Five-Minute Yoga

Supta Padangusthasana

I went to Saskatoon at the end of May, to the Iyengar Yoga Association of Canada’s conference and AGM.

What I found there, along with the aforementioned magpies, gophers and lilacs, was friendly people, good conversation, and something more: another piece of the Inner Teacher puzzle.

The Inner Teacher is the innate intelligence that, among other things, tells you when your pose is working and when it isn’t. We give lip service to the Inner Teacher at the beginning of class, but I suspect that a constant, strong connection is rare, especially when your practice is new.

You could visualize that fluctuating Inner Teacher as a light flickering on and off, or a current that ebbs and flows.

I’m beginning to see it as a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, with a twist.

You have all the pieces, or will find them as you need them.

All you’re missing is the picture of the finished puzzle, which, as any puzzler knows, makes it infinitely more difficult to fit the pieces in the right place.

Devki Desai demonstrating a preparation for headstand.

Devki Desai, young, energetic, precise and sweet, taught the workshop portion of the conference. Devki has studied with the Iyengars since 1984, and has been teaching at RIMYI since 1995.

On Friday, she taught Supta Padangusthasana variations, the supine leg stretches she calls “sleeping standing poses.”

In the first variation:

• The raised right leg was to be at 90 degrees, no higher.

• The arms holding the strap around the right foot were straight and pulling down.

• The outer right thigh pressed down to the floor.

• The inner left thigh rotated inward from the front.

• The front left thigh pressed down to the floor.

Then Devki added instructions for the breath.

We were to exhale completely, belly to spine.

“Trim the belly,” she said, “Do what you’d do if someone were taking a close-up picture.”

Then, before the in-breath, we were to do just one of the actions in the pose, and see what happened.

It was startling.

If I pulled down on my outer right thigh, my left thigh, of its own accord, rotated inward and pressed down.

If I pressed my left thigh to the floor, my right outer thigh moved firmly toward the floor – power without effort.

The pose organized itself around that one action, and everything fell into place.

I’ve been playing with it ever since.

Is this a universal key? An Inner Teacher always on tap?

Can I do this with my breath in every pose?

The results are far from conclusive, but I have my doubts.

Perhaps we’re misguided to think in terms of an “Inner Teacher” at all.

One image of an inner teacher, but is it useful for asana practice?

Maybe that idea leads us to imagine that our finished jigsaw puzzle will look something like the ninth trump in the Thoth tarot, a hermit with a light to guide the way.

In fact, the truth seems to be more like a multitude of “teachers,” none with a human form, all of them lodged in the body.

There’s the line down the centre of the heels, for example, that gives my standing poses greater solidity and balance.

And the straight line across my wrists in elbow balance that offers a new sense of how to be still in the pose.

Every pose offers the base of the throat as teacher: if it’s soft, things are probably going well. If it’s hard, something’s wrong.

Maybe the missing picture of the completed puzzle is more like intersections, thousands of them, all lit up, where the intelligence of the body meets the intelligence of each pose.

I don’t expect to finish my jigsaw puzzle any time soon. But I’m grateful to IYAC, for bringing Devki, and to Devki, for providing another piece.

Many thanks to photographer Amy Fischer for her generous permission to use one of her photos of Devki.

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Chaturanga dandasana: easy enough if you're made of wood.

For more than 25 years, I’ve felt bullied, oppressed and pushed around by Chaturanga Dandasana, the yoga push-up.

I’d watch other people push up off the floor, or lower themselves from plank pose, and wonder why I was such a weakling.

Yes, it’s a hard pose. Yes, after looking through a few hundred photos on Flickr, I can see that a well executed push-up is rare indeed.

Still, I’m a yoga teacher. I’m supposed to be able to integrate my body, to follow lines of energy into progressively more difficult poses.

Besides, Chaturanga Dandasana is not only on the Introductory II Syllabus for Iyengar yoga, it’s in boldface, which means it’s an important pose.

Yet year after year went by with January resolutions to master Chaturanga that flopped to the floor like wet noodles by June.

