Wow, what a title. I must try and make it live up to its name.
Here I share with you a short sequence we are practicing at the moment in class. It involves two basic postures although you transition through other positions to get there.
Most people will experience some sensation around their outer hip (outer or side butt area), which will be working and lengthening at the same time. That can help you get stronger and more agile.
The standing leg is working strongly very deeply on the inside and outside of the thigh to help keep the pelvis stable as well. This type of stability is essential for standing postures and especially one legged standing postures.
Remember, there is lots of goodness to be had here. Just don't overdo it.
I will sequence the postures, layering additional movements. Try not to 'lose' what you cultivated in a previous action by striving too hard to get to the next. Do not be attached to a particular outcome. Be content wherever you happen to be. Enjoy, sense, and experience.
Video
I have sped up the video below but you can play it at half speed to get the sense of the very slow movement I am doing. It took 2 minutes for me to cycle through these two postures in real time while this video takes about 54 seconds.
Instructions
Below are step by step instructions. Two key things I am focusing on throughout (they are not the only things you could focus on) are: 1) rolling front thigh out and back thigh in; 2) lengthening the back of the spine (doing a little back bend in my middle upper back) while keeping lower ribs hugged in. This is not about a straight front leg. If that straightens then so be it. It is not about getting the back leg raised as high as you can either. If it comes up then so be it. Pay more attention to the two key things I just listed.
Standing to folding forward
Basics throughout include trying to unsquash front of groin and lengthen lower back. Also, to roll the front thigh out (back thigh in). To support these two ideas start in standing. Sitting bones to heels, top of pelvis back (opens groins and lengthens lower back). Roll both thighs out (you can start with big toes touching, heels apart and try to squash heels together if you like).
As you fold forward try to keep those actions. It is not important that the legs straighten. Push your front of groins forward as you lower.
Stepping back, lengthening, rotating Step a foot back. As you step back be sure you do not drop or sink into the standing leg. Try to feel you are pressing your outer hips towards one another. The standing leg tends to swing out to the side so try your best to avoid that. The standing leg also tends to roll in. That means your knee tends to drop towards the big toe side of your foot. Roll the thigh out so it is pointing more to the baby toe side of your foot. Firm your inner thigh.
Straighten the back leg and roll the thigh in. Lengthen in the middle back (try to do a backbend there) while keeping the lower ribs in.
Press your front of groins forward and lean forward.
If your back foot is feeling light, if your front hip feels strong and stable, then perhaps raise the straight back leg. It is not important how high it comes. It is not even important that it comes off the ground. Just keep it straight and rolled in wherever it is.
From there, maybe you turn your navel, ribs, and chest. Possibly take the arm up. You could put that top arm on your hip. The top arm is in a flat plane level with your upper back.
Two feet on the ground, lengthen, rotate
You basically repeat those same steps but this time with both legs on the ground, back heel grounded. Some people will be able to reach the ground with their hands and front leg straight. However, in this variation the front leg does not need to straighten, nor do you need to touch the ground. For many people this will not be possible unless they compromise some other part of the posture.
Here I step back, raising my body and bringing hands to thighs. You might raise higher. See my front knee is bent. I have my back leg a little bent here too until I sort my hips out.
Front thigh is rolling out, back thigh is rolling in.
I keep my ribs into my spine but try a little back arch in my middle back to lengthen the spine. It is not an arched spine but a lengthened one. In fact, I am sort of doing a forward bending manoeuvre in my lower torso (a sit up in my tummy) while I try to do a little lengthening in the middle part. The net effect is a softening lengthened feeling of the back body. I stretch the mat with my feet and straighten the back leg (I have somehow kept my own a little bent here).
I stay or turn. In the video you see I turn first and then put the arms in place. That is important. I turn with my spine NOT by yanking myself into position with my hands.
I possibly take my hands lower, without losing any preceding actions.
From there I maybe straighten the leg.
And finally, I possibly take that hand over to the inside of my foot.
I am calm and happy. My neck is in a comfortable position throughout.
The end
This is not the only way to come into these postures. It is one way. You should feel challenged while doing this without strain. If there is strain then do something else. Remember, it is best to work with an experienced teacher rather than learn from the internet. We all have out little niggles and differences. Also, learning about movement is something best done with a living person in front of you.
Hey! If you are free in April 2016 and able to join me then come to my Sri Lanka yoga retreat! I would love to see you there.
Just to clarify any ambiguity this photo might provoke, this is a post about hips and not my butt!
