Femoral Anteversion & yoga

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

Hi

I’ve just started practising yoga and find it’s really helping my posture and helping me to relax. However, I’m having a lot of trouble with many of the poses. I have Femoral Anteversion in both legs that means my thigh bones turn inwards. If I stand with my feet parallel, pointing forwards, my knees turn in. I can site very comfortably with my legs bent backwards in a W postion but find crossing my legs very difficult. This doesn’t cause me any problems in daily life - I can walk, run & ride a bike perfectly OK - I just have slightly wonky knees!

Many of the yoga poses involve legs going the opposite way to how mine do naturally. I just will simply never be able to get into the lotus position.

I would really like to continue with yoga so I’d be very, very grateful if someone could give me some advice on how to deal with this. Is there a particular type of yoga that would be best? Are there some alternative poses I could try?

Many thanks in anticipation

#2

Short on time so a brief reply to you now and perhaps more to you later upon request.

Give no added thought to the performance of padmasana. If you never do it so what. It is not a requisite for being in yoga. Do not attach to it while still working to correct the imbalances it may point toward.

The larger question is what realm your issue resides. Is this a muscular issue or is this a structural issue? If you are internally rotated as a result of overly engaged (or "tight) internal rotators and/or unengaged (or “loose”) external rotators then it warrants one sort of work.

If there is something else going on, perhaps you had them surgically rotated as my friend Tim did in childhood, the protocols might vary slightly.

I am sure Mukunda and his teachers have a specific protocol for approaching this as well. To me, either way, it warrants working with a trained teacher rather than giving you some poses to do over the internet.