That was before the Chaturanga Dandasana epiphany that I wrote about two weeks ago. (Check that post for the full story.)

In brief, midway through a sun salutation, I felt unexpected strength in Chaturanga. And with a jolt of understanding, I realized that my new habit of sitting for meditation with my back to an outward facing corner had opened a door into the pose.

At an outward facing corner, you work to keep your lumbar spine drawn back to the wall and up, your thoracic spine drawn away from the wall and up, and the back of your head drawn back to the wall and up.

That’s the spine of Chaturanga. The only difference is that in sitting you can hold it long enough to set the pattern in your body.

Like most people who experience a bolt from the blue, I’ve had moments when the light faded, and I just didn’t get it, all over again. But on the whole, it’s working, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

So this week’s Five-Minute Yoga Challenge is to take a further step in the direction of Chaturanga, using the wisdom of the corner.

If you haven’t tried sitting at an outward facing corner, do that first, to set the understanding in your body.

Press your lumbar spine to the wall. Use your elbows to help lift your chest away from the wall and up.

Then stand up and reclaim the alignment of sitting at a corner:

• Stand with your back to the wall, your feet about a foot away, your knees bent.
• Press your lumbar spine into the wall.
• Bend your elbows, palms facing. Slide your elbows down the wall.
• From the backs of your elbows, push into the wall to lift your front chest forward and up, as you keep your lumbar spine glued to the wall.
• Move the back of your head toward the wall, and up.

Now prepare for take-off:
• Make sure your weight is in your heels.
• Take your hands to the wall, and gently push yourself away, keeping your knees bent, and the same shape in your back that you established at the wall.
• Keeping the weight in your heels, lift your front thighs to straighten your legs.

If you succeed in maintaining your wall-shaped back, you’ll feel work in your core muscles.

Pretend your arms are only hinges, incapable of exerting force.

Next, move closer to Chaturanga:

• Turn to face the wall with your feet about a foot away, hip distance apart.
• Bend your knees and reclaim your wall shape: lumbar back and up, thoracic forward and up, head back and up.
• Bring your elbows to the sides of your waist. Reach your hands to the wall, arms straight.
• Roll your shoulder blades down your back, away from your ears.
• Check your wall shape again. With your legs firm and straight, press your navel toward your spine. Keep your navel pressed back toward your spine as you bend your elbows and let your chest come toward the wall.
• Keep the pressure on, navel to lumbar spine as you straighten your arms.

The sensation should be one of moving from your core, as though your arms were just hinges, with no active role to play.

Chatur means four. Anga means limb, as in ashta (eight) anga (limb) yoga. Danda is a staff, or a stick.

When you can push away from the wall, arms passive, feeling your body as one straight line, as firm as a wooden staff, then you’ve made a substantial step in the direction of mastering Chaturanga Dandasana.

Ready for more?

Come to dog pose. Strongly lift your pubic bone toward your navel, which will activate your core. Holding that shape, move from dog pose to plank pose. Keeping your navel moving toward your spine and your shoulder blades away from your ears.

Bend your elbows, and hover in Chaturanga.

If you can stay one second with your core supporting you, and your shoulders away from your ears, that’s a triumph.

If this was your kind of post, you might also like:

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A magpie mid-stride - there's something yogic about this pose.

I’m writing this from the green and leafy University of Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon, where the student union pub is called the Louis, for Louis Riel, and you can stay in residences called Athabasca Hall, and Qu’Appelle Hall.

I’m here for the Iyengar Yoga Association of Canada’s annual conference and AGM, which begins Thursday.

So far I’ve spotted a magpie, a gopher, and one of the biggest and most fragrant purple lilac bushes I’ve ever seen.

Notably missing? This week’s blog post, which disappeared in a flurry of trip preparation.

And although I have my computer with me, and a desk, and some quiet time, the idea that I would write if from here turns out to be a rather large miscalculation.

See you next week, when I hope to finish outlining the connection between Chaturanga Dandasana and sitting at an outward pointing corner.

