I tore my ACL skiing some twelve years ago. At the time I had no insurance so surgical repair was not an option. I completed rehab successfully but had a permanently swollen, inflexible knee and limitations on my activity. I stated Bikram Yoga several years later - not, actually, for my knee as I didn't know that yoga could help it but fixed firm (supta vajrasana) posture nonetheless quickly became the center of a practice that changed all my expectations about life.

When I started doing fixed firm I could barely get on my knees to do the posture and descended only a few inches. By tiny increments I got further down each day, sometimes crying, a bit from pain but mostly from the overwhelming feelings of relief and healing that came from my knee. It was probably the hardest thing physically I have ever done and it did not happen quickly but after about 18 months of constant effort I was able to do the full expression of the posture, back on the floor, arms folded above my head. Despite a really damaged knee I had become more flexible than most people with perfectly good knees! I kept up the yoga with the result in a couple years that I had effectively a completely new body with physical capacities far beyond what I had ever thought possible.

At the age of 45 I took up amateur boxing and made such good progress that I decide to have my torn ACL repaired so I could go further in a sport which requires rapid rotation that, even with yoga training, was dangerous for me. I did yoga every day for a month before surgery to prepare for my recovery and I went back to the yoga room a week after I was allowed to remove my full leg brace (required because I also had meniscus tissue repaired). It was back to where I had started with fixed firm but this time it took a few months to be able to do the full expression of the posture.

My doctor, who had done ACL surgery on many professional athletes, had never seen someone obtain full flexibility so quickly (of course I told him it was yoga and, of course, he only responded with a puzzled expression on his face). While it may not sound like it, I was very cautious in my rehabilitation as one is really pretty fragile after an ACL repair and it is a real possibility to injure oneself and undo the surgery. I only did things I was really sure I could do safely but yoga had given me such an exquisite capacity to know exactly where my body was at and to work for own healing I never felt that I pushed things in a risky way. That said I hope this sounds less crazy, but I competed in a challenging 38 mile inline skating race 3 1/2 months after my surgery. I have now enjoyed for the last several years two perfectly healthy knees and have continued to improve my sports performance, all the while keeping up a regular yoga practice, always particularly enjoying fixed firm posture.

Michael Levele