Transcript of: What is happening anatomically in eka pada galavasana?
Hey everyone! Welcome to this month’s question of the month. I’m David Keil. I’m answering your questions online. Hit the subscribe button. If you’ve got a question that you want me to answer, go to yoganatomy.com/myquestion. I will try to answer it. This month’s question comes from Sonia and it’s about what’s happening anatomically in eka pada galavasana. It’s a good one!
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The Question:
What’s happening anatomically in eka pada galavasana [DK: which is flying pigeon pose]? I can balance like I’m in crow with one leg across like a shelf [DK: on the back of her arms], but [I’m] having a hard time extending the “floating leg” back. It just kind of stays there dangling and I haven’t made any progress on this in years. [I’m] wondering if you can break this pose down to see if I can learn more about how I can approach this differently!
The Answer:
Yeah! Let’s break it down. This is a difficult pose. Let’s look at an image of it for a moment. Alright, so I just did a Google search, just so you could see a variety of versions of eka pada galavasana. It’s important to note that depending on your body’s strengths and weaknesses and how it’s put together, it’s going to look different. Back to your question. Very few people have a completely straight leg. You do see it sometimes, but it’s rare. So, let’s take a closer look and let’s go after the main reason why it’s so difficult to straighten that leg. And, there are a couple of other things here.
Why the spine is often rounded
The main reason is—I’ve got two versions here that we can look at. But, this one demonstrates this part a little bit better. So the spine is rounded, or curved, in this direction, right? Why? Because the knee is trying to get up into the armpit, or, as high up onto the arm as is necessary. As a result of that, the pelvis gets tucked under. It gets tucked under in order to help that knee get up and therefore the spine is rounded. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no judgment against that. That’s just what’s necessary.
As a result of that, you’ve got the pelvis on this side going this way. And with this leg, the pelvis is actually trying to go the opposite way, or at least get back to neutral. So, you run into the resistance of the hip flexors. This one is a lower version, so her spine isn’t as rounded. But, still, her pelvis is tucked in. See, she’s brought her knee all the way up into her armpit. Again, no judgment. That’s what is necessary for this person to balance, to be able to do her version of eka pada galavasana, for her to express this posture.
What’s happening with the pelvis in eka pada galavasana?
So, once again, here’s another tell about this being the reason. So, you’ve got the quadricep under here that is trying to extend the knee, but it’s getting pulled in on the hip end of it. But, the other tell is—and you see this quite a lot—again no judgment, it’s just how the pose is. The foot has this tendency to turn out, which means the whole leg is actually turning out. Why is it doing that? To avoid the hip flexors. Okay? Because of the line of the hip flexors, the more this leg is straight in a rotational manner, the more difficult it is going to be to straighten that leg. Right? This is almost like doing a split. You’ve got one side of your pelvis going one way with the front leg and your other pelvis trying to go the other way with the back leg. Okay?
Undoing some of the spinal rounding
If you can undo some of that spinal rounding, that might be enough to help make the difference. It’s possible that it’s a strength issue, like not engaging the quadriceps enough or the glutes enough. But if you’ve been doing this for a while, chances are that your glutes are strong enough and your quadriceps are strong enough. That’s probably not the problem. You might try bringing the leg a little lower, meaning closer to the elbows and not as far up, and see if that helps. Even if it just helps you get the feeling of what it’s like, maybe you can tie that back in when you bring the leg back up.
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