cannot reach my feet

Hello Ela

It seems to me that bending over is difficult due to your flexibility issue and maybe because you carry a little extra weight.

Here’s a way to get some great progress in this pose. It will help you open up your hips and at the same time help you get some great practice and stamina for locking out your standing leg.

After a while the progress you make here and in other poses will help you bend over and reach your foot more easily.

First side:
Lock your left leg and bend up your right leg.

Interlock your fingers and place them just at your knee.

Let your arms straighten.

Let your knee ‘fall’ against your hands’ grip.

Keep your back straight, chin parallel to the floor.

DO NOT flex your foot, just keep your foot relaxed.

Only hold your knee up with the grip. Gravity pulls your knee down against your arms. And your arms are NOT LOCKED, they are simply stretching due to the weight of your leg. Your back resists rounding and you stand up straight. In fact it is a kind of balancing act as you lean ever so slightly backward to balance the forward moving weight of your leg.

Keep checking into your locked left leg. A hint here is not to look any lower than the knee of your locked leg in the mirror (or you will start to lose your balance in any pose). In time you will meet yourself in the mirror.

Ela, you are doing many classes per week. It may not take long before you can safely bend over and reach your own foot! But try this first as you build strength and gain some much needed flexibility. And if you are like me, you may lose a lot of shape in your first few weeks of practice.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

If you don’t understand the detail just ask!

Hi Ela

Have you managed to try the technique yet? If you haven’t and you don’t understand my instructions, let me know. I may be able to dig out a photo for you.

Kind regards
Gabrielle 🙂

OK! Just below the knee, above the shin. Silly me!!!

😆
Gabrielle

Hello Mammaren

You obviously are greatly in tune with your body. This is great. Once again, do what seems right. There are always varying standards of knowledge and teaching. Going into a pose and feeling strain (no matter how insistent your teacher is that you should follow their direction) is NOT ON. Please don’t put yourself at risk.

I wouldn’t mind knowing what it is they are expecting you to do with your hands when you round over. AND are you saying that you bend up your leg and just stand straight without doing anything with your arms or hands? These questions answered would certainly help us both understand each other better.

When you can’t hold your foot, then the knee is a real option. The traction work creating space in your spine and opening your central nervous system, the strength in your fingers, the ability to focus wholly on locking out your standing leg while also opening your hip are just some of the good reasons to do it.

Ciao for now

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello K

May I seek some clarification with a question?
When you bend your leg up, it appears that you are saying that your thigh is lower than parallel to the floor, is that correct? You are simply standing there with a leg bent up to some degree, body straight and arms relaxed.

Best to get clear

Looking forward to your response

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello K

It seems as though your teachers and I have a different approach. It boils down to doing what you feel is right. I can only tell you what has worked for me over the years.

One great advantage of grabbing under the knee for those who can’t grab the foot is that there is a real opportunity to create some ease in this strength-building part of the pose. There is a solid balance created and you can find great focus in locking the knee for the whole minute. Furthermore it relaxes and releases the muscles around the pelvis and hips while creating traction and space in the spine.

If you are not comfortable doing this in class, try it after class or even at home. And make sure you have no issues with Head to Knee (the floor version) because this is an excellent way to encourage you to learn how it should feel in the standing version! Let me know!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hey K

Great to hear of your progress. While the poses are incidental in your yoga journey they are still a great way of gauging movement along the path; we get to observe the manner in which we break through all kinds of limitations.

Celebrating with you

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Thank you this was helpful and I had the same response in class from the teachers. The thing is I am very tall and long and have no problem raising my leg and interlocking around my foot but my hamstrings will not let me anywhere near a kick out straight and when I just hold it bent or kick out as much as I can the fulcrum seems to be right in my lower back where the injury was and hurts. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt until later tho and i have caught the energy in class and pushed past what I think might be true for me now. I feel good about holding the knee and focusing on locking my knee as the left leg arch fell from the accident and needs rehab and balance work. Will the teacher feel usurped if I won’t do what they say? Esp if they believe I am hurting myself. What would a good reply be? Maybe I should tell them before class I need to modify some poses ….

Hi Torqued

Caught your other message!!! :cheese:

You are so right. If the wall will help you out short term so that you can practice balance without the risk of falling then I am all for it. It is very reassuring to know that you won’t hurt yourself. It doesn’t take long at all to cement the new activity and make it a good habit. Then you can move away from the wall and shift your focus to deepening other aspects of the pose!

Congrats and thanks for sharing that with us.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Eva

It seems your problem is less what you are doing or at least what you know you should be doing (that has worked before) and more what you’re feeling compelled to do.

It seems you have a conundrum and that is to either do what’s good for your body, or do what a piece of paper tells you to do.

As you may have done in the past, stand with your interlaced fingers just below your knee, arms straight and relaxedly long, shoulders down and allow gravity to pull the leg down. Relax that lifted foot (no flexing). Keep the back up, chest lifted. This will create traction in your spine and arms.

Yes, engage your core where possible. No, don’t round over. The next stage would be to try to hold your leg in that right angle with your foot flexed. You could stand with your hands on your hips or by your side.

I assure you that it is harder to stand there without hands around the foot than not. So don’t be surprised if it takes a while to manage a whole 1 minute. HOWEVER the great news about this position is it builds core strength like crazy and for you is definitely worth some dedicated time.

And yes, keep working on that standing leg and of course your core strength. Have you received any help to find out if what you’re doing is actually creating core strength. Some people simply cannot activate their core (despite sucking in their stomach). It could be worth finding out from a professional.

If yoga is about listening to your body’s voice then I believe you are not stuck. It is more likely that you are being coerced to actually IGNORE your needs and the cries of your body. That is not yoga. It is likely that you have to word another request (*as suggested in the response to your other question).

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