Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana)

Pigeon Pose

Pigeon pose is one of my favorite hip openers, in fact one of my favorite yoga postures! I can’t believe I haven’t written about it before. I had to search the archives to double-check… It can be quite intense but can also provide an amazing release. Always leaves me with a bit of that yoga buzz, thus the“mmmmmmmm” and smile that follow the practice of Pigeon. For a number of reasons, we tend to hold a lot of tension in our hips. 
First of all, many of us spend a good part of the day sitting at desks. This keeps your hips from getting the regular flexion and extension that they require to remain agile. Secondly, if you are particularly athletic you may have developed quite a bit of strength in the
hips yet not a lot of flexibility (particularly true of cyclists, runners and martial artists). A third factor that contributes to tightness is stress. We frequently carry this stress in the hips  in the form of muscular tension, as well as tightness in the tendons and ligaments.

Why Practice Pigeon Pose?

Pigeon pose stretches out the hip flexors as well as the hip rotators. It requires a fair amount of external rotation in the front leg and internal rotation in the back leg. If you practice regularly you will notice a marked increase in suppleness of the hip and you may find that your body moves with greater ease. In the upright position, Pigeon Pose is also a nice backbend and opens the chest and shoulders. Sleeping Pigeon(where fold forward over the front knee) allows you to deepen the stretch and also soothes and calms your mind
as you turn your focus inwards. Another nice benefit of Pigeon — it helps to stretch out the ankles and feet.

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana is very good at isolating the various muscles in the hips, one of the reasons that it can be so challenging. It is beneficial to focus on your breath, taking deep breaths in and visualizing the breath moving into the areas where you feel the most sensation.

Directions

One common way to transition into
Pigeon Pose is from Downward Facing
Dog.