Discovering an Opening at Stillwater With Nancy Mau

Nancy Mau held her annual "Hip Opening" workshop at Stillwater last weekend. A certified Intermediate Junior II Iyengar teacher, Nancy brings nearly 20 years experience to her classes.  What was most noticeable to me that Saturday afternoon was how many men showed up for the workshop.  One dedicated practitioner, Ben Hall candidly explains:

"I knew the workshop was something that I should do because it would be "good for me." I was honestly dreading it. For me I thought it was going to be like a trip to the dentist. It was certainly a challenge, but I never felt compromised in any pose or by the process of working toward a pose. I was most amazed that the two and half hours passed so quickly, nothing at all like the dentist."

Many men may know they have tight hips, but witnessing how many chose to address that fact and work to do something about it was pretty cool. Long-time yoga practitioner, Lee Barrineau explains:

"Over the past 10 years, (about every other year), I take Nancy Mau’s “hip opener” workshop. For me, it’s been something of a litmus test. What pose is now accessible to me? Which one is still a devil? (hint: rhymes with virasana). Where am I seeing improvement? But more importantly to me, how is my awareness of the movements and actions of the body changing?" 

Nancy is very skilled at linking and layering poses to prepare the body for more challenging asana. She began the workshop with a basic folded leg pose, Svastikasana to immediately bring awareness to our hips.  She gave us feedback about the  differences between our left and right hip with a simple shift of which leg was in front in the pose.

The hip bones are basically made up of the pelvic bone with hip sockets, the left and right head of the femur, femur neck, and the greater trochanter. The greater trochanter is the knob-like projection at the top of the femur or thigh bone. The word trochanter came from the Greek words trechein "to run" and torches "wheel". The word is associated to this area because it is an attachment site for muscles that produce the rotary movement of the thigh bone: the gluteus medius and minimus muscles, the piriform muscle, the internal and external obturator muscles, and the gemelli muscles.

When we notice that one side of our hip doesn't behave like the other, it could be we are experiencing any number of slight variations in the shape and orientation of the hip socket and the thigh bone. No two bones are alike. The hip socket placement, the angle that the femur head inserts into the hip socket, as well as the femur neck angle all factor into how open our hips are. There can also be tightness of the tendons, ligaments and muscles surrounding the area. The tightness may be the result of structural variations as noted above, posture, repetitive actions like running or inaction like sitting as Lee explains:

 "I grew up a typical male in the south. Sports consisted of baseball, football, tennis, racquet ball and basketball. What do these have in common besides the fact that they are all played with some type of ball? Running. Lots and lots of running. By the time I was 40, I had tight quads, tight hips and 3 knee surgeries. As an adult, I spend the majority of my day sitting. Further shortening the hip flexors at the front of the hip (psoas, rectus femoris, sartorius) and tightening the hip rotators."

The hip muscles provide a range of motion that includes: medial and lateral rotation (think turned in and turned out feet), flexion and extension (think up and down lifts of leg to the front), abduction and adduction (think leg lifts to the side) as well as circumduction (think circular motion). The iliopsoas (composed of two muscles the iliacus and the psoas), satorius, rectus femurs, tensor fasciae latae muscles along with the assistance of the pectinius aid in our mobility in this area. 

The orientation of the pelvis also plays a role in the mobility of our hips. The iliopsoas the deep muscles in the far back of the pelvis made up of the iliacus and the psoas are active in our ability to tilt the pelvis. Shifts in the pelvis affect our posture. For example: an anterior tilt, where the butt sticks out or a posterior tilt, where the buttocks over tucks both cause vertebral compensations that affect how well the skeletal system can do its job to support us; and how well the muscular system, which rests directly on the skeletal system, can do its job in optimizing our range of motion.

Any skeletal misalignment causes muscular issues.  When Nancy had us standing in Tadasana, mountain pose, we learned to work to maintain ideal alignment of the pelvis in order to bring about more structural support from the skeletal system. Thus, gaining a subsequent release of key muscles that provide better hip opening.  Needless to say, this isn't immediate, but release happens as Lee explains:

"For me, hip openers are a slow journey. As the legendary cellist Pablo Casals once said when asked why he continued to practice at the age of 90, he replied, “Because I think I’m beginning to make progress.”

In yoga, we learn about our own body's idiosyncrasies. With that knowledge, we can be more discriminating about how to practice in order to create more freedom of movement. Yoga is about creating space in the body. In the Iyengar Method, space is created in layers. Once we align the skeletal system, there is space created in the muscular system - a kind of release of tension. Over time, a better balance between our ability to extend and contract our muscles takes place.  We gain strength and flexibility as yoga practitioner and runner, Paul Ott experienced:

"I'm a runner and have tight hamstrings and hips.  Yoga helps me loosen and open these areas but I don’t practice as often as I should.  I did this workshop last year and it really helped me, so I decided to do it again this year.  When I run I feel like my stride is off or my hips aren’t moving evenly and sometimes it’s uncomfortable, but after this last workshop I had the best run I’ve had in a long time.  My stride was so smooth and it felt so easy with no pain."

As I mentioned earlier, Nancy set a foundational alignment with the standing pose, Tadasana.  The actions of this pose brought awareness to our individual postural habits.  By aligning our stance properly in this basic pose, Nancy created a safer place and a more willing place to increase our range of motion in other standing poses.

For supine poses like Supta Padangustasana, a supine foot (pada) to big toe (angst), we began with the foundation pose of Supta Tadasana, an action similar to the standing pose, but on the floor. This aligned our body and readied us to practice the various stages of Supta Padangustasana, which are designed to directly target the hip area. Turn to pages 244-246 in Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar, and you can see Iyengar demonstrate the various stages of this pose with superior range of motion. Note:  Iyengar is a man who proves strong and open hips can come with dedicated practice, abhyasa.

Of course, we were all amused at Nancy's (joking) insistence that we just release our shin to our chest in a more advanced stage of Supta Padangustasana, as Iyengar makes look so easy on page 245 plate 286. (Yes, I'm trying to encourage those who don't have the book to get it. It's pretty inspiring.)

Over the two-hour workshop, Nancy sequentially and synergistically moved us through a series of targeted asana and many students were surprised to find that when we got to Padmasana, better known as lotus (LOY Page 131 Plate 104/105), our body was more ready and willing to be open to the challenge of this advanced pose.

Needless to say, hip issues are genderless, but with a solid yoga practice we can all learn to work with what we have and gain more freedom. At the very least, we can avoid any pains to come as Patanjali teaches in Yoga Sutra 2:16 Heyam Dukham Anagatam.

Thank you Nancy for a great workshop.

Namaste.



For more information on Iyengar Yoga visit https://iynaus.org. For information on Stillwater Yoga visit http://www.stillyoga.com.