In this post I show you how to find your hips and give some tips on how to 'level' your hips in postures like parsvottanasana and parivrtta trikonasana. I stress the importance of creating an internal body map. There is a quiz, a video, and some instructions to help!
Figuring out your own internal body map is one of the benefits of yoga (or any mindful practice).
By that I mean understanding where a part of your body is in space without needing to look at it. You 'feel' it from the inside.
Feeling where your hips are in space is a tricky one, but being able to do so can really enhance your practice.
One of the reasons it is tricky, as I discovered this week, is because some of us have come this far in life mislabelling where their hips are on their own body.
This week I asked all of my classes to put their fingers on their hips and most people put their hands somewhere else.
That was a great realisation for me because I have been cueing hips for a while and if your own internal body map of where your hips are is different from where your actual hips are then you will not be thinking about the body part I want you to.
For fun, let's start with a little guessing game.
Have a look at the photos below and see if you can tell me which photo has me with my fingers on my hips.
A: Are these my hips?
B: Are these my hips?
C:Are these my hips?
The answer is C.
From my informal class survey it seemed the most common responses were to put the hands in position B, somewhere at the top of the pelvis, or A at the waist.
That likely means if I give an instruction about moving the hips your brain will think about the waist or top of pelvis and you will be moving from a different place.
Asking the question in the first place was inspired by a question from one of my students who was having a trouble knowing whether her hip position was correct in parsvottanasana and parivrtta trikonasana.
These two postures are ones where having a good internal body map of where your hips are is important.
A lot of people try to 'feel' a level pelvis in those postures by putting their hands on the back of their pelvis.
But that relies more on interpreting the position sense of your arms as they touch the pelvis when you might be better off trying to interpret the position sense of the actual hips and direct your awareness there.
How to find your hips
The first important step is to be able to locate your own hips. Take a look at this video for some thoughts. Turn up your volume as I speak on this video (a little like a robot it seems!).
In the video I show how if you find the front crease of your thigh and draw an imaginary line to the outer side of the thigh, and/or find the crease under your bottom and draw an imaginary line to the outer side of your thigh then you will be around the hip joint.
Level on a front back plane
Below I show how the hips are not level on a front/back plane. The forward leg hip has come in front of the back leg hip. This commonly happens if you are not mindful. It is less likely for the back hip to come forward of the front hip in these postures.
One of the reasons the front hip creeps forward in this type of posture is because the front thigh starts to roll in, which reduces the lengthening around the outer hip and hamstring.
Allowing this to happen therefore reduces the efficacy of the posture in lengthening the outer hip and hamstring of the front leg.
It tends to happen if you try to come down with your spine more than your body is ready for.
Perhaps consider not coming down so far so you can maintain the hips level on the front back plane.
Another 'feeling' that the front hip has crept forward is that the side waist on that side starts to feel shorter relative to the side waist on the back leg side.
If you feel this is happening you can try to roll the front thigh out or think about moving the front hip backwards.
Level on an up/down plane
The other thing that can commonly happen is that one hip is higher than the other, as shown below.
One hip up and one hip down
One hip up and one hip down
Level hips
In a pose like parivrtta trikonasana (reverse triangle), it is more common that the back hips tends to go down. As far as I can tell this tends to be due to trying to take the arm across the front leg and get to the ground, which can cause you to turn drop the hip in an effort to get that arm across and down.
If you practice that way you will be turning the pelvis but not necessarily doing any active spinal movement.
It is not necessary to get the arm across the thigh or down to the ground.
The way I teach parivrtta trikonasana is to keep the hips level and to turn the spine. You take the hand on the inner thigh and only go towards the ground to the extent that you can keep the hips level. Most people will not be able to come to the ground with level hips but you will feel the benefit of haven actively rotated the spine and also of lengthening around the front outer hip and hamstring.
Below is a video that shows the difference between turning spine not hips and turning hips not spine.
Parivrtta trikonasana is actaully a very difficult posture, especially when you maintain level pelvis.
Overall
It was tricky to film this on my own and I hope I have at least been able to show you where your hips are. In class I can help you to find them and feel level hips in your postures. Learning from the internet is always tough for a practice like yoga.
The postures I demonstrated in this post are complex and there are many more instructions I could have given but my main intent was to get you to think about hip position rather than overwhelm you with all of the other stuff going on
In particular review the first video on supine activation (shown again below) that gives you an idea about what your tummy is doing in these postures.
Ok, so now you have reviewed (and practiced and understood) the importance of tummy activation we can have a think about some other thoughts on helping hamstrings, hips, and spine.
In these sequences I highlight the idea of bringing chest to knees. This is an active movement that we do by initially using tummy activation first and then using hip flexion.
