To use a step...or not use a strap...

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Keli_bedics
Participant

January 10, 2013 at 2:05 am

Post count: 1

#2465

First let me say thanks for the iPad app and the MP3 version of your Hot Yoga Master Class!

Now, to my question….
When I do tree stand, I’ve been using a strap to hold my foot on my thigh. Using the strap I am able to maintain good upright posture with tailbone tucked and can get my knee “down and out” enough so that my hips are level. However, I cant get my foot up any higher than about an inch or two above my knee. And, I definitely cannot maintain my foot in that position without the strap.

If I go into this posture without the strap, I can hold my foot and place it on my thigh, but it’s still only a few inches above my knee and I can no longer maintain an upright/tailbone-tucked posture. Further, I can’t get the knee to get down and to the side, it more or less sticks out in front of me.

So, do I use the strap and maintain otherwise good posture or not use the strap and just keep struggling to attain an upright posture and “down and out” knee???? Or should I practice this pose lying on the on the floor???

I don’t know if it’s helpful to mention this or not, but I can do decent warrior and triangle poses which I’m thinking may mean this is more a knee issue than a hip one. Also probably useful to know, I have never had any knee pain while in this pose. Oh, and I do have decent sized thighs (although from keeping good solid standing legs, they’re pretty darn muscular!) The other thing that might come into play is hand strength…yoga is teaching me that I don’t have any!

Thanks for any help you can provide!
Keli

Gabrielle (The Hot Yoga Doctor)
Forum Owner

January 12, 2013 at 10:27 am

Post count: 3048

#10223

Hi Keli

Thanks for posting on the forum! I am sure others will benefit from your question.

I believe, given your great descriptions, that you need to use a strap. So keep doing that. You cannot benefit from a beautiful posture (in your body) if what you’re practising is a collapsed one.

What I want you to make sure is that you manipulate the hold on the strap to mimic what your hand would do if you were holding your foot. In other words the hand will be holding the strap so that the palm faces forward, the elbow bends backwards and not at all out to the side, with the arm in close to the body. In this way the shoulder is down and back allowing your back to be upright. Obviously both shoulders should be symmetrically positioned.

Should your knee be down and back or up and out? Well, frankly, it’s a matter of how you are able to maintain that good posture (arm, shoulder, body, foot on thigh somewhere) and the SURRENDER of the leg to gravity.

There is a time in your progress where you will be able to more actively work the leg down and back against the traction created in this triangle of muscular action.

For those wondering if they should use a strap at all, the answer generally goes like this: If you can stand up and have some hand to ankle or foot contact to give you some traction and you can surrender your knee to gravity EVEN IF it is waving high in the air 😉 then you don’t need a strap. If nothing you can do with your standard operational human equipment can get your foot to stay somewhere on your leg while you stand tall then a strap or towel is a good idea. That way you can use the right muscles and simultaneously let go of the other ‘right’ muscles to make progress.

Thanks for your compliments about the app and mp3!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂
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