Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose)

Baddha Konasana, Bound Angle Pose, is a seated hip and groin pose. Baddha means bound and kona means angle, and the name describes the bound triangle the two legs make when the soles of the feet come together and the knees fall out to the sides. In India it is often taught as the butterfly, or Titli Asana, particularly to children, and the closely related upright version with a straighter spine is sometimes called Bhadrasana.

It is not a hip opener you are meant to force. The distance your knees drop towards the floor is set mostly by the shape of your own hip sockets and the angle of the thigh bone in them, and no amount of practice changes bone. Some people's knees rest on the floor on the first day and always will. Others will never get within twenty centimetres of it, however patiently they practise, and their hips are working just as hard. What changes with practice is the length of the inner thigh muscles, and that shows up as comfort rather than as a photograph.

It is also not the same pose as sitting cross legged. Sukhasana folds the shins in front of each other and asks much less of the groin. This pose puts the soles together and turns the thighs out fully, which is a specific and much stronger demand, and it is why people who sit cross legged happily can find this one difficult.

Where it belongs is late in a practice, when the hips are warm, or on its own in the evening in the supported lying version. It is a calming pose, so it sits well in the bedtime sequence and poorly at the start of a morning one. It is also the pose I hand to anybody who wants to sit comfortably on the floor for a long breathing practice, since sitting is the thing it improves fastest.

Two changes make this pose useful, and both of them go against the instinct.

Sit higher. Sit on the floor with the soles of your feet together and notice what your lower back does. In most adults it rounds and the pelvis tips backwards, which means the stretch has moved off the inner thighs and onto the lumbar spine. Put one or two folded blankets under the seat and sit on the front edge. The knees will often drop further immediately, with no extra effort, which tells you the obstacle was the pelvis rather than the hips.

Let the knees alone. Do not press them down with the hands. Do not bounce them. The inner thigh muscles let go on an exhalation and they let go slowly, and pressing or bouncing a joint into range is the reliable way to strain a groin. If you want the knees to go further, support them instead: a cushion under each outer thigh means the leg rests, and a resting leg releases while a hanging leg holds on. This sounds backwards and it is the single most useful thing I know about the pose.

• Heels a hand's width away from the pelvis rather than tucked right in, particularly if the knees are sensitive.
• Both sitting bones evenly weighted. If one is lighter, the sacroiliac joint takes the difference.
• Hands on the feet only if it does not round the back, otherwise on the shins or on the floor behind you.
• Fold forward only if the fold comes from the hips. If the back curls, stay upright.

The habit of arranging a pose around the body in front of you, with whatever props that takes, is the tradition described on the Iyengar yoga page, and this pose makes the case for it better than any other.

Baddha Konasana, and particularly the supported lying version, is a standard part of prenatal practice almost everywhere it is taught. The reasons given are that it opens the hips and inner thighs, that it is comfortable when the abdomen is large, and that the wide position is close to a posture many women find useful in labour.

What can be said about the evidence is worth being careful with. Prenatal yoga as a whole has reasonable support: a meta analysis of fourteen randomised controlled trials in 3,637 women having a first baby found lower caesarean section rates in the yoga groups, a total labour about two hours shorter, lower rates of preterm birth and of perineal tearing, and no adverse events reported in the included trials. That is a finding about whole yoga programmes, taught over weeks, including their breathing and relaxation practices. It is not a finding about one pose, and I would not tell an expectant mother that a particular posture shortens her labour.

The practical guidance is simpler. Use the lying supported version with a bolster along the spine and a cushion under each thigh, keep the hold comfortable rather than long, and stop using any position that stops being comfortable. And ask your own doctor or midwife, because in pregnancy the answer depends on the pregnancy rather than on the pose. Anyone with a history of pelvic instability should ask specifically about wide leg positions.

The pose is on this site's list for the hips and the groin, and it happens also to be one of the few things a woman late in pregnancy can still do easily. Both of those are good reasons to know it. Neither of them is a medical claim.

This is a long hold pose. It is one of the few in a practice where the useful thing happens after the first minute rather than during it.

Daily is fine. There is no load on anything, so the only limits are the knees and the pins and needles that come from sitting in one shape for a long time. Five minutes most evenings will change how you sit within a couple of months, which is a better return than most poses give for the effort involved, and the reasoning about frequency is set out in how often should you do yoga.

Late. The hips want to be warm, so this pose goes after the standing work and the floor poses, not first. If you are practising in the evening, or on its own, the lying supported version needs no warming up at all because nothing is being asked to work.

The counter pose is Dandasana: sitting with the legs straight out in front for a few breaths lets the hips and knees return to neutral, and it is worth doing before you stand up. Then a forward bend such as Paschimottanasana if your back is happy with them, and Savasana to finish.

It pairs naturally with Gomukhasana, which works the outer hip while this works the inner thigh, and with Janu Sirsasana, which needs the same seated height and the same honesty about the lower back. Those three plus a twist make a complete seated set of about ten minutes.

The other place it belongs is directly before sitting for a breathing practice. Two or three minutes here and the floor becomes a tolerable place to sit, which matters if you are trying to build up to ten minutes of Nadi Shodhana and keep giving up because your hips ache. It is also the pose to put at the end of the bedtime sequence, supported, with the eyes covered, before a long Yoga Nidra.

The changes here are mostly about knees and about the seat.

• Knees. Support each thigh, take the heels further away, and never press the knees down. A meniscus problem, an arthritic knee or a replacement should not be asked for a deep outward rotation without support, and the chair version is a genuine alternative.
• Groin. If you have strained an inner thigh, leave this pose out until it has healed. It is precisely that tissue being lengthened, and stretching a healing muscle is how a three week problem becomes a three month one.
• Lower back. Sit higher, and do not fold forward. Anybody in the middle of a back complaint should read yoga for back pain, which explains why the seated forward bends are on its list of poses to leave alone for now.
• Hips. After a hip replacement, ask the surgeon. The permitted range varies and it is not a judgement to make from a website.
• Pregnancy. The lying supported version, and a conversation with your doctor or midwife.

Everybody else should sit on a blanket, support the thighs and stay for longer than feels necessary. If you want somebody to set your blanket height, come to a class and be looked at, or start with a first class. It is a thirty second correction that changes what this pose does for you.