With these postures I am using an active tummy movement then trying to lengthen my spine along the front of the thigh. A more apt description would be that I am not so much trying to bring chest to thigh but trying to bring belly button to thigh and then take my belly button to the knee along the front of the thigh.
If you are thinking of bringing chest to thigh this can create a tendency to droop or drop the chest when I actually want spinal length. In this practice if your spine will not lengthen then you are too deep in the posture.
This might require a radical rethink of your postures and movement.
While it may not immediately seem apparent, these are all fairly intense forward bends. There is a danger of over stretching. Do not attempt intense forward bends without supervision or a good understanding of your own lower spine. Best to practice with a teacher. As with all postures, you must be careful and go slowly.
Video
The video shows how I have lengthened my spine along the front of my thigh in the various incarnations of this posture. You should only straighten your leg if you can keep your spine long and do not feel strain. This will be beyond the capacity of most people.
STANDING UPRIGHT VARIATIONS Step 1: Toe and hips forward
Lengthen lower back (sitting bones to heels, top of pelvis back.
Toe forward, hips forward. This should help create postural firmness in your tummy.
Step 2: Knee raise
Lift knee forward and up. Make sure you keep hips forward.
Step 3: Spinal forward flexion
I bend forward from my spine to activate tummy muscles more (like I am doing a sit up in my tummy). I am trying to bring my chest towards the thigh without drooping the chest (keep it long).
Step 4: Push and press
Hold shin. With bent elbows pull with your hands but press with your shin.
There will be a tendency for the tummy to switch off here as the arms take over. But keep it on!
I try to wriggle my belly button up along the thigh. This is lengthening the spine and you will see that my back body is long throughout.
Step 5: Lean back
I lean back to come towards an upright position. Some people will not be able to keep their chest and thigh together and come fully upright. So, stay forward and that is where you remain for the rest of the postures (do not go on).
Step 6: Open knee angle
Keeping all previous activations, take an arm behind the thigh to keep chest and thigh connected.
Slowly start to open the knee angle. Do this actively. I am not pulling it open with my hands here. I use my hand on my heel so I can push my heel into my hand and pull back with my hand.
You might not be able to open the knee angle and keep chest and thigh together so only open so far that they stay together. This is where you stay.
Step 7: Open
If the leg will continue to open comfortably then you can take both hands and continue to straighten the leg.
In this position my hand is helping to open my leg. I am not strong enough to take my leg up this straight against gravity.
But I make active efforts to straighten the leg with my front thigh muscles, and also keep a pushing action of heel into hand and hand into heel.
Tummy stays firm. Spine stays long.
LUNGING VARIATIONS Step 1: Lunge
I transitioned to this from the previous posture, keeping chest to thighs and belly button working towards knee. I kept an active tummy. Most people will not keep active tummy as this is an easy posture to just collapse into. This means collapsing tummy and collapsing into the hip joints.
It is important to remember how I came into this posture, which is first through active spinal flexion with tummy activation and then hip flexion keeping tummy firm. Finally, I do some spinal extension but trying to wriggle my belly button up towards my knee. You can see tieback of my body is long. In fact, it is pretty straight.
In this position I keep my back leg active.
Step 2: Lengthen
I go to a split here. It is a matter of slowly straightening my legs and keeping everything else the same. that makes it sound easy. But it is not!
UPSIDE DOWN SPLIT Step 1: Short lunge
Tummy firm, I come to a short lunge. Keep standing leg active so I don't collapse into my hip. I keep sitting bones down and top of pelvis back to lengthen lower back and keep front of groin unsquashed.
Step 2: Both knees to chest
Bring the back knee to chest. Both knees are working to chest. Keep front of groins unsquashed.
Step 3: Straight standing leg
Take the raised leg out behind you. I am rolling that thigh in. Pelvis level. Got to be mindful you do not sink into the standing hip and squash the front of groin.
Step 4: Take it up
The raised leg stays rolling in, straight, and I see if I can just take the leg up. Watch that you are not rolling the pelvis out.
SUMMARY
There you go. A few more variations
These are tricky ones because they are very easy to collapse into. It is easy to sink and be passive if you are not mindful.
You might see if you can bring knee close to chest while you are lying on your back and without the hands. That would be a good indicator of whether or not these variations are going to be possible for you.
If the knee will not come to close to the chest while lying on your back you are going to find these postures impossible or difficult or else you will probably be doing the by compensating with some other movement. It might be worth thinking about trying the supine variations for a while longer first.
have fun. Happy and safe practicing!
