Sebastian Brosche · 5 min · 801 words
Previously titled: Section 12 - Hip Stretches
Moving into so many people's favourite part of the class, the hip stretches. So when you're nice and warm, the poses that usually are unavailable or even painful can be really, really nice. So hopefully people's hips are ready for pigeon now. Different ways to come into pigeon, of course, but we did a variation of pigeon in the beginning of the class.
And now we're doing the seated one. Usually I say just stretch your right leg up, open up your hip, take a breath. And then bring your right shin underneath your chest. And then I just have them lower the shin.
Take a moment here. Lift the, okay, he already has the back knee up. Usually people have lowered their back knee because people, they get easily tired, so they want to put the knee down. So usually as I lift the back knee, pull the leg further back, pull the hip further back and then lower the hip again.
Because a lot of people, when they bring the leg forward, they bring the leg forward and they're somewhere like this. So bring the hip further back and then use your hands as support. Flatten out the back foot. And then, can you turn the other way?
I want to give a variation here. So a really nice variation for people with tighter hips where this is really uncomfortable. Scoot a little bit forward. Flatten out your foot.
Yes. It's to walk, because this is just a nice thing to know. It's for most people, when you walk the torso and the arms away from the bent leg, it's not so intense. It's easier because the hip tends to fall to this side, so that will balance out the tilt.
So when you walk, when people are here and it's really tight and they're like, oh, I feel like I want to fall to the side. But then you walk your arms instead to the side. That can be really helpful. If you want to intensify the pose, you do the opposite.
Then you walk the arms. The other way, usually we do an option where you take the left arm underneath the body and come onto your left shoulder. This really intensifies the stretch. So a nice thing you can remember is, OK, we're in the center, neutral.
I want to make it easier for people. Walk the arms to the opposite side, maybe come down on your one elbow or two elbows. Breathe. You don't feel much.
You want to intensify it. Come back to neutral. Inhale, lengthen the back. Exhale, take your left arm underneath your right arm and come down on your left shoulder.
Usually this will do it for most people, even if they're really flexible. If they're still like, oh, I don't feel anything, bend the back leg, grab the foot with the right arm. So keep the right arm. Yes.
If they're still don't feel anything, you say, OK, you don't need this class, then you're good. OK, so recap, we come back. So we are in dog. We do open up the hip, roll the knee forward, place the shin down, scoot the back knee down so the hips can go further back and down.
I should also mention I always give the option to do this pose on the back. We did this in the beginning of the class. So you can say if this is too much for any of your joints, just come onto your back. Do what we did in the warm up to figure four.
If this is OK, stay here in neutral. Maybe you come further forward with your arms or down. If you want to make it a little bit softer or less intense, walk to the opposite side with your arms. It's nice to come down your elbows if that's available.
So about 45 degrees. I'm really bad at math and numbers, but I think this is about 45 degrees. If you want to intensify it, if this is not enough for you, you walk the right arm underneath the left arm. Come down on your right shoulder.
This helps to square the hips. That's what makes it more intense. If it's still not enough, bend your back knee, grab your back foot and pull it in towards your hips. You just made a knot off your own body.
So these are some nice options. You can keep it simple. Just chin down, back knee down, arms forward. Or you can add the walked arm to one side or the other or grab the leg.
I think that's enough options for pigeon. It's many more, but those are more active. And now we're actually trying to cool down and release the class.
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