Hints on how to get a good strong Standing Leg?

Hello Deb

Firstly I want to acknowledge your mammoth effort. 78 days in a 90 day challenge! That is fantastic.

It seems that you are on the right track with your thinking and your approach. Amy has given you some sound advice.

Stand and feel a solidness across the hips and pelvic girdle in your standing position, before you lift your leg. Always use more then just the joints to hold your body firmly in space: use your muscles and connective tissues too and your core will more positively support you. In this way you can maintain a locked out leg that is ALSO in good alignment. By this I mean that you avoid the sinking into the standing leg, and falling inward toward your arch.

On a practical in-studio level: watch your standing leg knee. It will help you in your steadfast commitment to lock and relock the knee (and when your muscles tire). You will see when your foot is fanning out to the side, when your arch collapses in (and causes a whole stack of alignment issues), when your knee or hips need adjusting.

Get back to us when you have tried the knee hold. It is rather more as if you are hanging your body from your knee. Let the full weight of your relaxed lifted leg straighten your arms.

Amy’s idea of lifting your leg as high as you can, which although in principle is a good idea it would introduce too many things for you to focus on and become competent at when you are already struggling with simply locking your leg. And it would actually be harder than supporting it with some kind of hand hold or grip. Amy’s idea is great to test how strong your body is (your hip flexors, lower back, quadriceps etc). Let’s leave that for a while! 😉

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Deb

It is more simple than that. Interlock the fingers around the knee, let gravity take your relaxed leg down, and lift your chest and let your arms straighten with the traction between knee and shoulders and THEN of course, focus on locking your leg! :cheese:

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

I used to do the same thing!! I found for me it was because 1. I shifted my gaze from the floor the my knee 2. even if I started w/ my gaze on my knee my focus would be on LOOKING rather than being FOCUSED. w/ practice though I was able to look in the mirror and hold balance (even if I had to look like a flying monkey in the process)
go ahead … challenge yourself! try the first set looking where you feel comfortable then on the second start w/ your gaze in the mirror and go for it!.

Hi Amy and Rebecca

Actually you are right – semantics is a key part of this yoga. Actually I was writing something on this for an email you will soon receive. Knowing what is being asked of you so that you can get your aha moment is critical to getting the most out of your practice.

So here are some practical reasons why looking on the floor doesn’t work as well.

Balance is always better if you can manage to look forward and somewhere higher on the body. It definitely gets complicated with your inability to look at yourself for whatever reason. 😉

When you look on the floor too close to your foot or mat (depending on the pose) you have a much greater potential to lose many of the key aspects of the pose. In Standing Head to Knee (the subject of this thread) the following list is what I am more likely to see if the student is looking down:

*The foot starting to point downward and maybe even the thumbs climbing on top of the foot
*The knee either dropping below hip height or raising above (depending on the grip around the foot)
*The standing leg unlocking
*The foot moving closer to the body (not maintaining the 90 degree angle around the knee)
*Less often the foot moves closer to the mirror when the eyes go down.

That’s just a few effects. There are plenty of others, believe me (which are illustrated in the Hot Yoga MasterClass). So really, when you can look somewhere like the knee or higher you have a much better chance of catching errors and correcting them. Hopefully you will be able to find a lot more physical AND mental focus. If you don’t climb that visual focus up again you have much less chance of breaking through this ‘issue’.

Allow your eyes to soften and if you need to (to start anyway) say something like ‘lock the knee’ or ‘my leg is solid’ or ‘suck in your stomach’ or ‘thigh parallel’ or any number of other ways to distract your conscious mind from getting the better of you!!!!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

anyone have any advice to my post above?

i have to bring my lifted leg across midline because otherwise i can’t balance my standing leg (all the weight remains on the outside of my standing leg- i can even see that the outer part of my calf is getting overly developed). i love this pose because my balance and hamstring strength have improved, but it has made my hamstrings very tight.

hopefully, over time i will be able to keep my leg straight out. again, i have wide hips so this is relative. i even stand against my treadmill for support.

another question i have about the pose is, are you supposed to clench your butt and tuck the pelvis in the standing leg? also, are you supposed to have your extended leg at or above hip level?

thanks.

Hi yogafan

You know the only way to learn balance is to um, learn balance. In short, the way out of this problem is to do yoga, put yourself in the right alignment and be prepared to fall out as you learn how to create the stability in your body. If you have to stand next to the wall it doesn’t matter. Do what it takes. Just rereading your post, I am wondering if you are supporting yourself on your treadmill. Does this mean that you are practicing exclusively at home. Please let me know.

In my studio we always take a different approach. At the moment your focus is too wide (you are trying to do too many things at once before time). You are working on extending your leg prematurely, and in doing so you are putting your back at risk. My guess is that your hamstrings could be ‘complaining’ and tightening up in an effort to support you.

So my advice to you is this: please do not extend your lifted leg AT ALL until you can safely and properly hold your lifted leg at 90 degrees in correct alignment for the entire 60 seconds. The second picture down in the pose gallery of Standing Head to Knee is the only position you should be practicing right now.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

So I have a question with the balancing poses and the locking the knee too! Hope you can help…
I have noticed that my achilles tendons have been starting to really ache after Bikram – I practice four times a week. I realise that when I am trying to balance on one leg and lock the knee I am really pulling on the calf and tendons – what am I doing wrong? I also find that I can stand straight and lift my quad muscles up, but as soon as I go to bend forward to pick up the foot, I loose the lift and struggle to get it to lift again without standing back up (hope that makes snesee!!) Any help would be greatly appreciate. Thanks – Barb

Hi Gabrielle – thanks for getting back to me. Since I last posted I have had to take a break from yoga as both of my Achilles tendons have become inflamed and very sore, especially first thing in the morning and straight after a yoga session.
I have been doing the Bikram style, and the script is the one that they all say each time. What I have been told is that I have collapsed arches and so my tendons are hurting when I do any of the balancing poses. I think I am quite flexible. I can do the wide legged front stretch with both knees locked – (my forehead doesn’t touch the floor yet!!). I have been to a physio who has told be to do numerous calf raises to strengthen up my legs – the people at the studio just tell me to keep coming and work through it – taking it easy if I need to. What do you think??