Yes, there’s one for me to sit with in this room.

Image courtesy of Tony Hisgett/Flickr Creative Commons.

From the first time I met them, I have had two demon yoga poses: arm balance and Chaturanga Dandasana.

Kicking up into arm balance scared me silly for years, but over time I’ve had recurring breakthroughs.

Chaturanga has remained an unpleasant mystery.

Every time it came up in class, it affirmed my inner suspicion that no matter how long I could hold downward dog or stand on my head, I remained a pathetic weakling.

Eventually, I learned to cope.

With three blocks, one under each hand, one between my top thighs, I could press up off the floor. My buttocks were too high, and my shoulders too close to my ears, but still, I was off the floor.
And I could do a reasonable imitation of jumping to Chaturanga from a standing forward bend, or lowering myself from plank pose.

But collapse was always imminent. All I could do was hang on.
Worst of all, I had no real clue where the work was in my body, which meant no hope of doing it better.

A month or so ago, shortly after Louie taught it as a centering pose in class, I started doing my daily sitting with my back against an outward facing corner.
It seemed like a small change, since I often did my morning sitting with back support.

In fact, it was revolutionary.

The corner is more of a guide than a support. With its feedback, I could bring my spine into a strong alignment, with the low back staying long as the chest lifts. And because I was sitting, I could hold it long enough to set the feeling in my body.

Weeks went by.
Then one day, after leaving them alone for a long time, I worked with sun salutations.

Chaturanga felt different. Instead of instant collapse, I could feel the centre of my body holding me away from the floor.
As new as it was, the feeling was somehow familiar.
Then it came to me: it felt just like pressing my lumbar spine toward an outward facing corner.

Next week I’ll write more about how this work translates into Tadansana (mountain pose) and Chaturanga.

For now, this week’s Five-Minute Yoga Challenge is to spend five minutes a day sitting with your back against an outward facing corner. Longer is better, but even five minutes will be enough to start creating the action in your body.

Here’s how:

Fold a sticky mat in half and align it so the point of the corner sits in the centre of the mat.
If you don’t see a possible corner in your house, check the furniture. At home I use the corner of a wardrobe.

Then place as many folded blankets on the sticky mat as you need to sit in a cross-legged position with your back against the corner.

A technical note: most rooms have baseboards. So even if you can sit on the floor with the weight balanced in your sitting bones and your thighs descending, you still need a minimum stack of blankets to bring your sacrum and your upper back into the same line.

Once you have settled with as many blankets as you need to sit with your spine against the wall – as many as six for those with tight hips – bring your back very close to the corner. It should touch your sacrum and come into the crack between the upper buttocks.

Press your hands down into your blankets and lift your side ribs.

Sit tall, and notice where your spine touches the wall.

For most of us, the thoracic, or dorsal spine (the shoulder blade area), will press into the wall, and the lower back will move away.

• Exhale, curl your chest and shoulders forward and press your lumbar spine into the corner.

• Slowly straighten up. Resist your lumbar spine back toward the corner as you lift your chest.

• Engage your shoulder blades by taking the upper arms back toward the wall behind you, and stretching your elbows toward the floor.

• Lift the spine between your shoulder blades away from the corner and up.

• Move the back of your head back and up.

Notice the play between the lumbar moving back and the thoracic spine moving forward.

Think less about contact with the wall than direction: the lumbar spine moves back and up as the dorsal spine lifts and moves forward.

And remember, no resting on the corner.

When you’re ready to come out, lie on your back with your knees bent, and let your back settle into the floor. Then do a soft, bent-knee twist (Jathara Parivartanasana), before going on with your practice or your day.

See you next week, when we make the connection between sitting and  Chaturanga Dandasana.

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Seven Strategies to Loosen Tight Hips

Even without having to follow the rules about where to put the pegs, triangles are tricky.

Did you know that of the three simplest shapes, circle, square and triangle, only the triangle completely reverses its symbolic meaning when it’s turned upside-down?

