Often we must lose the battle in order to be able to pick up groceries without paracetamol. Having grown up on Bollywood films, I refused to quit the workout, finished my entire routine and went home a war hero. This was when I first injured my back while doing squats in the gym at 16. I am pretty sure I suffered a disc injury back then, either a herniation or a severe bulge.
I was young, I rested ten days and was back in the gym. The trainer of course blamed me for having hurt myself. That I use wrong form and I speak like a south Indian. Being a South Indian, I believed him even though I was born and raised in Mumbai and didn’t have even a tinge of an accent. I should have suspected his expertise right there. But at 16 your brain only has enough spare room for self doubt and testosterone.
I continued lifting heavy and while I was in engineering college, I injured it again while showing off a standing to shoulder bridge enroute to a field trip. Mistaking a really fast moving train to be a stable performance space was not the only misjudgement I made that year. I also watched Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. This time I needed over a month of bed rest. But the bad acting and images from Deuce Bigalow would not stop haunting me. I watched as my room mates went to the gym and trained. I watched as my favourite actor Hrithik Roshan’s film Lakshya released and there was a cracking dance number in it that I was dying to perform. This is the first time I faced the possibility that my back might stay this way forever. All around people related horror stories of their fathers or uncles who had bad backs and had made their peace with having to live with it for the rest of their lives. Thankfully the internet was not available to me yet so I didn’t do my own reading and fall into depression, although I did buy a book, “What to do if your doctor says rheumatoid arthritis”. I was hoping it would say, “...give up all hope and start drinking.” Somehow my body recovered again. I was 19. And I wowed I will never break my back again. Even when I found myself trying backflips on the hostel terrace with a mattress with no training or experience in gymnastics whatsoever. I didn’t hurt my back in the slightest. Which is why I was surprised when I completely broke my back a few years later when I sneezed. I was 23 and in film school.
This time I was properly done in. Prayers and everything, even though I had been an atheist for 29 days. I couldn’t stand up straight. My back was so badly spasmed, I could only walk permanently trapped in a repetition of side bends. Fortunately my girlfriend at the time, who was helping me out, broke her left foot when something fell on it. I was delighted beyond measure because that night was our friend Jessica’s birthday and I sent her a text, “Happy Birthday Jessica. - Broke back Mountain and My Left foot.” Even though Jessica didn’t reply, I imagine it to be the single greatest joke in the history of injury jokes and film school jokes.
Clowning in Film School with a broken back
The doctor said I definitely have a herniated disc and I should get an MRI. I told him I have 6 pack abs. The MRI confirmed a severely herniated disc at L5-S1 along with a spondylolisthesis. I told them that’s impossible. I have 6 pack abs. Spondylolisthesis is a condition where the joint between two vertebrae is broken and one vertebra slips over out of alignment from the vertebra below it, throwing the entire spinal column out of balance. It is just as serious as it sounds especially under good lighting conditions.
This time the internet was freely available and my depression lasted a full two years. In these two years I recovered, and then went down again, then recovered and then went down again. I had an epidural that makes you completely pain free until you play basketball two months later. I also had terrible sciatica nerve pain down both my legs every time space and time merged into one continuum.
These two years I took upon myself to introspect and investigate. I mean, you could still see my 6 pack abs under good lighting conditions. How could I get injured? What was it that I did wrong? Turns out, everything. For one, I was attempting stunts and gymnastics moves without any foundation whatsoever. The abs built in the gym are an illusion of strength. They are more useful for grating cheese than for holding your core together. Without a strong core, every time I attempted a flip, the pressure from the impact was landing straight on my joints, bypassing the muscles around the joint. In a trained athlete who has properly toiled through the progressions, the muscles are strong and supple enough to absorb and dissipate the pressure from the impact before it gets anywhere near the joint. I suddenly wished I had listened to my mom when she had said “God exists”
My orthopaedist had given me a custom made belt to wear. Made of solid metal, fit to my measurements. It was meant to absorb day to day load and transfer it straight from my mid back to my glutes, completely skipping the lower back, leaving it to be immobile and stress free to recover and be free from further damage. It was also making my spine as rigid as a rod made of thermocol. There is a phrase in movement philosophy, “Use it or lose it”. Not using my lower back for two years, was making it lose all flexibility and load bearing capabilities. The body calibrates itself to eliminate unnecessary movements from its movement vocabulary as a means of efficiency. Much like a Government allocated budget to a school/organization. If you don’t use what it gave you last year, the next year you will only be given what you used and so on. Use it or lose it. That’s why sometimes we observe with awe grand dads and grand moms perform dance or gymnastic moves even in their 70’s. They never stopped moving and their body retained the full extent of their movement vocabulary.
One day I was eating in the film school mess with my belt on, and the mess manager Nayanan in his late 50’s came up to me and asked why I wear the belt outside my shirt since it is spoiling the natural handsomeness of my being. I said it is for people to be aware that I have a frail back, so no one ends up accidentally jostling or patting with too much cheeriness. Something I should have done long ago regardless of a bad back instead of just casting a voodoo spell on the jostlers and patters. Anyway, it’s just temporary until my back heals itself. Nayanan sniggered mysteriously and thumped his own lower back. He had an exact same belt underneath his clothes. “30 years I’ve been wearing this. It is not temporary. Better learn stronger voodoo spells.”
