July 18, 2011
What’s in a name? Baddha Konasana can be an intimidating pose, particularly to someone with a restricted range of motion in the hips and torso. Call it Bound Angle Pose and it can sound downright tortuous. By referring to it as Butterfly Pose, I notice a bit less tension in the room when I’m including it in a class. Butterflies flutter, dance through the air, laze about perched on flowers. Butterfly pose can’t be that bad. And bad it’s not (unless you’ve a hip replacement or other injury that you’ll want to ask your doctor about before rotating the hip). This inner groin area gets especially tight in movement disorders. The result affects gait, balance, and tension in the lower back. Lengthening the adductors, or groin muscles, has a number of benefits. Besides improving gait and balance, this pose can help with sleep and depression. In this modification, we perch on a […]