain. The truth is that this level of sensation is

available to all of us. My experience is only more extreme. "

Connecting to one's body, he said, can be as simple as feeling the sun on

one's face during a lunch break, listening to birds while taking a walk or

savoring the coolness of a glass of water. The " breaks " that employees take

are not really breaks, he tells managers. They're part of working, in effect

a " rebooting " of the mind with the help of the body. " Your body is part of

your thinking process, " he said. That was part of the message Sanford gave

to managers of Time Warner Cable's customer service facility in

> Minneapolis. He is trying to convince them to hire Mind Body Solutions to

teach yoga-based skills to employees. He had the Time Warner managers do

yoga poses when he sensed they were bored. Halfway through his talk, he had

managers on their feet, some without shoes, with their

legs spread wide and their arms outstretched. As they listened to his

instructions, he noticed that some had stopped breathing. " One thing a yoga

pose teaches is how to have mental things go on and not

> grip your life force, " Sanford said. " You actually keep breathing. "

Mind Body Solutions also conducts children's programs and teaches health

care professionals locally and around the country. Sanford also blends yoga

into programs at

> Courage Center in Golden Valley.

After years of studying yoga, Sanford now teaches able-bodied students at

his two-year-old yoga studio, the base for Mind Body Solutions.

With a mop of brown curls, a short beard flecked with gray, cheeks flushed

from the gentle exertion of yoga, intense eyes and a mouth that's always on

the edge of a smile, he looks the picture of health and younger than his 38

years. Weaving around 11 students in his wheelchair, he provides help

> with yoga poses.

Talk to students such as 43-year-old Chuck Ankeny of Deephaven, and it's

clear that he's a revered teacher. " You know how you have teachers once in a

lifetime who really make a difference? " Ankeny said. " He's one of those. "

Kati Lovaas, 47, of Wayzata, who has three children and travels as part of

her job, has been coming to the studio since it opened. " This is my one

respite, " she said. " I really love this class. "

Sanford doesn't see himself as inspirational, or as someone who has overcome

a disability. " My insight about these things comes from a lot of traumatic

pain, " he said. " When my mind left my body, it was my body that kept moving

toward life. This is an insight I want to share. "

With a wife and a 4-year-old son, Sanford said he has a good life, and he

wants to help others have fuller lives.It's harder, he said, for people to

engage in destructive behavior and easier for them to look beyond themselves

if they have a greater awareness of their bodies. " When you get more

connected to your body, you get more connected to the things around you, " he

said. " I have never seen anyone truly become more aware of

his or her body without also becoming more compassionate. If there was ever

a time when the world needed a little more compassion, it is now. "

" This subtle connection between mind and body is one that we all share, " he

writes in a memoir that he has just completed and is not published yet. " I

believe this connection has profound implications not just for the shape and

quality of our consciousness, but for the aging process, for our approach to

> disability and rehabilitation, and even for our survival on the planet. A

deeper, more conscious connection between mind and body holds the promise of

extending both the longevity and quality of life. "

Information from: Star Tribune,

> http://www.startribune.com

>

>

>

>

>

>