Much metta,
Samantha
www.yogacafecanberra.blogspot.com
www.yogacafelk.blogspot.com
I had several questions about hamstring lengthening this week and this post has three videos to demonstrate some of the ways to help! You won't see any of the usual suspects.
Hamstring stretching or lengthening?
The truth be told, most people ask me how to stretch their hamstrings. It is I who always jumps in and reminds them that I will give them tips on how to relax and lengthen their hamstrings but I won't give tips on stretching them.
The thing is, these people know how to stretch their hamstrings. They have invariably been doing stretches for a long time. The problem is the stretches generally don't help them to feel better movement.
The postures and advice I give are mainly around helping them feel better movement without feeling like they are stretching, such as I am doing in the photo below.
Standing balance with leg raised and straight
In positions like the one shown I am actively trying to keep my leg straight while drawing it towards my chest. It does not feel like stretching at all. It feels like the back of my leg and bottom is lengthened.
When I do postures like this I am cultivating a relaxation response in my hamstrings (known as reciprocal inhibition. Basically, I work the opposite muscle groups to help relax the ones that I am trying to lengthen. Have a look at this post for some cool graphics: http://www.bandhayoga.com/keys_recip.html.
It feels like a lot of work in the standing leg, front of raised leg, and tummy. Most people miss the tummy activation in this posture, which tends to cramp you in the front of groin. Which leads to the point below.
Active positioning for spinal lengthening
In postures like the one shown below I am doing very important spinal lengthening and hamstring lengthening work. It is basically the same position as the standing balance shown above, but just lying down.
Active positioning to improve hamstring lengthening
The key difference (in terms of effort) is that I am obliged to use tummy muscles in a way I am not obliged to in the standing variation.
I am using my active core to send a message to my spinal muslces to relax as well.
Importantly, I am actively bending forward in my spine using tummy museles in a way I can still breathe into the tummy. If I tighten my tummy by tightening everything and shifting to chest moving breathing then I won't get the same relaxation effect.
Many people are limited in their forward bending because their lower backs are really tight as well as their hamstrings (and their hips).
The active movement in the core that you cultivate in this position is important and will help lengthen the spine and it is why I put the lying down sequence first in the videos below.
Try to remember the feeling in your tummy that you generate in this position (of it being firm but in a way you feel you can still breathe there) when you do the postures in the other videos.
Remember, better spinal movement is more important than being able to touch your toes.
As an aside, many observers wonder why I am not holding my foot when I do postures like the one above. And it is, I suspect, because of the focus on the sensation of stretching as opposed to the sensation of lengthening.
Holding the foot, the way most people tend to (which is to just grab the foot and pull the leg) generally means the muscles do not need to work and you lose the potential benefit of a relaxation response. Pulling tends to switch you to a sort of suffering and grimacing associated with tearing yourself apart!
It would also feel like I was not doing much work if I held the foot in that way because the big muscles that were working (including the core core muscles) have switched off.
The truth is most people cannot even grab their foot with their leg straight because their hamstrings (and lower back and hips) are too stiff. And so most people would probably be using a belt or towel or rope.
And then you have to ask yourself if you cannot bring your straight leg close enough to your chest to be able to hold it without a belt then should you really try to straighten your legs in positions like paschimottanasana and all the other seated forward bends? In my classes I encourage people to come into all seated bends with bent knees to lengthen the front and back of spine first and only then to slowly lengthen the legs on the condition the spine does not distort.
Lying video and key actions
The first postures to try are in lying because they oblige tummy activation (in a way you can feel the movement of the breath).
In general:
front thigh (coming close to chest) is rolling out (your knee looks like it is turning away from midline);
press down through the grounded thigh and keep it straight. Reach through the inner thigh;
keep the front knee straight. That is one of the main points--to keep is straight. It does not matter how close to the chest it comes. That will be a good indicator of your available active movement and something for you to contemplate when trying this posture in other relations to gravity;
as you move through the variations keep the whole back of the pelvis and sacrum touching the floor.
you will be doing sit-ups here so this is a good core strengthening sequence. If you feel strain at all in your neck you are doing the sit up incorrectly and you need to learn how to do sit ups without your neck feeling strained.
First position (lying parsvottanasana)
Lying down, draw straight leg towards face. Do a sit up and reach as though you are trying to touch the toes (but don't actually get them).
You need to actively lengthen the side hip area of the raised leg down towards the heel of the leg on the ground. The pelvis and hip tends to hike up on that side and squash the side waist. If you need to, put the web of your thumb in your groin to help actively lengthen that side waist. You should feel this as an action of rolling that thigh out.
