In Half Pigeon, move your front shin forward so that it is parallel to the front edge of your mat.

To this day, this is one of the most common cues students ask me about.

Student: But what if I can’t get my shin parallel to the front of my mat?

Me: Don’t worry about it.

Student: What? I hear that cue in classes all the time!

It’s just not a cue that is helpful for most populations.

Many yoga teachers, including myself, would tell students to move their shin forward in Half Pigeon like it was the easiest thing in the world to do. You know, just shimmy your shin forward. Piece of cake!

I would push my body into all sorts of shapes early on in my days of practicing yoga, and this was one of those things that I just wouldn’t let go. The teacher said parallel! You better believe I’m going to get my shin parallel!

I would force my body into angles it just wasn’t meant to find and I paid the price for it. I suffered from terrible knee pain and found myself sweating profusely from the stress I was causing my body. It just wasn’t worth it.

Besides, even while trying to get my shin parallel to the front of my mat, I never experienced the stretch teachers were telling me I was going to feel. All the feels were going to my front knee. Not my outer hip.

As with most of the cues I used early on in my yoga teaching days, I learned and then tried to do better.

Turns out getting your shin parallel to the front edge of your mat is not something most people need to strive for. When you’re in Half Pigeon, consider playing with the angle of your front knee. Some bodies need a larger angle and some need a more narrow angle. Some bodies benefit from placing a block under the sitting bone of their front leg. And many bodies benefit from taking an entirely different shape.

In a lot of yoga practices Half Pigeon is placed in a sequence as a shape to create a stretch sensation in the outer hips. Rather than hyper-fixating on the front shin, why not experiment and find a placement that allows you to experience a stretch in your outer hip?