Rotate a circle 90 degrees and it still means wholeness, unity, inclusion, and infinity.
A square turned on its head looks exactly the same and still means grounding, stability, balance and dependability.

But turn a triangle from point up to point down, and you’ve moved from male to female, sun to moon, up to down, mountain to cave and active to passive.

Tricky.

The yoga triangle, Uttitha Trikonasana (extended triangle pose) is tricky too. In most styles of hatha yoga, including Iyengar, it’s introduced to beginners in the first or second class.
Yet it’s so complex and so full of actions that Mr. Iyengar’s son Prashant has written an entire book explaining the philosophy and psychology of yoga through triangle pose, The Alpha and Omega of Trikonasana.

But there’s another layer to the trickiness of Trikonasana.
Somewhere in the evolution of yoga in North America, a potent image was set loose: triangle pose is done between panes of glass with the hipbones facing forward. Let the hips rotate and you risk shattering the imaginary glass – and we all know how disturbing that would be.

True beginners, those lucky souls, have never heard about the pelvis and the panes of glass, so they are free to focus on working their legs.

More experienced students often aren’t so fortunate.

Just last week I saw a capable student, new to the class, who seemed to be stuck part way into the pose. Her front leg was not rotated enough, she had limited action in her hip crease, and her chest wasn’t opening.

When I suggested she let go of her pelvis to let her front leg rotate, she said: “Aren’t I supposed to keep the hips square to the front of the room?”

In a word, no.

Keeping the pelvis facing forward makes it almost impossible to fully rotate the front thigh. Without that rotation, the knee can’t be aligned with the front foot, which means the knee is in danger.

Worse yet, if you work hard to get the front thigh rotating and the pelvis moving away from the front leg, you strain the sacroiliac joint.

In a workshop on Yoga and the SI joint that Judith Lasater gave in Vancouver several years ago, her mantra was: “The sacroiliac is a joint of stability, not a joint of mobility.”

We move it best when we move the pelvis as one piece. You can learn more from two excellent articles by Iyengar teacher Roger Cole, at the Yoga Journal online.

Louie Ettling, the teacher I study with, raises another point, perhaps even more interesting, at least after you’ve protected your SI joints:

“I think students should definitely not think about making the pelvis square to the room ahead. They will stop listening to themselves that way.”

Instead:

“The back leg does Tadasana. The root of the front leg, at the hip, turns out as much as possible. The font pelvis lifts as in Tadasana.
The back pelvis rolls down as in Tadasana (provided the chest does not collapse!) The outer pelvis gathers as in Tadasana.
The result is different for every person.”

Well, here’s one thing that’s the same: imaginary panes of glass shatter, and the tricky triangle begins its journey from being an idea, an external geometrical shape, towards being part of the body’s conscious internal geometry. Which is a good trick.

Image courtesy of Emily Baron.

Cute cat news: Since I posted the link to the yoga kitten video, the temporarily misplaced photo of my own yoga kitten has surfaced. You can now see the electro-cat as a tiny wee thing.

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B.K.S. Iyengar on his 90th birthday – a clarity we might all wish for in our old age. Leslie Hogya photo.

I want to have a lucid old age, but the odds aren’t looking good.

Start with a family strain of dementia, add growing up in the toxic-chemicals-friendly 1950s, then stir in a rear-end collision that smacked my forehead into the windshield when I was 10, and really, all bets are off.
I’d like to believe that doing a yoga practice every day, and most particularly, doing shoulder stand, will keep me both healthy and clear well into my dotage. But I don’t know that.

As important as the physical practice is, I look elsewhere in yoga for what seems to me the most protective work: the practice of cultivating friendliness, compassion, joy and equanimity.

In Sanskrit, these are called the Brahma Viharas, or sublime attitudes, literally the “abodes of Brahma.” I believe they are more helpful for anyone looking to become and stay clear than a 10-minute headstand or a  flawless backbend – not that it wouldn’t be better to do both.
The Brahma Viharas are one of the many ideas that yoga philosophy shares with Buddhism, which also knows them as The Four Divine Emotions, The Four Immeasurables, and The Four Divine Abodes.

