hot yoga for hearing impaired

Hi mumsie

Are there other hearing impaired students out there????

Yes! ME 😉

It’s an amazing coincidence but I have just this week had a similar conversation with a woman who had hearing in one ear and then through an unfortunate turn of events lost her remaining hearing.

It is VERY common for people to have to watch what others are doing to get their cues. Much of the time initial techniques are gained this way regardless of ability to hear, see or learn. So for the hearing impaired using visual cues is almost unavoidable. As you have realized there are times when you can’t see what others are doing either because of visual focus, or because the angle of vision means you can’t glean the details to work out precisely what is being done. This goes for anyone: what you see may or may not be what is best to do.

I do believe you can enjoy the benefits of a public class even if you can’t understand the teacher. You can take advantage of the heat, the group experience. Each class for you will be an exercise in attention to your breath, your own practice and your mindfulness of the practice of each pose within your practice. You won’t have the conscious mind distraction of hearing what is being said so in fact your class could be harder for you to stay focused. Your job will be to keep your presence and stay away from auto-pilot as much as you can. This is where you can use the manual to your benefit – to create your in-class instruction.

You don’t need to read the manual all at once. Now that you know the basics of what is required of you in terms of order of poses, you can now read the manual a bit at a time (per pose, or a couple of poses at a time). Increasing your awareness of what is required step by step will aid you enormously. The techniques you learn in one pose are not quarantined to that pose. The principles cross over.

I could hear well enough to learn the series long before I lost the lion’s share of my hearing a 6 years ago. When it was at its worst, (and I couldn’t wear my aids during class) and before I had my operations which restored much of my ability to hear, I had to use my peripheral vision and at times had to turn my head to work out the timing of entry and exit of some of the poses. Still I did enjoy my classes. After a while I recognized that I became attuned to the energy shifts in class so that my timing was pretty much spot on.

There are times I don’t get the timing quite right and I just commit to whatever action I have started. If I am coming out early or late, I just do it and do it with integrity. I don’t care about what anyone thinks. I just do the best I can. No apologies! So enjoy it! It’s your yoga.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

PS Thanks for the feedback on my manual :cheese:

Hi Chet

Thanks! There is absolutely no reason why any hearing impaired person can’t keep going to yoga! You may need to do some study out of the studio to bone up on what you have to do so you don’t have to look around to learn. And yes my manual would be great for that because it has the photos of the techniques and equally important many of the mistakes are pictured as well.

The operations I had were stapedectomies where just about all of each of the stapes was removed. I had each op one year apart. A super-tiny piston was implanted into the ear to re-establish some sound conductive capabilities in the ear.

I am going to give some details about the situation for completeness.

Very basically and without too much detail at all, we hear because of sensory neural input (through sound that is processed purely through the cochlear and the auditory nerve) and also conduction of vibrations through the bones (these are the lower frequency sounds).

I have both kinds of loss. The sensory neural loss which I self-diagnosed a few years ago (thanks to the internet, because the specialist didn’t work it out) as being caused by the mumps when I was about 7. I didn’t realize I was half deaf in that ear until pregnancy decades later! I was however aware from that age that I had tinnitus ‘in’ that ear.

Pregnancy is an extremely common cause of hearing loss (from minor to major loss) and it is due to the hormonal effects on the ossicles in the ear. The hammer, anvil and stirrup ankylose or harden and no longer freely vibrate (they no longer conduct vibrations). For me the conduction loss was severe and for some reason too, I also occasioned much sensory neural loss in the mumps affected ear at that time. For some reason the other ‘good’ ear also suffered much loss and I ended up being almost stone deaf in both ears. The most dramatic loss happened over a 6 month period 5 or 6 years ago.

Luckily for me my first implant (different specialist btw) was a good success. So a year later I had the other ear operated on. Before the ops I could not hear without my hearing aids. This made going to class a new learning experience. Now with my lower frequency hearing re-established I can hear without my aids. Speech however is basically higher frequency sounds so for fuller comprehension I must wear my aids.

Losing and then recovering my hearing has been an incredible journey. It has really given me an understanding of the brain and the difficulties one can have processing sounds and making sense of them. Having hearing aids has an immediate positive effect on my tinnitus and of course in being able to comprehend speech.

If anyone is reading this and thinks they may have some hearing loss then I thoroughly recommend going to an audiologist and getting your ears tested. Hearing aids these days are almost invisible (mine hang behind the ear and still no one ever sees them!) and you can test them out in a surgery without even needing a mold (impression) taken. Being able to hear again was a huge gift and I am grateful for it daily!

If this forum can help someone to take the steps to improve their hearing then that would be great. I remember that a student of mine had poor hearing in his right ear. This meant that he cocked his head so that one ear was closer to the source of sound. His whole body was contorted by this activity and cemented his posture into an asymmetrical position where lots of problems occurred as a result. Coming to yoga for him was initially quite challenging.

If you are someone who feels that they are ‘one step behind the conversation’ or no longer feels comfortable in noisy environments (dining out is no longer fun) or you hear something and say ‘what’ and while the person is repeating it realize what they were saying after all (but just really needed a second or 2 extra to work it out) then please get your ears checked. It could change your life!

Anyone else out there with a story? I am so happy to have this topic on the forum.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi moonblue

With respect to your hearing and your other post about knees etc, I am wondering if you think that there are things you are missing from your practice because of your hearing. If you are predominantly relying on your visual skills, sometimes not enjoying the delivery of the class and not able to pick up pose distinctions either because they just aren’t there or because you don’t hear them, then perhaps there are ways to improve your practice through other means. The forum is a good start, reading others’ posts, posting your own and so on … 😉

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