Consensus

Yesterday there were only three of us (besides the teacher) in yoga class. It was a beautiful Saturday afternooon, the first official day of summer (as opposed to the unofficial first day, back in May), and I guess a lot of people wanted to be outside, at the beach or the park. But I was glad for the cool studio, the quiet voice of my yoga teacher, and the opportunity to stretch.

Towards the end of class, after the breathing and thinking about breathing and standing poses and lots of moving through downward dog, plank, chataranga, up dog, and back to down dog, after the handstand practice at the wall, and another exercise with our legs bent against the wall that made my back, which had been sore, gratefully able to flatten against the floor, after all that, after we were back in the center of the room, the teacher said we would do a hip opener.

"You have a choice," she said, "Globokasana [sp.?], ankle to knee, or pigeon."

I made my decision instantly.

"What was that first one?" someone asked.

The teacher demonstrated globokasana. (I guess I should look up the spelling, shouldn't I? It always sounds to me like she is saying either "globo" or "global" as in "global warming," which kind of makes me laugh.) Anyway, that's the one where you're seated with legs crossed way over each other, one leg bent below the other, knee over knee, ankles pulling outward. Then you raise one arm, bend it at the elbow (okay, where else, I guess), and reach back down towards your shoulderblade. The other arm goes out to the side, you rotate it so the palm is facing backward, and then you bend it and your hand goes along the side of your back, still facing outward. If you are really flexible (or young), perhaps your hands will touch and you pull them against each other. If you can't reach (like me), then you use a strap.

This pose I find okay, but I don't like it half so much as either of the other two the teacher mentioned. My arms don't reach around so well, and it feels like a struggle, or like something is happening in my shoulder socket that is not great--more pain than anything else.

The second pose, ankle to knee, I find okay also. I think my hips are more flexible than my shoulders, so anything focusing just on the hips I am able to get more out of.

But neither of the first two poses are as satisfying, as tension-releasing, as pigeon, where you are lying flat out on your stomach and draw one leg under you, bending it at the knee so that your shin is as near parallel to the front of your mat as possible. You start out up, perhaps in downward dog, then draw the leg forward, turning it, and then rest yourself on it, letting your upper body fold downward so that you are on the side of your thigh and your shin. Hip opener indeed.

After the teacher offered us the choice of the three poses, all three of us started preparing to go into pigeon. The teacher laughed and said, "I guess it's a consensus." Then she turned down the lights, since we were going into the relaxation part of the class.

In pigeon, it helps to have some padding under the hip of the leg that is bent, especially if the hip doesn't touch the floor. I've discovered lately that a second yoga mat, rolled up, works best for me. I feel most balanced if I let it go across so it's under the working hip and also the other side of my body. But still, it's hard to feel like your body is straight, which is the goal (or one of them). Also, sometimes I get a cramp in the foot of the leg that is stretched out, unless I keep the ankle bent and the toes tucked under. Yesterday, I was having that cramp in my foot, and I kept moving the foot around, trying to get the cramp to go away. (As one of my other yoga teachers once said, memorably, "I think the hardest thing about pigeon is trying not to squirm.")

The teacher came over and did something to my hips and thighs, gently manipulating them with her hands so my body was straight. Miraculously, the cramp in my foot disappeared and I stretched my foot out, then lay perfectly still.

We all did the pose on the other side, and again, the teacher came over and nudged me into the right shape. I found myself thinking about how good the pose felt, and then wondering about what a hip opener is anyway, and why it is considered so important in yoga classes, almost spoken of with reverence, or taken for granted as a goal, but you never hear about it otherwise. Is it something that has other benefits in life, I wondered?

Then I told my mind to shush so I could experience the stillness of the moment, all three of us lying there in the semi-darkness stretching out our hips.


Edited to add: Of course the Sanskrit name I was trying to convey above is neither globo or global kasana, but . . . . Gomukhasana. Otherwise known as cow-face pose.