The seesaw principle and the deep front line

You are in yoga class in a standing pose with the front knee bent, as in virabhadrasana 1 or 2 (warrior) or parsvokonasana (side angle), and you hear the dreaded instruction: descend the top of the thigh bone down towards the floor. You try and one or more of the following happen: your front hip crease starts gripping and naggingly hisses at you that it's time to get out of this misery, and/or your back leg collapses down towards the floor, and/or gluteal muscles start overworking and causing pain in the sacroiliac (SI) joint or in the back of the pelvis. Sound familiar? Read on..

So, I recently spent a good chunk of my time on long flights going across the ocean to visit family and take a side trip to Rome. I wanted to find a way to keep the tops of my thigh bones rooted (in the back plane of the body) while sitting in the airplane seat and remembered the principle of the seesaw:

Seesaw from http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/about-this-show/physics-of-seesaws.htm

In terms of anatomy and movement, the seesaw principle states that when one end of a bone (or body part) is moved in one direction, the other end of the bone is moved in the opposite direction (see Keller 2001). This is a particularly useful principle when addressing knee hyper-extension as shown in the image below:

Hyper-extended knee and seesaw principle from http://www.doyoga.com/book.pdf. Now, imagine both "seesaws" of the leg bones, moving in the opposite direction with the base of the thigh bone and the top of the shin bone becoming "light" and the top of the thigh bone and the base of the shin bone becoming "heavy" from the point of view of the seesaw mechanism and you will see how this principle can address knee hyper-extension and the postural issues resulting from it.

This is all very well in straight-legged poses/positions. What about when the knee is flexed as in one of the poses mentioned above or when sitting in an airplane seat? In my view, absolutely. So, back to sitting on airplanes: I placed one of those mini-pillows they give you on long flights under the base of my thigh bones, just above the backs of my knees, so that the tops of my thigh bones at the level of the hip creases were lower than the base of the thigh bones just above the kneecaps. It certainly made a difference for me.

Now, back to yoga poses where the knee is flexed. Next time you are in virabhadrasana 1 or 2 or parsvokonasana, instead of trying to press the top of your thigh bone down, which will very likely create some hardening in the hip crease area, try lifting the base of the thigh bone up from below (top back of the knee area or knee pit). You will most likely notice the top of your thigh bone descending into the sling of your hamstrings, even if just a bit. Further, this idea is especially helpful in poses where the knee is in even deeper flexion, such as virasana (hero), eka pada raja kapotasana (pigeon), padmasana (lotus), vrksasana (tree), to name a few. In this way, you will be creating much needed space in the back of the knee joint, helping your thigh bones set deeply into the hip socket, thus tapping into the sweetness of yoga asana practice, when movement is not stressing you out and creating physical, mental and emotional drag.

Going deeper, I think this idea is also useful with regards to accessing the deep front or core line in these postures. If I think of lifting the base of the thigh bone up as described above, I am directly speaking to my core line via the popliteus, the back of the knee capsule, and the adductors (inner thighs), which in turn connect to my psoas complex and therefore my spine, my breath, and my heart above (see Myers, last page, figure 7) and deep compartment of the lower leg and the arches of the feet below. Long live the seesaw!