How To: King Pigeon Pose with Gabo Saturno

king pidgeon ekapata raja kapatasana we'll have gabo show the pose [Music] [Music] let's go over how to get into our pose gabo will take pigeon prep here so let's start with the front leg is an external rotation he's actively pressing the tops of the feet so his foot is flexed and his toes are flexed as well his hips are squared his chest is forward to start he'll bend the back leg he'll reach around with the same arm work to the inside of the foot and grab the big toe now from here he's grabbing the toe and he has to flip his elbow down and then all the way up and around good he reaches forward through his chest reaches his other arm up he's walking his hands up the foot as much as he can elbows hug in chest is forward and then from there if you feel stable he can bring his head back beautiful and then we'll he'll gently release great so let's go over some common misalignments in the pose and then we'll work with some props as well as with our pigeon prep a common tendency in this pose is to shift the weight into your bent leg hip and then open up the hips now at first that will help you perhaps grab your back foot but when you work and transition into the back bend it's going to be pulling at your side joint and also taking it more into a twist and not the extension of the spine so one thing that you can do if that sounds like you is to place a rolled up blanket underneath your legs especially if your pelvis does not descend all the way down gabo is really open through his spine and so his pelvis just easily comes down but for most of us if it's going to look something like a lot higher like this just having something under there to stabilize will help so let's look at what that looks like it's also nice because you have something to press down into for stability great now the second barrier of course is getting the flipped grip and so we can use a strap here to help us now the grip and the flip of the arm will actually be the same so from here he takes the strap he goes down with the elbow elbow comes all the way up and this shoulder is an external rotation and the shoulder blade is in our upward rotation from there he can lift the top arm he'll bring the arm actually gab i'll have you show the elbow first so you might be right there and that's fine and you would just breathe right there you're still getting the same rotation through the shoulder blades from here he can begin to walk his hand all the way down maybe grab the wrist at that point maybe the other hand or maybe the strap now from there he can just pause here really work the chest forward begin to open up his throat one thing that i have noticed when you're about this close is sometimes a strap is getting in your way because you'll be actively pushing the foot into the strap and it creates more distance and so when i see a student this close i actually tell them it's about time to get rid of that strap and to start think thinking foot to head rather than just head to foot and often times that is enough to just close the gap there beautiful i'll have you release on out i'll grab the strap for you now another thing in this pose here if you're working with a strap and a blanket you might even need a block here underneath this hand for stability so just get yourself as propped up as you need to to work this pose we're going to show you something at the wall that might also help in this posture so you'll set up in your pigeon prep pose here and you've got the wall out in front of you to help really work that back bend very similar to the stretch we did in your prep video of the cobra at the walls kind of what's happening here now from here he can bend his back leg reach around with one arm he keeps his arm in an external rotation he'll work to flip his grip so remember the elbow goes down and all the way up and around i'll stabilize you there okay and then from here he's got that wall right he can push off the wall and start to come into his king pigeon he grabs his foot beautiful and then the wall is there as you come out now remember any stage along the way if you're still using your props with your strap and everything you can also still use the wall in this way we'll see you in the next video