Hey everyone! Hopefully you’ve been practice your breathing, and, if you are new to the blog, have give a look over the past postures from last semester because as this semester advances, so too will asana discussed. Today is one of the first postures that will use a past practice (downward dog) to move into one of my personal favorite poses: Pigeon Pose. The steps I am discussing are just one variation of the pose which works to really stretch and open up your hips.

The steps…

1. Start on your hands and knees in the center of your mat and take a moment to focus your breathing.
2. From here, move into downward dog and take a few breaths to stretch the hamstrings and get your muscles warmed up.
3. Then inhale and extend one leg straight out behind you. Moving from this, on the exhale, draw your knee to the parallel shoulder while simultaneously twisting the leg so that your ankle is resting on the mat as close to the opposite sides hand as you can manage.
4. Now, ensure that your hips are facing forward and if possible place your forearms on the ground and lay down over the leg to get a full feeling stretch. If you can’t do this, no problem! Just lay over the knee as far as you can.
5. Repeat these steps for the opposite leg holding the stretch for about 5 breaths.

This is a great pose to help open up your hips. It also can also function as a lower back stretch if you are capable of laying over the leg.

Hopefully you all enjoy this pose as much as I do and are able to incorporate it into your yoga routine if you have one. Also, I thought I should mention that anyone who has a fitness membership to the gyms here on campus also has access to yoga class offered almost every day. I highly recommend give one a try!