If the bankruptcy from hours of useless ultrasound physiotherapy doesn’t do it, a conversation with a 58 year old cheery mess manager with a side serving of lentil salad will certainly wake you up. I threw away my belt in a safe place in case I needed it again. I changed my approach from western to Indian and switched from the Indian toilet to the western. I started conscientious yoga practice. Slow stretching and lengthening my spine and the muscles around it. It was painful. And it was impossible to tell if the pain was discomfort from stretching enough to take my muscles out of spasm resulting from months of inactivity or my body signalling me to stop before hurting myself. Twice I crossed the line and was pushed back a month in recovery. At this point I wrote a suicide note that was so devoid of wit and humor that I got thoroughly disheartened to make it public via suicide.
But I kept up with the conscientiousness and a few months later I came up with a perfect draft of that note. But by this time I had already started lifting light weights and even started dancing again. It was like a bad novel that you persevere with just until you fall asleep but it suddenly gets interesting and now you can’t sleep because you want to see where it goes. The bad novel being my life and sleep being painkiller aided. And with my newly amassed knowledge from two years of reading and research, I had actually built a stronger core, this time with no visible abs. Infact I felt stronger than before I had got injured and I started doing more and more complicated moves. I started making short action films for festivals and competitions. My back was back and I had no rheumatoid arthritis.
Action
I was, however, never free of pain. I had read almost universally, and most famously of Bruce Lee who hurt his back doing Good Mornings (A lower back strengthening exercise) without warming up and ended up on a wheelchair... once you hurt your spine you have to nurse it for the rest of your life and learn to manage the discomfort and pain because you will never be rid of it. So I made my peace with it, taking inspiration from the horror stories I had heard in engineering college. I would need a half an hour of warm up and stretching before engaging in any physical activity. After graduating from Film school I even enrolled in gymnastics training at the ripe young age of 30, a lifelong dream. Needless to say I was riddled with injuries and spasms. I considered the session worth my money if I didn’t sprain my neck during warm up. It was infuriating.
Front Somersault
And then I discovered a good Yoga Master, Surya sir. My gymnastics coach recommended his class for improving flexibility and balance. Surya sir himself used to train at the same gymnastics centre and was a professional stuntman before he broke his wrist (nearly severed it) in an easy stunt gone terribly wrong. He then started teaching Yoga, much to the benefit of people like me. Especially since he was well versed in all manner of sport, from bodybuilding to martial arts to gymnastics and calisthenics. He completely changed my approach to training. He brought in a much calmer, softer approach of not pushing the body and letting the body figure it out. At first I thought it merely confirmed my prejudgement that yoga is for people who can’t do the real stuff and have to settle for the gentler version. Like golf for sportspersons. But when I started doing back bridges and back walkers within a month of joining his classes, something I had struggled with at the gymnastics centre for over a year, I realized his methods were not only less tiring, they were far more efficient and faster.
Double Backwalker
I was amazed. He gave me four simple exercises to do at home, much less than the 20 odd ones that the physiotherapists prescribe as a universal dose to all back patients. That’s the beauty of a good master. Distilling down to the bare minimum, not only for recovery but also for skill building. And lo and behold, 4 months later, my back pain was gone! I still cannot believe that I am able to live life pain free, after having advised by almost every single orhto that I would need corrective surgery to minimize the risk of paralysis from an emergency accident if I wanted to be as physically active as I had chosen to be.
Unfortunately most of the yoga gurus out there are not as well informed as mine. They do not have the well rounded approach towards the body as he does. The philosophy of “if I have not walked out of the studio feeling like death, I haven’t trained enough” is pervasive in all forms of training and is actually counter productive. We are conditioned to believe that only when we push past our limits do we actually achieve something. This is not efficient. Not for the body, nor for the mind, and certainly not in life. Train to failure if you want to fail. The way my guru puts it, is succinct, “Put your body and mind in just as much discomfort as you would, having a friendly argument at a party, not a quarrel, and certainly not a fight.” The discomfort is also pleasurable. Ido Portal, a movement expert also talks about it, “This is where the gold is”. The body adapts so fast, even after the age of 30, it feels like a miracle.
I now do flips and press handstands and have nearly forgotten about my back issues unless I have to talk or write about it.
Backflips
I guess it’s also the neurology that has rewired itself so everything has started functioning and firing at the right moments. If I get an MRI now, I am sure the same herniated disc and listhesis will show up, but I have zero symptoms. And science has no explanations for this. Our body’s relationship with pain is very bizarre. It is so much in the mind than in the body, it is mind boggling.
And that ladies and gentlemen, is how I bested western medicine inspite of being an atheist. Here is the cracking number from Hrithik Roshan’s Lakshya that I have replicated. There is also a nifty standing to shoulder bridge at the end as an added bonus.
