Freeing the Pelvis in Trikonasana

Depending upon the way that you practice triangle pose, and for sure there is more than one way to practice it, you may be attempting to laterally tilt your pelvis as you come into the posture in order to keep the top side waist short, the bottom side waist long, and to increase the stretch in the hamstrings. However, if you or your students are turning the pelvis too far to the side it may not be able to laterally tilt very far due to bony compression between the rim of the hip socket and the neck of the femur. In this short video clip, we demonstrate how turning the pelvis toward the front leg before going into the posture allows for significantly more range of motion in the pelvis. Once the pelvis has tilted, you can then place the hand on the leg (or a block or the floor), and use your core abdominal muscles to help rotate the trunk toward the side, allowing the pelvis to follow as much as it might like or need to. Check out the video, experiment and let us know what you think!