Tree pose problem right leg

Hi Linda

Thanks for your question!

At the moment you are not doing a pose at all (at least on that side). Nothing is happening if your body is collapsed, as you have already worked out. Worse you would be creating asymmetries in the body that could cause problems rather than fixing them.

So thankfully, the answer is quite simple. Whether or how you do this is going to depend on the type of studio you go to and the teachers/owner there and their attitude. If you go to a strict Bikram studio they may be likely to tell you to just keep doing what you’re doing and keep trying to grab your foot. They may even ‘forbid’ you to use the technique that I am suggesting below. Come back here if that’s an issue and we can discuss that too. But hopefully you will have a supportive studio!

Here’s what I recommend you do:

>> Use a small long thin towel
>> Slide your hand down your right leg to get a hold of it and then gently guide your foot upwards (then used your left hand when you can)
>> Lasso 😉 your foot along with ankle (not just the ankle as including foot and ankle will markedly help you open up the foot, ankle and leg overall in a better way)
>> MAKE SURE that you are able to stand straight, releasing enough of the towel to do so
>> AND EVEN more IMPORTANT is to make sure the left hand (holding the towel) has palm facing forward
>> Now ensure that you are able to bend your left elbow backward (close to the body). This seats the shoulder down and back.

Now you should feel a few things:

1) You will feel you are actually doing something useful. That the pose can actually make sense to your body, that you are able to open it up.
2) You are now able to surrender your leg to gravity and get rid of the stresses you have been feeling until now.
3) You can now more easily lock the standing leg, squeeze the bottom a little to push the hips slightly forward against which you feel the knee/leg moving back (as you lift the foot in the towel) to create the action that makes this pose work.

Over time (and a relatively short time at that) you will find that you are able to draw the foot up higher while still standing up. Which means, that one day you will not need the little towel at all.

The problem with the no-prop approach is that it presumes the pose is little more than about holding the foot. This is a complex whole body pose that has a LOT going on. Your way forward is to use the prop.

The reason why you don’t want to use a strap is that it will settle in at the ankle joint and you will not get the opening that you are after.

Hope that helps
Come back and tell me how you go

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Linda

Here’s the thing! I think it’s my bad because I wish I had been clearer. I don’t believe you should have asked if you could use a towel. It is your right to use one especially if it is to allow you to make the pose work for you. You didn’t ask to do a totally different pose. You actually were saying “I want to do the pose like everyone else, to feel what everyone else is feeling but it’s impossible because my body is crumpled over”.

The answer is very consistent with the culture of teaching Bikram yoga and that is, if the teacher doesn’t know the answer, then they say either “no, do it the way I tell you” or “just keep doing the yoga and the yoga will fix it” or they say “just breathe and work through it”. None of those responses are yoga. You can tell I feel very strongly about this! :cheese: Where was the curiosity when you asked that question? Did they take a towel and experiment to see if it would actually work? Did they ask to see you try? My guess: No!

The only way you can make headway with this pose is to follow those directions and have your body upright or NOT do it at all. But then you risk not being able to make progress at all. It is honestly bad advice to tell you to go into Toe Stand when you cannot even do Tree Pose. It would be risky to do so. Really if you think about it, doing Toe Stand as suggested is really stroking the ego. You’d be doing it for the wrong reasons – physiologically, you’re not ready for it – yet. 😉

The idea is to listen to your body and be sensitive to its evolving flexibility, strength, agility and opening. Equally to be aware of limitations, body collapse and struggle in breath or movement. That’s why you came here because you are aware of all that. So I hope you take the tools and use them to continue to be aware!

Take a towel into class and at the very least, after class, stand up and try Tree Pose as I have suggested. Of course do the same thing at home too every day (the difference is that your body won’t be as warm as it would be after some hot yoga). You may find that if it is working for you that you stand in the back corner of the room to do your pose during class with the prop. Standing out of the way would be in keeping with the studio’s opinion that you would be ‘distracting’ people (which actually does not happen!).

What you will notice with using the towel is that you will progress quickly and before you know it you won’t be needing it any more. The job is done and your body will be more open for all the poses, not just tree and toe. The strict ‘better-do-as-the-dialog-says-and-you-can’t-use-a-towel-because-bikram-doesn’t-tell-you-to-in-the-script’ approach is not informed by physiological principles and is shortsighted. It means that students either have an impasse in their practice or they hurt themselves – or both.

You do pigeon after class, so do Tree with a towel after class too! Let me know how you go.

Oh, just going back and reading your initial post I am just checking that you feel a soft tissue limitation and it’s not a bony tissue impingement.

Lastly, can you please tell me what you mean by “my fixed firm is halfway there”

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello again Linda

If you can’t stand up straight, bend that elbow (of the arm holding your foot), or surrender your leg to gravity, and the myriad other things described then your pose is simply not working for you. Doing “Collapsed Tree” won’t actually fix it. Your other work will in other parts of the class and with your post-class work. So keep that up. Take your towel and by all means, give me some progress reports. Pigeon and towels! Sounds like an odd combination. Ha 😉

Well, I have great news and bad news for you. Great news, I can EASILY give you the answer to fixed firm. Bad news? It requires a prop. Don’t ask this time just do it, ok?

Firstly you must not go back until you have an even seat with hips on the ground. You will either need to place some padding under your ankles or under your bottom depending on where the pressure is. Methinks bottom is the place… let me know.

Again, the only way to open up and fix that leg (wherever it’s tight/healing) is to be able to surrender to gravity with the towel to help you do that. Sit with what I think will be your bottom on the (folded or rolled) towel with sufficient padding for you to feel symmetry in your hips. When you can do that, you’ll be running back here and saying that you can finally feel something happening that is good rather than risky. Move your knees apart if you feel strain there. OR if you’re a long way away from both hips on the ground in symmetry you may find that knees hips and feet together in a regular kneel position will do the same trick.

I can’t wait to hear how you go.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