Second position (lying trikonasana variation)
To get into position I bend the knee, take the thigh out to the side, ensure my whole back pelvis is still on the floor, and then straighten the leg from there. The pelvis of opposite side will tend to raise up if you try to get to the ground so be mindful of this.
Note, to make it real trikonasana type posture I need to add spinal movement and turn from bottom of spine to top away from the leg out to the side then do a little lengthening movement (not clearly shown in this video).
Again, keep that raised thigh actively rolling out. I am still trying to straighten leg and draw it towards my face but out to the side.
Third position (lying parivrtta trikonasana)
A tricky one and tough to capture on the video.
I bring the raised leg back to midline. I really need to make sure that the hip does not hike up here. Put a thumb in your groin if that is the sort of thing that might happen to you.
Keeping your pelvis on the floor, take that raised leg across your body. It will not go very far.
From there, you are still in a sit up, you can try to do a twist from the bottom to the top of spine, turning towards that leg.
It is not shown here but you could try a little spinal extension (lengthening from the front surface of your spine.
I could have positioned my arms better in this posture but was focusing mainly on spinal movement.
By the end of these postures you should sense your tummy very active! That will have helped lengthen the lower back and help you for the next series of postures in standing!
Standing balance video and key actions
In the standing balance video you see I do take my foot (after I have done the active postures first).
However, when I take my foot I straighten the leg out slowly without distorting my spine. I also press the foot and hand into one another so that the leg is active and not being passively pulled (this triggers another relaxation response).
In general:
raised sitting bone feels like it is scooping underneath you and lengthening in the lower back;
raised thigh is rolling out;
keep standing leg foot pointing straight ahead;
remember your core activation from previous postures and find it here.
Posture one
Watch the leg stays straight. Watch the raised leg hip does not hike up. Keep trying to feel as though you are smoothing your side hip down to the ground.
If comfortable you can try the assisted posture, shown below, by bending the knee, drawing thigh to chest, holding foot and pushing foot out as you draw in with the hand, keeping thigh and chest together slowly start to straighten the leg. If you have trouble in the lying sequence with getting your leg straight and past 90 degrees then you will not be able to do this and best to work with just holding the knee to chest and pressing shin to hands and hands to shin until you can start to slowly straighten the leg without thigh coming out from the chest. Be patient.
Position two
As you did with lying, bend the knee then turn the knee out to the side but still in front of you. As you did with the lying version do not let the pelvis move with you. Keep scooping the bottom under. Then try to straighten the leg. If it will not straighten then put the toe tip on the ground. From there try to straighten the leg and raise it.
You want to keep rolling the thigh out and scooping the bottom under.
This is really much harder than it looks as you will see if you try.
If you feel ok with the active version you can try and draw knee to side-front chest. Keep scooping hip under. From there you could try to keep knee and shoulder close and then slowly start to straighten. If knee comes out from shoulder then you have gone too far. Be patient and wait with knee in shoulder until the leg is almost straight when you can let it move away from shoulder a little.
Position three
The leg comes back to the front here. I need to be particularly careful the hip does not hike up. Then I rotate the spine from bottom to top, maintaining length through both side waists.
Standing postures
You can then try these positions in their more traditional forms; parsvottanasana, trikonasana, parivrtta trikonasana.
I have linked these postures without chaining my foot position at all. The thigh positions remain the same. The pelvis position does change when you move to trikonasana, but the lower back position does not (it remains lengthened). The pelvis position is a subtle change and it is just the top side pelvis that opens lightly to the sky. This opening does not cause a shift in the leg positions.
It is really tricky to do these postures all linked together without changing the foot positions and without falling over. You will need to keep your legs and feet very active.
Watch for your bottom sitting bone trying to stick out. I keep a light feeling of it scooping under to keep the length of the lower back.
The end
Phew, this has been a long post!
We have been working on some variations of this in class. Remember these videos are intended for my students so I can position and correct and answer questions. It is better to learn from a teacher you are physically present with than the internet.
Have fun. Stay safe.
Much metta,
Samantha
www.yogacafecanberra.blogspot.com
www.yogacafelk.blogspot.com
Step a foot back. As you step back be sure you do not drop or sink into the standing leg. Try to feel you are pressing your outer hips towards one another. The standing leg tends to swing out to the side so try your best to avoid that. The standing leg also tends to roll in. That means your knee tends to drop towards the big toe side of your foot. Roll the thigh out so it is pointing more to the baby toe side of your foot. Firm your inner thigh. 
From there I maybe straighten the leg. 
And finally, I possibly take that hand over to the inside of my foot. 
