Tight ankles

Welcome Kayzee

One thing that came to mind is the use of a cushion, soft towels or mats. If your feet are touching the ground then I would put something under your ankles/shins to knee area.

I would take the soft option and use towels because of your ability to fold them according to your progress. I would fold them in a wedge so that where your knees are higher off the ground, they still have something on which to rest.

The cushioning allows you to put your whole weight onto it without grinding your ankles and knees into the ground to cause you pain. In other words you are spreading the load between your feet and knees evenly. This may allow you to ease into opening your ankles.

Use your arms to support you and over time, you will be able to lighten the load through your arms. Over time you make the wedge of folded towels thinner and thinner. The theory is that eventually you will find yourself on the floor without the towels.

I hope it works as well for you as it has for the students who have had serious knee or ankle opening issues at my studio.

Do remember that you do NOT have to have your knees together. You can spread them apart so long as your hips are touching your heels. And please whatever you do, keep your back vertical and don’t lean back on your hands behind you to incline your back.

Kayzee, just had a couple of extra thoughts…

1) you may find that the best way to introduce this technique is by starting with heels and knees together (kneeling). This may be a gentler and a more symmetrical way to open your ankles to begin with. It really depends on how much support you need from your arms if any. Give it a go and let me know what works for you.

Perhaps you can do some trial runs at home. In fact this is the type of activity that you can do at any time at home. Maybe while you are reading or watching television you can sit on those soft towels with tops of feet on the floor and work your ankles open. If the kneeling position is better then stick with this for some time before separating the ankles. I have a feeling that with the nature of your foot condition that you may be best starting this way because it is a better way of ensuring symmetry in leg position. Take this one very mindfully, noticing the angle that each foot makes with the leg. Try to keep the foot as an extension of the leg without deviation.

Oh, and if for some reason you can’t sit down easily then there is no reason why you can’t introduce a little padding between ankles and bottom and reduce the thickness over time in the same way. You are really looking to let gravity do the work for you. If you continually have to hold yourself up then you can’t surrender to the pose.

2) do you have pronated ankles? (Do your ankles collapse inward when you are standing or walking?). Just trying to get a better picture of your issue.

Looking forward to your reply. Really hoping this helps you.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Kayzee

Here goes with my recreation two posts I made last month. I will crystallize it for you in the following points:

The main thing is that you want to know if you can fix your hips to be square even though you can’t fix your leg. Your spine starts from the hips so ultimately you need a solution which gives you a solid base. You have uneven legs (3/4 inch difference). Some people have relative leg length differences because of the way their pelvis is positioned – where it could be tilted. You however have an ACTUAL leg length difference which causes the hip and pelvic malposition which therefore has your spine emanating from your hips misaligned. So your muscles and bony development has created the best balanced body it could create given the circumstances.

The bottom line is, is if you want to effect good change in your hips and therefore your spine you will have to seriously consider evening out your body from the ground up. Now I know you said that you HATED your orthotics but as an adult you may have the capacity to cope with them (mentally and physically). In other words, your leg length is only fixable through artificial means. But it means that (I believe) the fixing of your other problems will stem from addressing this issue.

It WILL be difficult to do this because your spine is already ‘set’ in its curves, so anything deviating from this will be uncomfortable and sometimes painful. Basically it will be your body attempting to create better balance and in doing so will use different muscles. You will have to work strongly on your alignment and go against what is ‘normal’. Having gone through something similar but obviously much less problematic I can tell you some things from personal experience. I had a moderately severe scoliosis and a RELATIVE leg length difference of 3/4 inch. Doctors said it was a leg length difference. But I am sure the difference is less than that because I was able to almost totally reverse the effects. I still have a mild scoliosis, my hips and shoulders are slightly different heights which means my arms reach over my head differently.

Originally I would prop my foot up a little in yoga class (by sneaking a little folded facewasher under my main yoga towel as the teachers would say, the yoga will fix it! However the difference in the beginning was too large to feel balance in the poses). I also started wearing orthotics with a height difference under my right foot to prop it up. I also went to AS MANY YOGA CLASSES AS I COULD, from 6-8 per week for 5-6 months.

I could FEEL MY SPINE REALIGNING. It was painful at night turning in bed but it was MAGNIFICENT. I loved the feeling that it was realigning. It started at the bottom of the spine and little by little worked its way up to the top.

What I think is this: if a 3/4 inch orthotic is too high for you to cope with then don’t do 3/4 do 1/2 an inch. Millions and millions of people live with a slight leg difference and cope well. It may make the difference that creates some relative comfort for you while you heal. This should mean that you can slide something into your shoe and not change the shoe itself but that is a matter for you and your practitioners to decide. You have to be happy with the treatment, you can help design it in a way that is practical and encourages compliance – ie set yourself up for success by creating a program that will have you using the damn things! 😉

The other thing I remember recommending considering was wearing some kind of device on your shorter leg to give you better height in all poses during your yoga classes. It is fiddly working with a towel having to move it around. I made reference to finding something: eg my daughter wears a neoprene shoe with a rubber sole at the beach that probably wouldn’t slip around in class. You could get something modified to adjust your leg to proper height for the yoga class. And also use it for walking around the house when you want to be ‘barefoot’.

Finally, regarding heels and toes together.
In my mind there is absolutely NO QUESTION, DON’T have your toes and heels together. I would strongly recommend setting your feet so that
a) your feet are square to the mirror, a straight line from heel through toes parallel to side walls; hips and knees if possible facing forward.
b) your feet are far enough apart that your knees do not ‘lock’ together.

If you widen your stance without fixing leg length then your poses will still be better, but you won’t affect the change in your hips and spine.

To summarize:
1) Do something about going at least partway to evening out the legs in class and out of class.
2) Stand with feet apart in class preferably finding some way to adjust leg height.
3) Go to as many classes as you can per week so that you can make changes to your musculature and skeletal structure. Robert likes to say, like butter out of the fridge, the more you take it out, the softer it stays (ie the more often you go the more change you can effect in the spine and supporting musculature).
4) Create the change and then go on a maintenance program to keep your spine healthy and in alignment.

Kayzee you may have other questions (perhaps pose specific ones). Feel free to refute, comment, add, or ask anything at all.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