Frequently Asked Yoga Questions

Hi friends! Jen here. Today I'd love to share with you a couple of Frequently Asked Questions from my classes that may help refresh your thinking about a few particular poses and your overall practice. 

Let's jump in:

Q: Do I need to get my hip to the floor in pigeon pose?

A: Short answer: No. Long answer: No, but there are some things to think about. 

In pigeon pose, you've been told, the goal is to "open the hips." Your hip is a ball-and-socket joint, and pigeon pose will externally rotate the head of the femur (the thigh bone) in the acetabulum (hip socket) in the front leg. In the back leg, the hip flexor muscle called the psoas is stretched, which makes pigeon pose a great two-in-one for hip flexibility.

When in pigeon pose, you're looking to get your hipbones as square as possible so as to keep the sacrum from going wonky. In other words, you don't want to bring the right leg forward for pigeon, then get comfortable by flopping over onto the right hip/butt cheek, rolling that back leg outward, and taking a snooze. Pigeon shouldn't be all that comfortable for most people, frankly. You should relax your body around the hips the best you can and feel the possibly uncomfortable sensations. (Remember: Pain? Get OUT of the pose. Discomfort? See if you can work with it for some opening. You can always do a modification.)

Now, most students don't have the extreme flexibility it takes to touch both hips to the floor while maintaining square hips (and this could be because of the build of your skeleton and not at all an indication of some kind of weak yoga practice, so don't go down that shame spiral). So when you come into pigeon, first adjust your hips to square, then if your hip has space between it and the floor, you have a few options. One is to fit a block or a few blankets in that space, and that definitely helps to maintain the squareness of the hipbones. But the other option is to just hang out with your hip not touching anything. I know a lot of teachers rush to fill that space with a prop, but if you feel okay there, and you're not dropping the hip, I say it's not 100% necessary to have that space filled with props and you can let it float.

By the way, you should never feel pigeon pose in your knee. If you do, let the instructor know so you can modify into reclining pigeon or something else.

Q: What's the difference between Warrior 1 and Warrior 2, really? Besides the arm position?

A: In Warrior 1, your hips are square to the front of the room, your shoulders square over your hips, and your feet on two separate tracks with the back foot pointed at a 45-degree angle, kind of in the direction of the front corner of the mat. In Warrior 2, your hips are open to the side, your shoulders square over your hips, and your back foot is turned out slightly more with the outer edge of the foot running parallel to the back edge of your mat.

Do you have a hard time in Warrior 1 because it never feels right? Here's two common misalignments that feel crappy:

1) Your stance is too wide (front to back). Why are you sending your back foot as far as possible? Warrior 1 is not intended to be such a wide stance. (My warrior 2 is FAR wider than my warrior 1.) If you don't know if your stance is too wide, here's a tip: Get in your full warrior 1, and if you can't press firmly into the outer edge of the back foot and/or your back knee can't straighten and is caving in, your stance is TOO wide from front to back. Bring your back foot CLOSER to the front of the mat. Guess what? There are no prizes for "Widest Warrior 1 Stance." A wide stance isn't a better, more flexible, most Instagram-worthy pose. Close it up and the pose FEELS better because the form hasn't fallen apart. 

2) You're on a tightrope. If you can't square your hips in warrior 1 no matter what the teacher says, your back foot is probably in a line behind your front foot. Here's how to avoid this: If you're moving from mountain pose to warrior 1 with left foot back, step that left foot back in a straight line from your hip. Do NOT arc that foot to the right. Step straight back, turn the foot out a bit, bend the front knee and you're there. It's sending that back foot over to the opposite side a bit that will draw the hip back and not allow you to square the hips. 

Q: Will yoga leave me in a better mood?

A: I'd love to say yes, but the answer is: depends. My firm belief is that the physical practice of asana (yoga poses) and pranayama (breathwork) is a gateway to what lies beneath: your thoughts, feelings, emotions, trauma, issues. So it's entirely possible you leave yoga feeling blissful, but it's almost just as likely you leave emotionally unsettled--because the yoga allowed something to come to the surface that needs healing. And please understand that even if that thing doesn't feel good, it means yoga is working for you.

Now, once the stuff comes up for healing, you need to do the work you need to do. Go to therapy, talk to friends, write in your journal, do whatever healing work you need to do to work through what came up. If you ignore it and squelch it down, it will keep coming up until you address it.

In this way, yoga is magic. Yoga is the microcosm of real life; how you respond to challenges on your mat is how you respond to them off the mat, and yoga is a safe space to observe yourself.

Allow the uncomfy stuff to arise so you can see it clearly and know what you have to work on!

Speaking of yoga energy: Want to become a master of energetic work? Try Emerald's two Reiki events coming up this month. Holy Fire Reiki Healing is FREE and open to everyone, and is happening four Tuesday nights in a row in October: Oct. 1, 8, 15, and 22. And if you feel called to help others, become certified in Reiki Level 1 on Oct. 5, 12-6pm.

Do you have a question I can answer in a future blog post? Email them to emeraldyogastudio@gmail.com and Landen or I will address it!