They appear in the Yoga Sutras at I.33, the first in a long line of practices Patanjali gives for making the mind quiet. Here are a few translations:

By cultivating an attitude of friendship toward those who are happy, compassion toward those in distress, joy toward those who are virtuous, and equanimity toward those who are nonvirtuous, lucidity arises in the mind. The Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali, Edwin F. Bryant

Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice, respectively, the consciousness becomes favorably disposed, serene and benevolent. Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, B.K.S. Iyengar

Tranquility of thought comes through the cultivation of friendship, compassion, joy and impartiality, in spheres of pleasure or pain, virtue or vice. Yoga, Discipline of Freedom, The Yoga Sutra Attributed to Pantanjali, by Barbara Stoler Miller

So how do the Brahma Viharas help keep us lucid? Let’s keep the counting of the ways to four, in honor of the four Divine Emotions, and the Buddha’s list love (click here to find a free download of The Complete Book of Buddha’s Lists – Explained, by David N. Snyder, Ph.D)

1. They tell us that our attitude is a matter of choice. Living in a constant attitude of friendliness, compassion, joy and equanimity is a tall order, and no one can manage it all of the time. But taking it on as a practice means we stay conscious of choosing to feel the way we do, and conscious that we can make a different choice. This in itself is a stunning piece of clarity.

2. They create a friendlier world, internally and externally. Friendliness directed to others most often brings friendliness in return. Better still, you can’t begin to practice being friendly and compassionate to others without turning the same attitudes inward. There is a real sense in which “love your neighbor as yourself” is more of a description of how humanity operates than a prescription of how to act. We can’t really summon more love or compassion for our neighbors than we are capable of showing ourselves.

3. They quiet our minds. Friendly, happy exchanges with other people do not need to be parsed over later, looking for the cutting remark you wish you’d said. When we’re at peace with the outside world, the inner turmoil that keeps our chattering minds busy is remarkably reduced.

4. A quiet mind is not only able to see more clearly, it is also physically healthier.
Stress, the opposite of the serenity cultivated by the Brahma Viharas, is now believed to physically damage the brain. Studies have shown that people who report feeling stressed are at greater risk for dementia.
Recently, scientists at UC Irvine published a study showing that that young mice injected with stress hormones for just seven days showed a 60-per cent increase in protein beta-amyloid, the main constituent of the amyloid plaques that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

That last fact alone is enough to nudge me into a more systematic practice, looking at what comes less readily, trying to improve those of the Divine Emotions that I struggle to feel.

I was delighted to see that Faye Berton, who often teaches at Yoga on 7th in the summer, is offering a workshop, Happiness through the Brahma Viharas, on Friday, July 1, from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
The catch? It’s at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 1895 Laurel Avenue, St. Paul, so if you don’t live in the Twin Cities, it’s a bit of a commute.
If you do, download the registration form here.

Photo courtesy of Leslie Hogya

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View from the deck of the Boatyard Inn, Langley, WA. It was lovely, thank you.

Yes, my fascination with hip creases continues, and only grows deeper.

I just came back from a short road trip. When I got out of the car after several hours of sitting, I noticed that while I was a little stiff in my hips, I didn’t have the pain I used to get, deep in the hip creases, for the first few steps after standing up.

Thinking about it, I realized that it’s been a while since I felt that.

I can think of two reasons why that particular twinge might have disappeared.

• I now do my desk work using the Pomodoro Technique, so I’m no longer sitting for long periods at a time.  I set my timer when I start, and after 25 minutes, I get up and walk around. The break is only five minutes, but it’s enough time for a stretch, or a small chore, such as flipping the towels from the washer to the dryer.

• I’m working with Malasana (garland pose or squat) in almost every practice I do.

On balance, I’m leaning toward Malasana as the explanation, which is why today’s Five-Minute Yoga Challenge is another way to work with  this amazingly useful pose.

Although it might look like  just a deeper way to sit down, squatting brings your hips into a position called open flexion, in which the ligaments that shorten while you sit are stretched out.

