YoginiJen

Hi Gabrielle,

For a couple classes now I have been paying attention to this and I would say that yes I do have the stomach against the legs consistently.

I have to squat very very low to be able to get my fingers underneath my heels from as far behind as I can. Then when I necessarily straighten up somewhat (still keeping the knees bent) they tend to edge out from the outsides of my heels. If I don’t squat that low in the first place, I can’t really get the fingers underneath the heels at all.

What I have been doing is to keep my knees bent and try to feel that any pulling is coming from the biceps. I’m not sure I have isolated the shoulders out though, because my forearms are still more next to my calves than they are behind them. I had the thought that perhaps I should try thinking of squeezing the elbows together at the same time I am pulling? I haven’t tried that yet.

What do you think? Just keep doing what I am doing and be patient? 🙂 I know I am pretty darn inflexible in various ways.

Also, I am not sure how to incorporate the idea of “shoulders away from the ears” here… this is always a tricky one for me to feel in Rabbit too, actually. Any tips on how to get a better feel for that?

Thank you so much!
Jen

Hi Gabrielle, I have a similar question to this one about the elbows.

I too have had trouble getting them behind the calves. What I noticed one day when I did a different type of yoga class was that, if I did not try to go all the way to putting my fingers underneath my heels and instead just grasped the back of my heels near the ankle, I could do a much better job of getting the elbows behind the legs. It was almost shocking to me! And I also felt able to pull a lot more strongly through the arms when doing it this way.

But of course, the bikram instruction is to put your hands underneath your heels. I have felt like I am cheating somehow if I do not do this, or maybe like I should do it and just wait to eventually be able to get my elbows back there. I haven’t specifically tried keeping my knees bent as Gabrielle suggested above, but I could see about that next time I go to class. OR, I thought, maybe I should build strength by doing it the way I described above until I can eventually put my hands underneath my heels while still keeping the elbows back.

I often wondered if this was because I am tall (5′-9.5″) or have long legs… 🙂

Any thoughts on this variation of the problem?

Thank you!!
Jen