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Today we will explore the hips, and why they tend to be so tight in so many of us!
As we move through life, we encounter many experiences, some are good and some are not so good. We often have emotional responses to these events, which we in turn have to “put” somewhere, or even absorb into our bodies in some way. In the yoga world, we often say that all of these experiential emotions get slotted into the hips; our own personal junk drawer - ergo, this is why the hips are so tight! Today we dive into a yoga pose that helps to create space into the hips and hopefully help release tension in the body!
Hi and Welcome to your Journey into Yoga! I’m Avery Rich and am so happy to have you along for the ride
Aa a yoga instructor, any time I indicate to my class that we are going to “ focus on the hips” I can see fear in my students eyes;
But why you ask?
The answer is pretty simple - the hips tend to be tight. yes yes, there are those among us who are bendy like pretzels and extremely flexible and their hips are as open as anything, but this tends to be the exception and not the rule. How did it come to be that we have tight hips anyways???
Well, in yoga we have a great little nugget of a saying:
THE HIPS ARE THE JUNK DRAWER OF THE BODY.
As we move through life, we encounter many experiences, some are good and some are not so good. We often have emotional responses to these events, which we in turn have to “put” somewhere, or even absorb into our bodies in some way. In the yoga world, we often say that all of these experiential emotions get slotted into the hips; our own personal junk drawer - ergo, this is why the hips are so tight!
But why do we need to finding space in the hips? Let’s just keep our junk drawers closed???!!!
Well, The problem is that if we don’t address our tight hips, they just keep getting tighter and tighter - and in time this tension can start to lead to other problems in the body - back pain, shoulder pain and general body discomfort. Remember that song “the hip bone’s connected to the….” (insert a reference to this song or the song itself with or without words) - Everything in the body is connected so if one joint is holding tension, that tension can start to leak out or move to the next joint, and so on and so on. But fear not! That’s why you are hear - on our journey; to help address and hopefully even alleviate this tension we carry in our bodies bit by bit. So let’s begin…let’s start to slowly clean out our junk drawers - we can’t do it in one session or even one day but there has to be a beginning!
Guided Yoga Pose - WIND RELIEVING POSE
The name of our posture today always makes me laugh, and I hope it makes you laugh as well! The bonus is, if it does what it says it does, you may be happy that you are in the privacy of your own space rather than a yoga studio!! Drum roll please - the name of our pose today is WIND RELIEVING POSE! Yes, you herd that correctly. As we have decided to get hippy today, our posture focuses on bringing space into the hip flexors or hip creases
So let’s begin by lying down - if you have a yoga mat handy lie down on your mat but a towel or blanket can work well too. Bend both legs and rest your feet onto the floor. Take a moment or even two to soften your lower back into the ground. Now, draw your right knee in toward you and interlace your fingers over your shin or behind your right thigh. The key to knowing where to interlace is all in the head neck and shoulders - if you need to left the whole show up in order to hold onto your leg then interlace behind the thigh…if everything can remain settled then interlace over the shin! Once you have a hold of the leg, now extend your other leg straight out along the floor. You have arrived into Wind relieving pose (it does have a fancy sanskrit name - pavanmuktasana). Lets hold for 10 breaths…
Switch sides - I will guide you into side 2
As usual, if you have the time and would like to enjoy a few minutes in shavasanna please do! Until next time!
