Seated postures like Lotus can become problematic because the knee joint is much less stable than the hip. If we attempt to sit in Lotus without being able to do so safely, the knee tries to compensate for tightness in the hip. 

In cultures that sit on the floor, external rotation is not a challenging movement. For those who sit in chairs, this movement is much more challenging. It can take time to develop this skill. 

This blog is part of a series about the hips. 

The second movement of the hips we will explore is extension. Extension is when the front of your thigh moves away from your pelvis. The main muscles of hip extension are the gluteus maximus (butt muscle) and the hamstrings. 

Unlike quadrupeds, humans walk upright. So, one of the strange things about the hips is that they are already in extension while we are standing. We don't have much range of motion in the hips past 180 degrees. What might feel like hip extension beyond that, often begins to incorporate the spine. 

Let's look at the muscles that extend the hips. They are the muscles that work in a posture like Locust, or when we stand up out of Chair. They also work in poses like Balancing Stick or the back leg in a Lunge. 

The second main group of muscles that extend the hip are the hamstrings. There are three main hamstrings. They are the semitendinosus, the semimembranosus and the biceps femoris. 

In Practice
In yoga poses, these muscles often work to stabilize the pelvis. For example, in the standing leg of Balancing Stick, both the hamstrings and the gluteus maximus are what hold the pose. It's common to hear that tight hamstrings are the cause of trouble in Balancing Stick. However, it's quite the opposite. Weak hamstrings are the issue. 

It is important to recognize the muscles of hip extension and strengthen them. Unlike the hip flexors which do not need to be strengthened, strength in the hip extensors should be cultivated. They are big and powerful muscles. Especially in cultures that tend to be sedentary, they are often underdeveloped. This leads to further imbalances in the body. 

This blog is part of the series about the hips.

The first movement of the hip we will examine is flexion. Technically speaking, flexion is movement in which the anterior surfaces of the limb move toward each other. Simply put, it is when the thigh moves closer to the upper body. 

The hip flexes often. When we walk, jump or run, our hips flex and extend over and over again. This is a natural movement and one that isn't difficult for our body to comprehend. ​Let's look at the muscles in the body that make this motion possible. 

Finally, the sartorius is a very long and thin muscle that runs from the pelvis to the tibia (shin bone). It is the longest muscle in the human body! It is perhaps the lesser known of the "hip flexors" but can play a moderate role in flexion. ​

The muscles that flex the hip are not huge, powerful muscles. Aside from addressing any significant imbalance, it is not particularly useful to focus on strengthening this part of the body. Instead it's usually worthwhile to work on developing the muscles that extend the hip. This will help lengthen the hip flexors. 

In day to day life, the hip flexors are often in a shortened position. This has to do with how much we sit on a regular basis. When we sit, the hip flexors are short and they tend to stay that way even when we try to lengthen them. Back discomfort often comes from tight hip flexors (the psoas in this case). Tight hip flexors can also keep us from back bending affectively.

The hips are a big focus in asana practice. We may have heard instructions like open the hips, breathe into the hips, compress the hips, decompress the hips, or stabilize the hips. All of this begs the question, what are the hips? And what should we be doing with them?! 

Let's start with the basics. The hip is a joint. This is important. It is the point of connection between the head of your femur (leg bone) and your pelvis. The hip joint has a relatively big range of motion, allowing us to walk, jump and move our legs forward, back and to the sides. It can rotate internally and externally, though in a much smaller range of motion than the previous movements. To complicate things further, the hips usually work in a combination of movements. 

Because of the various ways in which the hip joint moves, there are many muscles or areas of the body we could be referring to when we talk about the hips. We will examine these in detail in the next few blogs. Before that, let’s consider a few other ideas about joints in general. 

Any and all joints in the body are moved by muscles. Muscles move the body. Bones sustain the body's weight. Joints serve as connections between bones which enable us to be something other than a concrete statue. 

Since joints need muscles to move, it’s not possible to affect a joint without using muscles. A cue to engage, stretch, or lengthen a joint can therefore be misleading. This may seem like splitting hairs, but our ability to understand the way in which our body moves is what gives us freedom in our practice. If we know exactly what we’re trying to do and how, progress comes easily. 

Over the next few blogs we'll look at the different movements of the hips and how they relate to postures. 

As students, we do not know what our teachers know. That is why we are a student. In order to learn, a teacher tells us something beyond our understanding. Then over time, we practice, study and integrate the information. As we do this, we have to balance our own consideration of the new information with the fact that we may not yet understand what we are learning. 

Eventually, the information should make sense to us. We should know why we are doing what we're doing and how it works in the body or mind. This is where it becomes important that we don't just repeat words or actions without understanding the deeper meaning of them.

A good test is to check whether we can articulate the purpose of a certain posture, for example. Can we explain what the purpose is and how it is accomplished in the body? Can we back up our answer with greater anatomical understanding or textual support? To articulate this on our own, it means we can't just repeat what we've heard without it making sense to us. We have to truly understand. 

As students of yoga, we should all seek to understand what we're doing. We should look to multiple sources to see how they correspond to each other, continue to question our understanding, come up with further areas to investigate or practice. Of course this will take time, and that's ok. Yoga is a practice, not a destination. 

This is part of a series of blogs called Practice Tips. 

​As we expand our understanding of yoga, the amount of practices expand with us. We become aware of pranayama, meditation, more postures. We realize we could study texts, philosophy, or anatomy. Quickly, we realize there are so many directions we could go in. How do we choose? 

There is no right or wrong answer. The best thing to do is to follow our interests. Choose what we are excited about and what intrigues us.

The best practice is the one that we'll do. 

If we choose to focus on something that we are interested in, chances are we will actually come back to it on a regular basis. If we choose something that we should do, but don't care much about, chances are we won't. 

This is not to say we should never practice something that we don't like. Of course, we should develop areas of weakness either in our practice or our understanding. But we need to be careful. We shouldn't choose only the things that we struggle with, if it will make us give up the practice entirely. 

If there is a posture that excites you, practice that one everyday. If you're taking a class and the teacher doesn't include that posture, practice it after the class. Commit to your own interests and develop them. If you are interested in an old yogic text, start reading. Take it page by page.

One interest leads to another. Over time, we end up with experience in many different areas. But this doesn't happen all at once. Choose the practice that interests you today. The right practice is the one you'll do. 

This is the first in a series of blogs called Practice Tips. 

When we start learning a new skill, it's brand new. We know nothing about it. Once we start learning a little bit about it, all of the sudden we know something. Even if it's the smallest piece of information or one brief experience, we just went from nothing to something. This is a big jump.

For example, when we try a new posture for the first time, it's really exciting! In that moment we go from never having done it before, to having direct experience of it. That is why in the beginning we can feel like we're growing so much. We feel like we're gaining so much experience and understanding even if what we are doing is challenging. 

Then we plateau. We start learning about technique. If it's a posture we're working on, we might start to realize we're lacking understanding of anatomy. We might realize we have no idea how to breathe in the pose, or what the goal even is. All of the sudden we feel like we know nothing. We feel lost. This thing that we've been working on is showing us just how far we are from proficiency. All the sudden what we think we know comes into question. 

Be careful here. This is not getting worse! This is what it can feel like to get better. In this moment, we get a glimpse of understanding beyond the level we're at. This is where we expand our understanding. This expansion is illuminating where we have room to grow. This is the very expansion that can and will push our practice forward. Embrace it.

We will always have moments where we feel like we don't know anything. Of course, this is not the case. We know what we know. If we continue on, we will expand what we know. This is what it means to practice.