you can fix you

All this rearrangement of my body parts from yoga is starting to reveal compensation patterns of injuries experienced over a decade ago.  I find it most when I'm riding my bike.  It's the gracillus muscle on my right leg, deep in the hip joint.  I had this crazy vision last night of how exactly the pain has affected my whole body over time..  When I was in 3rd grade I was being chased around by my little buddy Max and I slipped on the carpet, and my right leg shot out to the side and I'm pretty sure it strained or sprained my knee.  I was in pain for a good year, but because my mom thought I was so tough she never took me to the doctor.  Not that I'm bitter...  So the injury is in the medial side of the right knee in the tissue.  Because my bent leg went out to the side rotated internally, there is now resistance to internal rotation in the hip joint.  Hence I feel much tightness in my gluteals, and the tri-force of the gracillus, piriformis, and psoas.  So, since the injury happened on the right side, my left leg took over some of the load.  To try and put as little pressure on my right knee, I stood more on my left leg.  Now I see that my left hip is bound at the ilio-sacral joint, and of course my tight butt (gluteals, psoas, piriformis, etc...) lift my left hip just slightly.  I can notice this when I am laying on my back, right leg straight, both shoulders on the ground, with left knee bent and falling to the right side.  The range of motion only allows me to rotate to the point where my knee is still about 6 inches from the ground.  I find myself short of breath if I don't move into this pose very slowly.  I have given up trying to self-adjust (crack) my lower spine because that has proven to be practically impossible as well as painful.  What HAS helped that tricky slightly rotated left hip are lunges ( to stretch the left psoas) or pigeon with left leg extended (of course counter poses are equally as important).  I think because my rear end is so tight it scrunches up my hip, so that deeep psoas stretch provides a lot of relief.  It seems sometimes that when you have a muscle that bothers you on one side, or the back of your body, it's a sign that you would benefit from opening the muscles on the front or opposite side.  (i.e. upper back pain?  open chest in the pectoralis on the anterior side to give that shoulder more room to breath)   That, I'll be clear, is something I've noticed on my own body, with the help of some well versed massage therapists.  It's helpful to get a second, third, fourth opinion and explore your different muscle groups slowly and thoughtfully.  Yoga can be a big help when you allow your breath to take you to the root of the sensation.  Yoga allows you to interpret the sensation as you know best, since you are the only one who really knows how, what, why an injury or trauma happened.  Come to a yoga class ready to explore your own body, at your own pace.   Things will unfold as they are supposed to, sometimes revealing the answers in a seemingly insignificant moment.