Baddhakonasana: Our hip joints are not the same

Sometimes when I look back on my early yoga classes, I cringe a little (or sometimes a lot!). Like most yoga teachers, I’ve never taught classes full of cookie-cutter practitioners. That should have been an indication early on. But like many yoga teachers, I assumed that the students whose forward and backbends weren’t “perfect,” or whose knees were high in the air in Baddhakonasana (Bound Angle Pose), simply needed to develop more soft tissue flexibility. I’ve often said that if these students practiced long enough, they could eventually pull off Instagram-worthy hip-opening poses.

Enter Anatomy for Yoga by Paul Grilley. While representing Hugger Mugger Yoga Products at a yoga conference in the early 2000s, I took a break from the booth to take a class with Paul Grilley. I had never heard of him and knew nothing about his work, but Anatomy for Yoga sounded interesting.

Baddhakonasana – along with most other yoga poses – is all in the bones

Grilley’s 90-minute presentation changed the way I thought about yoga practice. Armed with an assortment of human bones, he showed how the way our joints are shaped and composed is as unique as our facial features, hair color and preferences.

As an example, let’s examine the hip joints. The degree of mobility of the hip joint in each individual is determined by the depth, location and orientation of the hip sockets. The shape and angle of the thigh bones also influence hip mobility.

People with shallow sockets will obviously have greater mobility, along with a greater tendency for cartilage damage, but that is a topic in itself. Practitioners whose sockets are more lateral will find greater ease in Baddhakonasana, Sukhasana (easy sitting pose) and Upavista Konasana (seated angle pose). In other words, these people’s hips will externally rotate easily.

Others’ hips tend to internally rotate more easily. If your hip sockets are deep and positioned forward on the pelvis, your thigh bones will come into contact with the outside of your sockets when you practice Baddhakonasana. When bone comes into contact with bone, no amount of flexibility will allow your femurs to reach the ground. Our bones really have the final say.

There are also people whose hip joints can easily rotate internally and externally. The range of mobility options of our yoga students is equal to the number of students in our classes.

It’s all good

Here’s the good news: it doesn’t matter at all how close your thigh bones get to the ground in Baddhakonasana. It doesn’t matter if Sukhasana will never be your favorite meditation position. Sukhasana is not the only suitable meditation position. Vajrasana (lightning bolt pose) is great for people whose hips can rotate internally more easily.

As teachers, it is important to remember that every student is unique. There are no cookie cutter yogis. And the students whose thighs reach the ground in Baddhakonasana are not “better” or “more advanced” than the students whose thighs will never reach the ground. The longer we teach, the more we understand that hard and fast rules simply don’t apply to everyone. The ability to meet each student as an individual and learn from his or her unique qualities is what keeps our education vital.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and began teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice and Yoga for Meditators, both published by Rodmell Press. Her third book is titled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Guide to Protecting the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a monthly column for CATALYST Magazine and is an editor for Yoga U Online. Charlotte is a founding member of GreenTREE Yoga, a nonprofit organization that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte plays oboe and English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and folk sextet Red Rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy Awards.