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On paper, Ardha Hanumanasana (Half Splits) seems like a relatively simple pose. In real life, though, there’s a lot going on here. Whenever I teach this pose, I see students looking around the classroom with it”what the?‘, hoping to find someone else who knows what they’re doing so they can emulate them, only to find other blank stares of confusion.
Half Splits require an intense stretch of the hamstrings on your front leg. It also requires a balancing act on your back leg. And while you’re juggling these two things, the pose asks you to reach your hands toward the mat while keeping your back straight. No problem.
There’s no need to get into the blame or shame game here. Your anatomy will determine how Half Pose looks and feels in your body. For some, Half Splits is a comfortable stretch. For others, the hamstring stretch can feel impossibly intense, meaning your body will automatically adjust its alignment elsewhere to compensate.
And this is where we experience problems – not because you can’t find the elusive “full expression” of the pose, but because these unconscious compensations can strain your body and compromise the shape of the pose, which means you win. does not receive the intended benefits.
That is, unless you become aware of what you are doing, you can adjust your approach accordingly.
How to get to Half Splits
Start in tabletop position. Place your right leg between your hands, cupping your fingertips or raising your hands onto blocks as needed. Begin by straightening your right leg, moving your right heel forward to lengthen and straighten the back of your right leg. Flex your front foot and pull your toes toward your chest. You want to feel a stretch, but not a tension, along the back of your front leg. You can maintain as much bend in your front knee as you need. Lengthen your back.
Common misalignments in half splits
Below are the four most common misalignments I see students make in class, along with ways to help you find support for your body with each mistake.
1. You don’t use blocks under your hands
Why it’s a problem: The most common challenge with Half Splits is that the floor is simply too far away for your fingertips or palms to reach the mat, which can lead to an unstable feeling at best. It can also cause a domino effect of all the subsequent problems as your body tries to find balance.
How to restore it: Bring the ground closer to you by using blocks (also called limb extenders) under your hands. This allows you to lengthen your back body because you don’t have to round your spine or shift your hips back or to the side in an attempt to bring your hands to the ground.
2. Your hips are too far back
Why it’s a problem: Perhaps the most essential thing to keep in mind is to stack your hips over your bent knee. However, when you have tight hamstrings, the tendency is to shift your seat too far back.
Think of this as braking in your car. If your hips are your breaks, each time you slide them back toward your heels, you release the accelerator, which is the intense feeling in the hamstrings of your straight legs. But then you lose a lot of stretch in that leg.
How to restore it: To see if this is your tendency, start in Half Splits with your left knee bent. Bring your left hand to the back of your left thigh and feel the bend angle in your left knee. If you have a 90-degree angle between your hamstring and calf, chances are your alignment is stable. If you have less, chances are you’ve probably leaned too far back.
If this is the case, you may need to move your right foot further away from you so that you can shift your hips slightly forward so that they are aligned above your back knee. This allows you to come into the pose from a place of strength and stability, even if that means bending your front knee a little and not stretching the hamstrings as dramatically.
3. You round your spine instead of straightening your straight leg
Just because your forehead is close to your right shin doesn’t mean you’re stretching your hamstrings! It’s a bit of an optical illusion. You would think that because your face is closer to the ground, you are in a more advanced version of the pose. Nothing could be further from the truth.
No one tells you this, but you don’t have to straighten your front leg all the way! If the stretch on your front leg has become too much, bend your right knee slightly to relieve the stretch in your calf while still focusing on your hamstring.
Once you’re in Half Splits and have stacked your hips over your left knee, notice where your forehead is in relation to your shin. Think of your spine as a wire support on a bridge. If the wire is straight, it has more stability than a bent and slack wire. As you round to get your forehead closer to your shin, lengthen your spine by energetically pulling the crown of your head away from your tailbone. At the same time, energetically pull your right heel in the same direction as your tailbone, without actually moving it. This will create more leverage for you to access the stretch in your hamstring!
Again, by focusing on creating a strong foundation, and then allowing it to access your greatest mobility, you can set yourself up for success in this pose, as well as in more technical asanas.
4. Your hips are crooked
Once you’ve stacked your hips over your bent left knee and lengthened your spine, check to see if your left hip extends out to the side of the mat. If so, pull your left hip (your hip joint is at the back of your pelvis, where the femur attaches to your hip socket) toward the back of your mat. If your hips are not aligned, it will cause you to lose your balance.
Don’t forget that Half Splits has a balancing component! It’s easy to lose engagement by dropping into your left hip. This happens when you haven’t engaged your stabilizer muscles, also called your hip abductors. These muscles pull your leg bones into your hip sockets to create stability in your pelvis.
About our contributor
Ashlee McDougall is a self-proclaimed yoga nerd. She has completed more than 1,500 hours of yoga teacher training with expert teachers including Janet Stone and Jason Crandell. She loves creating sequences that help you build strength and mobility and is passionate about offering trauma-informed and inclusive classes. You can follow her on Instagram at @Ashlee.McDougall and take a class with her at Yoga Loft in Tucson, Arizona.