In particular, I’ve taken to doing a long squat with a belt looped deep into each hip crease and around each of my ankles.
As I press my heels into the straps, the hip crease moves deeper. And from the feeling of the straps in my hip creases, I’m better able to lift my side ribs and lengthen my spine.

Not only do you get the usual benefits of Malasana – toned abdominal muscles, relief from some backaches and a stretch for the ankles and groins – with the strap, the hip creases go deeper and become more alive. Day by day, I can see the difference that makes in other poses, as apparently dissimilar as Adho Mukha Virasana (child’s pose) and  coming up into headstand with straight legs.

Yes, this does require that you have two straps. But yoga straps are far from expensive, and they last forever. You can buy eight-foot straps, the most useful kind, online from Halfmoon Yoga for $12.

Here’s how to do it:

First step. Notice that the tail of the strap goes toward the outer thigh.

Make a loop in each of the two yoga belts.
Slip one loop over each foot and bring the loop into your hip crease. Make sure the buckle on the loop faces up, and the tail of the loop goes toward the outside.
Then, one foot at a time, bring your heel into the loop, and tighten it. Bring the buckle to the thickest part of the muscle at the hip crease, toward the outer thigh.
You may want to have a chair nearby to help you balance.

You'll need to tighten the strap once you're fully in squat. Although you can't see it here, I have a strap on each hip crease and heel.

Once you have a strap around each foot, come up on your toes, tighten the loops, and let your heels descend to the floor.
If squatting is a challenge, put your hands on the chair seat for balance. The straps will act like a block to support your heels, so even if you usually put a yoga block under your heels, you won’t need to in this variation.

In squat, I’m happiest bracing my upper arms against my knees. This helps me lift my spine and move the spine between my shoulder blades deeper into my body.

Start with your feet hip distance apart. If your heels touch the floor, then after a few minutes, bring your feet together. You’ll need to tighten the straps when you do.

Ouch: Don’t do this pose if you have an existing knee injury, or if squatting causes you pain in your knees. Instead, find a teacher who can help you work safely.

Have you been working with Malasana? Noticed any surprising connections  with other poses? Please share.

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Too many poses, too little time?

First let’s agree that the day will never come when you’ve spent enough time practicing friendliness, compassion, joy and equanimity, and can just put them aside until tomorrow.

For that part of a yoga practice, “never enough” is a given.

But even in asana practice, there’s no possibility of doing it all.
You can’t practice every pose, every day. Unless you have almost unlimited time, you can’t even work deeply in every category of pose every day.

Don’t believe me? Check out Dharma Mittra’s famous chart of 908 yoga poses if you’d like a bit of visual proof.

So how do you decide what is enough?

Here’s my best answer: you’ve practiced enough when you see continuing improvement in your poses.

If you have just attended your first class and haven’t exercised in years, then five minutes a day, targeted to whatever restricts you most – hips, hamstrings or shoulders – will be enough practice to show improvement.

And that’s enough, because as long as you continue to improve, you will continue to practice.

Improvement creates a virtuous cycle: growing in our practice makes us happy, so we return, which means our practice keeps improving, making us happier, and bringing us back again for more improvement.

Of course, the more you practice, the deeper you have to go to feel the same sense of progress. Happily, if you keep practicing, and coming to classes, you’ll know how.

I don’t, by the way, mean that every practice is going to feel better than the one before, or that every time you stretch your hamstrings they’ll feel looser than they did yesterday.

In this way, asana practice is a bit like writing. We show up, we do it, and we refrain from judging day-to-day.

There’s an Annie Dillard quote, which I can’t find at the moment, and so have to paraphrase (please send me the correct words if you have them).

It goes something like this: “Whether the writer thinks the day’s work is good or bad, is equally irrelevant.”

Certainly we know if a practice was pleasant or not. What we don’t know immediately is what effect our efforts in each pose might be having.

The pose that you struggle with for weeks on end may be only one practice away from finally, unexpectedly opening to you. That doesn’t mean the struggle was wasted, just that you couldn’t see where you were going at the time.

