Poses >> Baddha Konasana

Teacher Cyndi Lee

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  1. Begin in dandasana.
  2. Place your hands on the inner knee and feel that soft indentation. Use your index fingers to lift your knees up from that exact place and then nicely open them apart from each other. Draw the soles of your feet together. 
  3. It is important to create a sense and movement of opening in the inner knee and a sense of closing in the back of the knee. (FYI, this applies to all bent leg poses, even standing poses, i.e., vrksasana or even virabhadrasana poses.)
  4. Press your feet together and reach your knees away from each other. Think and feel wide with the shape of the legs, not down with the knees. No, no, not down and please no pressing the knees down .
  5. Hold onto your ankles. If you tend to hold onto your toes, you may wish to rethink that because it can begin to torque your ankles, which in turn torques your knees and then there are problems. 
  6. Inhale and slowly begin to fold forward as you exhale. Imagine your pelvis rotating right around your thighbones as your spine lengthens forward. It's okay for the spine to eventually round.
  7. Try to find the work of this pose in the activity of the leg and not so much the arms. Even in seated poses, the legs are what allows for both stability and release in the spine.
  8. Be curious. Be patient. Be generous. Whatever you discover will be interesting, so forget about an end game scenario and try to open to what you are feeling today.
  9. Inhale and come on up. Rewind back to dandasana in the same symmetrical manner that you came into baddhakonasana.

Video and Text by Featured Yogamates Teacher: Cyndi Lee
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