Hail to the King

Stock photo of someone performing King Pigeon pose.

Last night I experienced something that will be difficult to put into words, but that won’t stop me from trying. Put simply, I learned something new about the capabilities of my body and the resulting jolt of positive energy is still with me today.

It was week three of a four-week advanced yoga series on backbends. Led by the incomparable Susie Beekman at Radiance Yoga, the series leads students through a single posture each week. Week one was “Wild Thing”, week two was “Wheel” and last night was the posture I was most nervous about: “King Pigeon”.

When I was doing Tae Kwon Do regularly, my flexibility was solid. I could put my palms on the floor in a straight leg bend; could do a front spilt; could kick targets above my head without jumping. I was getting close to side splits, too, but that was always a struggle. 

Then in 2005 I had knee surgery and stopped martial arts training and all that went away. Now it is coming back, albeit slowly. I’ve been practicing yoga several times a week for three years now and can finally put all my fingers on the ground in a straight leg bend. Front split is slowly improving. And my general mobility is light years ahead of where it was three years ago.

But, I have an injured meniscus in my left knee. The range of motion in that joint is limited enough to make it hard to sit back on my knees, do anything that puts and torque on the joint, or rely on it to hold my body up when not straight (like a wall sit, for example).

Regular pigeon pose with that leg forward has been a challenge, and that is very little torque compared to the advance King Pigeon pose. 

This is where exceptional instruction comes in. Putting support under the left hip moves the pressure to the hip and glute and lets the knee bend with no added discomfort. I’ve been doing this for months in regular practice, but was still nervous that the advance posture would still put too much pressure on the knee.  

Not only did it not do that, I discovered that all the warm up we did in the session, combined with my lower core strength, strong hips and glutes, and focus on extending upwards took all the pressure off the knee. I actually did the posture better on that side! 

I’m not communicating this very well.

It was like discovering that I could suddenly do a backflip with no training. Like I was unlocking a secret superpower. Going back to my martial arts days, it was similar to when I was finally able to do an advanced flying kick after weeks of trying. Except this was even better because it was very much out of the blue.

I honestly thought I was past the point of every experiencing something like that again. That added to the endorphin rush, I’m sure. That and the sense that most of the students last night did something new and all felt a similar elation.

And let me be clear about this, too: I did not get close to the full expression of the posture. See that phot at the top of this post? I don’t bend like that right now. But I was able to get into a band-assisted version of it far more easily that I ever thought I could.

I’m excited to take this new skill and improve my practice. And I look forward to the next great moment that awaits!