AY # 101: On side; lifting the leg and straightening it

This lesson is difficult. At least for me. But one of those that, despite its difficulty, was extremely rewarding. The change I experienced was satisfyingly large, providing me with a genuine sense that I had learned something. The lesson is done on the side, taking hold of the uppermost foot with the uppermost hand and (as the title indicates) lifting the leg and straightening it in several variations. For me, something "sticks" on one side of my lower back that makes this shockingly harder to do on that side (actually on the opposite side from where the "stickiness" occurs). By the end of the lesson, my ability to do the movements had dramatically improved on both sides, and I realized that certain limitations that, for years, I have ascribed to living exclusively somewhere in my rib cage seem to also have a big summer residence in the sides of my lower back. Cool. There will be people who "cannot" do the initial (and oft repeated) move of taking hold of their foot while lying on the side; the lesson can be modified for them (starting by taking hold of some other part of the leg), but the lesson does involve strenuous rotation of the hip joints in every direction. Those who have had hip surgery or experience hip difficulties might want to pass on this one.