Q: What happens when you use a can and a rubber band to work with your bunions?

A: Yoga teacher Joanne Mitchell wrote us to let us know what happened after she read Baxter’s post New Tricks for Old Dogs: Working with Bunions. With her permission, we’re going to share her story with you today. Here is the tale in her own words:

After the February 9 article on bunions, I told my chair yoga class about it and demonstrated the pose with the can and rubber band. One student volunteered to do it for a minimum of 10 minutes a day for a month. Today she reported her results to the class.

She missed only two days out of the month, and some days she did it for 15-20 minutes, but she did it for at least 10 minutes each of the other days. Before she began, she drew an outline of her feet on a piece of cardboard. After her month of faithfully doing this stretch, she redrew the outline. One toe had moved outward about 1/4 of an inch. The other toe has been more stubborn but she says it is now beginning to move out. She can feel a difference in her feet and was pleased to get results after only a month. She intends to keep doing it.

She said the first few days she could feel a stretch down her whole foot and up her lower leg. After a few days that feeling was not noticeable any more. Visitors to her house ask why she keeps a can of black olives and a rubber band on her end table by the TV set, and she explains her toe exercises.

 

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