Demystifying Pigeon Pose
Greetings, Overwhelmed Yogis.
Today’s Movement Monday will be a bit different. I’m going to geek out and unpack what might be preventing you from enjoying a pose that comes up a lot in yoga. See the video here.
Pigeon as a hip opener is supposed to be one of yoga’s feel-good exercises. Yet often it is not.
A common complaint is knee and/or ankle pain. A common cue to correct that is to flex the front foot, placing only the outside (little toe edge) of the foot on the floor as you would in a reclined figure 4 position.
I agree that engaging the front foot protects the knee and ankle, but a flexed front foot feels icky to me in pigeon. If it feels good to you, by all means, go for it. If you don’t like the flexed position, here is a workaround:
Keeping the foot in line with the shin, spread the toes of the front foot, as though you could click all five toenails into the floor. (Check out my positioning in the video.) We can call this a “floint” — a flex/point combo. The action of spreading the toes engages the shin, and that in turn protects the knee. The closer the foot to the pelvis (the more narrow the angle), the gentler the opening. A more open angle is deeper. But a relatively narrow angle often feels better to me, even after more than a quarter-century of practice. Here’s a trick I like to deepen my pigeon:
Curl the toes of your BACK foot under. Then scoot your back foot back a little. This will ground you deeper into the hips without an extreme angle in your front leg.
Then you can fold forward if it’s accessible to you and if you’d like. For a backbend variation, come onto your fingertips and walk the hands back alongside the hips. You can place the hands on blocks or books if you need.
One other issue I have with pigeon… It is one of many yoga poses that put the hips into external rotation. That in itself is not a problem. The problem is that healthy hips need to be able to rotate internally as well as externally. Internal rotation is especially important to create space when the low back feels jammed. Your hips will naturally rotate more easily in one direction or the other. For me personally, external rotation is much easier than internal rotation, which means I need to practice internal rotation at least as often if not more than external.
So I like to do an internal rotation exercise as a counterpose to pigeon. One of the simplest is a seated windshield wiper (pictured below — the leg further away from my dog is the one internally rotating).
For today’s Movement Monday:
- Find a pigeon variation that feels good to you. Hold for about 30 seconds per side, or longer if you feel like it. Breathe.
- Do a seated windshield wiper to put your legs into internal rotation, anywhere from 10-30 seconds per side.
- Notice which of the two exercises felt easier to you. This might help you to gauge (if you don’t know already) if your hips are naturally more internally or externally rotated.
This tutorial was a request from an Overwhelmed Yogi subscriber. If you found it useful and there are other poses you’d like broken down, please let me know!
Each Monday I post a movement break to support your body, each Thursday an exercise or tip for your nervous system.