Grabbing the foot in Standing Bow

Hi Gabrielle,

Thanks so much for your reply! Here are the answers:

Floor Bow: I have to bend up my right leg at the knee, angle it to the side and then do a lying side bend to grab the shin and walk my hand up to the foot. I repeat on the left side and then finally bring both legs back together before I can start the pose.

Standing Bow: When grabbing from the outside, I’m actually only able to grab at the shin above the ankle. My arm is straight, but my thigh isn’t straight down. i.e. I’m lifting my thigh towards my chest, bending the lower leg up, and then grabbing from the outside.

Sitting on heels: I keep my hands on the ground to support some weight and bend forward a bit. On the second set of the pose I don’t have to use my hands and can sit up straight for about 10 secs. Teachers would tell me to try my legs apart, but the standard position of knees touching and feet apart is more comfortable. I feel tightness in the top of the thighs and more so in the calves.

If I sit at home like this for a minute, pain in the calves slowly builds up, so I have to ease off for a few secs and then I can lower back down for another minute.

My arm and wrist tightness is also a block towards being able to grab my leg from the inside. I can only turn my palm a few degrees away from front-facing. At home I lie on my palm-down hands (like the start of locust) a few times throughout the day to try and address that.

All my issues probably stem from being very obese as a kid and no exercise but just sitting in front of the TV or computer for hours a day. This yielded complete stiffness and misalignment in my hips, back, shoulders, legs, wrists … basically everything 🙂

I’ve been a normal weight for 15 years now, but growing up with all the extra weight may have over-tightened my calves (just a guess) since I can hike uphill for hours without getting tired, but heading downhill my quads tire too easily.

Sorry for the lengthy response! I just wanted to describe everything as much as possible in the hopes of finally getting some insight 🙂

When I used to do hot yoga many teachers would give up on me making any flexibility gains or even single me out to just lie in savasana instead of doing certain poses. I felt me struggling to start a pose was preferable. I was making slight progress, and at least helping my balance and alignment issues slowly but surely.

namaste,
Zubin

Hi Gabrielle,

When a teacher is ok with me using a towel, my preference for Standing Bow is to loop the towel around my ankle and pull my leg up behind me. When I do that, holding the towel with one hand, I am able to turn the other hand outward and grab the shin from the [strong]inside[/strong] and walk my hand up to the foot. Then I can drop the towel and go a little into the pose (point forward, push the foot back into the hand as the leg rises and I feel the backbend).

A couple teachers didn’t like me using a towel and would ask me to just stand there with arms at my side through the pose 🙁

In Camel I just keep my hands on my lower back and can barely bend any amount back from vertical.

What I sometimes do for backbends is lie across a chair at home. The seat supports my lower back and I hang my arms over my head and relax. After about 2 minutes like this I usually hear/feel a pop and my back stretches out and down a little. It feels good, and it gives me hope that there’s openings in the body just aching to be released.

Usually the backbends in hot yoga (since they’re only held for tens of seconds instead of minutes) don’t yield the same release. But I’m open to some combo of practice at a studio with home exercises or even a modified at-home practice to work out all the body’s issues.

If you can help me then you can help anyone, since I’d readily put my name up for the most peacefully content person saddled with the most tight and uncooperative body out there!

namaste,
Zubin