Bikram Yoga and inner thighs

I have been practicing yoga for close to four years now. I started out doing vinyasa, ashtanga, hatha flow, etc. For the last 1 1/2 years I have only done Bikram. Today I took a deep stretch class that was basically just holding certain yoga poses for longer than usual to get deeply into the stretch.

I was curious to see if I had gained or lost any particular areas of flexibility by just doing Bikram for so long. I found that my depth was about the same as before in nearly all of the poses. The improvement that I could see was that I wasn’t straining to get there. Additionally, even though these poses are different, I feel like my form was much improved. I was definitely keeping my spine straight in the hamstring stretches instead of just curling forward so that I could feel like I could feel like I was going deep into the pose. My balance has definitely improved. I attribute this to a higher focus on form in Bikram and to this website and Gabrielle’s Master Class.

All of that said, there was one area in which I noted a deficiency. We did the type of triangle where you keep both legs straight, hips tucked and tilt over with your hand on your shin, ankle of floor. I used to be able to put my palm flat on the floor with this one. Now I can only get my fingertips to touch my ankle. I think this is partly because I might have been cheating in the past and not keeping my hips as tucked as I should. 🙄 However, my inner thigh and groin area were REALLY tight in this pose. I have obviously lost a lot of flexibility in this area.

Which Bikram poses should I focus on to gain inner thigh flexibility back? I wonder if I haven’t been doing them correctly to have lost so much. Or – maybe I should just mix my yoga types up a bit to get different benefits. Any thoughts?

Namaste,
Cindy