Free the Hips with the Butterfly Pose

Published in the Family Post Summer 2006

By Deborah Jordan, Yoga & Meditation Instructor

Butterfly Pose, also known as Bound Angle or Cobbler’s Pose, is an important hip-opening posture for everyone. The posture stretches our inner thighs, groins, and knees. It is used therapeutically for flat feet, high blood pressure, asthma, and sciatica. Butterfly stimulates the heart, abdominal organs, ovaries, prostate gland, bladder, and kidneys as well as improving general circulation. The posture can relieve mild depression, anxiety, and fatigue.

Specific to women’s health the posture is used for infertility, menopausal and premenstrual symptoms in addition to being an essential part of prenatal and postnatal care. The reason for this is that the posture brings blood to the reproductive organs and the pelvic floor helping to keep these areas vital, opening and relaxing the muscles that tie into the pelvis easing childbirth, and healing the tissues after childbirth. Kegel exercises done while practicing the posture are important to maintaining healthy tone in the muscles of the pelvic floor and will help prevent or remedy loss of urinary control after childbirth or later in life.

Cautions: If the groin or knees are extremely tight, raise the pelvis by sitting on the folded edge of a blanket. Never force your knees down. If you have a groin or knee injury, only perform this pose with cushions for support under the outer thighs.

The Breath: Jaw relaxed, mouth closed, breath in and out through the nose. As you inhale let your diaphragm expand outward then fill the chest cavity and ribs with the breath, pause for a moment, then slowly begin to release the breath pulling the diaphragm in toward the spine. Exhale fully.  Begin again and continue to extend the measure of your inhalations and exhalations to 4-8 seconds each.

To Practice: Begin sitting upright with the legs stretched out in front.  Bend the knees as you pull your heels toward your pelvis and exhale dropping the knees out and down toward the floor or a support as you press the soles of the feet together.  Pull the shoulder blades in toward the spine and down toward the hips to open your chest. Feel your sits-bones rooted to the earth as you pull the chin in toward the throat. Now lift from the sits-bones creating length in the spine as you reach toward the sky with your spine. Hands come to feet, ankles, or legs. Breathe.

Notice the area of most intense sensation and send the softness of the breath to that area.  Let your body open naturally as you breath.

Stay for 3-6 breaths then lift the knees up and straighten the legs out in front.

The index fingers and thumbs are brought together extending in opposite directions with the rest of the fingers clasped and held in front of the solar plexus.