One of our favorite yoga teachers said that she was going to start sending out a monthly "newsletter" yesterday in class, and I thought to start writing about my yoga experience as well. I have never really been too into religions in practice. I was raised Catholic and lost interest in that very quickly growing up. I never really rebelled against it since my parents were very open and didn't shove it down our throats; I was just not excited or moved by it. When I started to discover Buddhism after college I became enthralled with the philosophy but only dabbled in the practice of sitting meditation for some time, but could never seriously get into a solid practice. I was introduced to yoga by my friend Lisa in 2003. Since then I have been building my practice to where I am now actively practicing for 3-6 hours a week under (mainly) two teachers. I am an active person and need to a physical outlet to feel alive and connected and happy. The Yoga experience combines the physical workout I crave and the mental aspects of Buddhism. It has helped me immensely in life.

I feel like I have made a lot of progress in a lot of areas of my practice, however my hips are and hamstrings have not come very far at all. The reason happens to be part not understanding how those muscles should move from decades of improper posture, and part struggle to work through the immense discomfort. I refrain from using the word pain, although it does hurt, I think of pain as sounding like a bad thing when we are stretching in a mindful manner. Pain also comes with a certain flight reflex that is uncontrollable, and a sharpness in s particular area. The sensation and discomfort I am talking about is very different.
If you put your legs straight out in front of you while sitting on the ground and try and sit straight up directly over your sit-bones, your core muscles will be pulling upward and holding your pelvis upright; a very active posture. Once you relax, you pelvis will tilt backward and your hamstings will contract. I have seeming made little to no progress with getting my pelvis to be upright. I think it is a combination of very tight hamstrings and improper core posture, but I obviously haven't figured it out.
We do a number of different "hip openers" in our classes that are steps to freeing up the hamstrings and learning to activate them through the stretch. As our teacher tells us when we are done one such stretch(half hanamon???) that we can turn our leg from side to side and feel all the different hamstring muscles from the outside to the inside of the leg. I find that not only are my center hamstrings like rocks, the ones as you move to the outside of the leg are non-existent! I think this is why I have very little butt muscles.
The posture that is the most intense for me is the 'pigeon' posture(picture attached). This is, as Jill put it, "the final frontier of [my] hip". We must work up to this pose, warming up for maybe 45 minutes to get the legs loose and warm. My heart always sinks a little bit when this pose is announced and we have 10 seconds or so to think about the discomfort just ahead. The farther your foot is, the more parallel your shin is with the top of your mat, the more intense this stretch is. If you have your heal in your crotch, you won't feel too much and might wonder what my deal is. Once I have settled into this posture with my torso upright, we might raise our hands over our heads, and then we will lean forward and rest our head on the floor. Radiating from the depths of my pelvis is the most consuming physical discomfort I know. It is not sharp and I can not pin-point it. It is the entirety of my pelvic and core region. It iss so intense that sometimes I feel like my bowls are going to let loose as go into a dreamy like state. I am getting better at controlling my breath through this stretch, which is always the goal of yoga in general.