Discovering Yoga

     Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s defense system attacks the myelin sheaths surrounding nerves. These sheaths play much the same role as insulation around an electrical wire. Without the myelin, nerves begin to short out, blocking the pathways between the brain and the body. According to the American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine, symptoms of MS may include fatigue, vertigo, clumsiness, muscle weakness, slurred speech, unsteady galt, blurred or double vision, and numbness, weakness, or pain the face. MS can also affect the digestive tract and cognitive functions.

     In some people, the disease may consist of mild attacks and long symptom-free periods throughout life, with very few permanent effects. Others experience a progressive series of attacks with less complete recovery after each one.

     Small’s condition was so serious that his doctors did not expect him to live to be 40 – or if he did, they warned him, he’d be permanently disabled. With a twinkle in his eye Small says, “They’re all gone now, but I’m still here.”

     His symptoms lessened after a few months, but he was still having trouble with his speech, vision, and walking. The drugs he took made him worse. He gave up his ambition of becoming a lawyer and instead earned a master’s degree in fine art at the prestigious Otis Art Institute, where they made special arrangements for him, letting him use a first-floor studio.

     While Small was a student, he heard about an experimental treatment in Scotland that included glandular shots and a special diet of grains and oil. He decided to go there, stopping in London on the way. That stopover changed his life.

     Driving through Hyde Park, he saw a man doing yoga. Small asked his driver to stop and let him out. He had taken yoga in a gym class in school but hadn’t found it very exciting. Now something about the balance and beauty of the poses spoke to him. Using two canes, he walked over to bench and sat, mesmerized, watching this man do postures that seemed to defy gravity. He returned the next day and the next until the man gave him the name and address of his teacher, Sri Ananda.

     When Small arrived at Sri Ananda’s class, navigating the flight of stairs down to the studio with great difficulty the teacher refused to take him. He informed Small that he didn’t take special students. But Small was persistent. He went back the next day, negotiating the stairs once more, and sat outside the door. When the class was over, the students and the teacher simply

     Walked by him and went upstairs. But Small kept going back, day after day. At the end of the week, Sri Ananda said to him, “Now that I know you are serious, we can begin.”

     Small never made it to Scotland, never tried the glandular shots. Instead he studied with Sri Ananda, who gave him simple movements to do against a wall or on the floor. Although he still needed a cane to walk, he went home feeling stronger and more centered. The depression so often associated with MS had lifted.