In my experience, every practice gives me at least one more glimmer of understanding, and yes, improvement.

No matter how small, that’s enough.

Image courtesy of jillallyn, Flickr Creative Commons

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Frogs, unlike humans, have very deep, very flexible groins

Anatomically speaking, the groins are the folds that mark the meeting of the lower abdomen and the inner thigh.

In Iyengar yoga, those would be the inner groins. Iyengar yoga also identifies middle groins, outer groins and back groins, making a circle of awareness all around the meeting place between legs and torso.

Lately I’ve been somewhat obsessed with groins, nagged by an intuition that if I could just understand better, go a little deeper, then I could unlock some new freedom in my body.

I’m not sure I’d go as far as Arthur Kilmurray, at Mystic River Yoga, who writes in his excellent article “Structure of the Groins,”

This region is of great importance for humans because its full extension creates the upright posture unique to our species. In a sense, when we are not balanced and stable through the groins in the upright posture, we are not fully human.

Kilmurray suggests that for freedom in the groins we learn to sit like a frog – squatting, that is.

If you have difficulty squatting, it can be useful to gain more awareness of your groins before you start. Hence this week’s Five-Minute Yoga Challenge: a version of Supta Padangusthasana (lying down big toe pose) with a strap at the hip crease.

This pose works to stretch your hamstrings and open your hip joints. Together that spells better mobility and an easier walking stride. Using a strap leaves a memory in your body that will linger as you move into other poses.

And if you feel more fully human trying it, well, that’s all to the good, isn’t it?

Start by tying a loop in your long strap. Then, standing up, put your foot on one end of the loop and bring the other end to the top of your outer hip on the same side.

Two things I'd change about this picture: keep the leg at 90 degrees, not higher. And keep the strap at the place where your heel meets the sole of your foot.

Now lie on your back. If you can, be close enough to a wall that your feet press strongly into the wall when your legs are straight.

Support the back of your head with a blanket, or towel, if needed, to relax your neck and shoulders.

Take the loop around your left foot and your right hip crease. The strap will be slightly too long. As you tighten it, bring the buckle toward the large muscle at the outer hip. Make sure that the strap is firmly in your hip crease, and not around the top of your right thigh muscle. Make it snug.

With your left leg straight, draw your right knee toward your chest. If the strap is tight enough, you will feel it eating into your hip crease. 
 If it’s too tight, you won’t be able to draw your knee in; if it’s too loose, you won’t feel much of anything.

On an exhalation, release the hip crease away from the strap, deeper into your body.

Your lower back on the right side will feel longer, and your right buttock will draw towards the wall.

Relax your face, relax your eyes. Hold for six to 10 breaths. 
Now take the second strap around your right foot. 
 Straighten your right leg. Start at a 45-degree angle. Press your right big toe away from you. Pull your right front thigh down toward your hip crease. 
Push your right thighbone from the front (quadriceps) side to the back (hamstrings) side.

Now press the big toe of your lower leg into the wall. Pull your front thigh muscle toward your hip crease, and press the lower leg’s thighbone to the floor. 
 Slowly draw your right foot toward you. Bring your right leg to 90 degrees.

With every exhalation, sink your right hip crease away from the strap. Relax your face and eyes. Hold for six to 10 long slow breaths.

Release the strap. Repeat to the left side.

When you’ve worked both sides, draw your knees in toward your chest. Feel the hip creases sink as you exhale.

If you only have five minutes, stay two minutes on each side. Then, over the next few hours, notice the sensations in your hip creases.

If you have time for a longer practice, come into child’s pose, working your hip creases back toward your heels. Then keeping your awareness in your hip crease, come into downward dog, and then Uttanasana (forward bend). In each pose, take the middle groins deeper into your body; roll the inner groins towards each other, and the outer groins toward the wall behind you.

If your hamstring stretch is too intense, back off and take your raised leg lower. If you can’t relax your face and shoulders, try more height under the back of your head.

Frog image courtesy of Sancho McCann.

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