Yoga For Beginners, Pigeon Pose (Kapotasana)

Hi guys .

It's Lauren again with yoga TX .

Welcome back .

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I'm gonna be showing you guys some different modifications for or pigeon pose .

This pose oftentimes is not very accessible to many body types .

It can leave people feeling really frustrated , really inflexible when really there are a lot of ways that you can make this pose much more comfortable for yourself .

So if you've got them at your disposal , grab a block again , if you're practicing at home , a big book does Wonders for a block and a blanket and then we'll start by coming to pigeon pose .

So we'll start with the most basic modification for pigeon .

Really the foot right by the hip foot , un flexed .

We want to be mindful that here we're not rocked over to one side , but that our weight is even the back knee is down , back , toes are down .

And the first thing we can do to make this pose more comfortable for our knee is to slide a blanket right underneath that .

Sometimes your knee cap can really press in and it can really cause some discomfort .

So from here , if you're like , oh wow , this is easy , you can flex that foot and move it forward .

The more parallel your foot is your shin is to the front of the mat .

The more intense the stretch will be on your hip or you can even find a middle ground .

If your right hip is up really high , take the block or a book and slide it under that right hip .

You can also fold up a towel and put it under there .

If you don't need to be that high up and you can sit here rocking it out , breathing , always breathing .

This pose can be pretty intense on the hips .

We'll take one more deep breath here and from here , if you'd like , you can begin to come forward onto the forearms or go further extending the arms out long against the mat .

If your hip does not need the block , that's fine .

Again , just be mindful that the weight is evenly distributed across both hips .

So another common occurrence with pigeon pose is that we come down and our chest can't touch the ground or our knees .

So we hold a lot of tension in the upper back , kind of holding ourselves up , clenching here , feeling frustrated that we can't reach all the way to the floor .

So one great thing we can do with our block or again , you can roll up a towel as an option .

If you're practicing at home , take it and slide it right underneath the chest .

So we don't want it to be forward where our chin is on it , but really right underneath the chest .

And that way you can allow your spine to just relax your chest to just relax onto the block .

We'll take three deep breaths here and then slowly walk back up , rolling off to one side , maybe shaking that right leg out a little bit .

So those are just a few of the ways that we can modify a pigeon to make it a lot friendlier for each individual body .

So just an overview , put a blanket under the back knee , pull your front foot in towards your hips , closer to take some of the stress off of that front knee .

You can also put the block under your hip or under your chest .

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Thank you for sharing your practice with me today and I hope to see you back next time day .