This post is for Dana. She and I had been talking about our difficulties with Vrksasana (tree). Yesterday morning I decided to do a practice for study session. Reminder: In practice for study, you have a focus pose, which you start off with. Then you do a pose that has some relationship to the focus pose. Then you do the focus pose again, and so on. You start with the base of the pose and move up.
Here’s what I did:
- Vrksasana
- Tadasana (mountain), to get a firm base, spreading the bottoms of my feet, extending my toes, and pressing down through heel, big toe base and little toe base.
- Vrksasana
- Urdhva Hastasana (upward salute), as long as I was in Tadasana I thought I might as well do those upraised arms at the same time.
- Vrksasana
- Uttitha Hasta Padangusthasana (hand to big toe), for its one-leggedness and for the hip opening.
- Vrksasana
- Trikonasana (triangle), for hip opening and a strong base in the feet.
- Vrksasana
- Parsvakonasana (extended side angle) for the deep hip crease to address our bugaboo, the leg that won’t stay up in Vrksasana.
- Vrksasana
- Ardha Chandrasana (half moon), one legged balancing, big long extension from foot to head, and some adductor stretching and strengthening.
- Vrksasana
- Baddha Konasana (bound angle), for getting that big bend in the hip.
- Vrksasana
- Upavistha Konasana (seated wide angle), which I always need to practice to get my adductor bones to wake up and turn back into muscles.
- Vrksasana
- Supta Pandangusthasana (supine hand to big toe, sorry, no pic for this one). I did four variations: leg straight up, leg out to the side, leg across the body, and the last, which I may have made up, with the strap holding the leg up into Vrksasana. This at least lets me know it’s possible to get my heel up into my groin.
- Vrksasana
- Supta Baddha Konasana (reclining bound angle)
- Savasana (corpse)
I did various versions of Vrksasana as I went along – in the middle of the room, back against the wall, knee against the wall, against the wall holding the up ankle with a strap. I can’t say for sure that my up leg got any farther up my thigh through this sequence, but it didn’t get lower, and my balance definitely improved.
Practice Notes 