Thigh support idea

Lotus
I wouldn’t blame the Lotus position. I’ve spent years cumulatively sitting Burmese or half-lotus, including a month long meditation retreat in April with 10-14 hours of sitting meditation each day. No hip problems so far…



Might be that it just doesn’t agree with you and that you might do better with a more Greenland knees together and lower position or with one of the more knees up paddling styles. Personally, I prefer to paddle Greenland but it isn’t because my hips hurt.



Hope you find a comfortable position. Sometimes just relaxing, resting in the body including the parts that hurt a bit, makes all the difference. It is also true that you have to paddle a while for the body to adjust to whatever position you chose. On meditation retreats, beginners (and some who should know better) spend most of the retreat building pillow fortresses trying to get comfortable when what they need is a daily practice between retreats so that the body can adjust.

One size does NOT fit all

– Last Updated: May-22-13 2:45 PM EST –

As one who spent 8 years doing really severe flexibility training, and routinely working out with 50 to 70 others having a similar mindset (I continue this at a more relaxed level these days, but a level that's still often far more severe than most people would ever attempt), I know that certain people simply don't react well to positions that require the feet/legs to rotate outward. Those that can't tolerate such positions usually feel it in either the knees or the hips. Straining the knees with that motion has the potential to do real damage and in that case one should never "train through" the pain, but that's not to say that straining the hips is a tolerable alternative. Depending on the exact nature of the limitation, training might or might not solve the problem. When it comes to splayed feet/hips, what worked for one person is no indication of what someone else can accomplish.

By the way, the position in which one feels discomfort may not be the best position to adopt for targeted flexibility training. It's usually possible to target the responsible muscles without involving a weak link (like a knee joint that might be stressed in a direction for which it was not designed) in some body position other than the one where limited range of motion is an issue.