Ronnie Riggs had built things from wood ever since he could remember. His father taught him to enjoy the easy swing of a hammer, the bite of a hand saw. how to calculate and measure and safely employ power tools. Through the years he came to love many kinds of tools. Leaning into a hand planer with just enough pressure to smooth the wood surface was similar and different than creating a notch with a chisel, as a power planer and router were similar and different. And he stayed flexible and fit what with all the constant bending, reaching and lifting, holding things above his head, sawing, hammering and drilling.
Somewhere around mid-fifties, he was aware of a tightness in his lower back, and his right shoulder troubled him from time to time. One evening, a friend suggested he check out a yoga class. “It will keep you young and strong,” he promised. That same week Ronnie checked out a yoga class in his neighborhood. He entered the studio space, not sure what to expect. The floor was oak, the walls painted a pleasant, muted yellow, and the mirrors along one wall were avoidable if one didn’t want to look at one’s own reflection. Ronnie felt vaguely comforted by the space, something akin to what he felt in his shop, working on a project.
The instructor, a woman in her late thirties, started the class with a simple breathing exercise, visualizing a calm sea blue when inhaling and a vibrant green grass color when exhaling. Sitting on the floor was fine, but crossing his legs made him realize how tight they were. As if reading his mind, the instructor said, “And if your legs are tight, extend one out in front of you. Place the sole of the other foot as close to the inside of your knee as you can.”
This eased his discomfort, but it made him wonder if the tightness in his leg joints was connected to his lower back tension. He followed along with the poses the best he could, but being new, he didn’t know the natural order and he felt lost much of the time.
The next day when he entered his shop, he thought about the yoga class, and as he applied sandpaper to a shelf he was building, he decided to place one foot up on his workbench and stretch the leg while he sanded. When that leg tired he switched to the other one. As he stretched, he became aware of his back. It felt rounded, and he remembered how the yoga instructor encouraged everyone to focus on lengthening and flattening their backs instead of rounding them. As he tapped in small nails to secure the shelf frame, he focused on lifting and flattening his back with each stroke of the hammer. When he used this method for sawing, he found that he could get even more length in his back and that it felt good, like the muscles had more room to breathe.
As he went through the motions of his day, he realized how similar to yoga his work was. Truthfully, he moved from one action pose to another. And, since he was very familiar with the order of each pose and the purpose of each action, it was relatively easy to apply yoga awareness to the fluid sequences. Thus, carpentry yoga was born.
