I was having a discussion with another yoga teacher, a relatively new teacher like myself, and we were talking about one of our favorite topics, hip openers. She tends to have tight hips, and mine tend to be more open, so she was asking if I had any advice for her lately. It had been several days that she'd done any asana, I believe, but rather had been doing quite a bit of walking, and so now her hips felt tighter than usual.

So when she asked me for pose suggestions, immediately I replied "standing poses" as I've learned so well from the knowledgeable folks here , as well as from personal experience. I asked her what her usual tactic was then, for when she needed to open her hips. She started to list poses such as baddha konasana, pigeon prep, double pigeon, etc. And without really realizing what I was saying, my comment to her on that was "So you tend to employ poses that require open hips in order to open your hips."

Hmm.

Counter-intuitive? Or just an alternate method to proceed to the same end?

Maybe I wasn't clear in my question.

My understanding, and experience, with specific hip-opener poses (such as baddha konasana and pigeon prep) has been that one normally needs to do other poses (standing poses as an example) before attempting the hip-openers. Starting one's practice with the first pose being baddha konasana, then, would not accomplish as much "opening" as, say, working the actions of shins in, thighs out in a wider stance uttanasana. Or is this just my particular flavor of practice that suits my body?

Thanks for your replies, ZB and tourist. I do want to point out that my point in asking my question here wasn't that I was trying to prove my viewpoint is right vs. my friend's, or that her approach might be ineffective, not in the slightest. Just that when she said she goes right for "the gold", so to speak, with the ultimate hip-opener poses (padmasana was another one she had listed, forgot to mention), I was just very surprised. It had just never occurred to me to start at the end.

ZB, I couldn't find the exact painting you referenced on the site you listed, but I did find it here. Wow, it's pretty wild.

Hmm, so you don't consider lunges to be standing poses. Interesting, maybe that's the root of my confusion here then. Just to be perfectly clear, my definition of a lunge encompasses both the Virabhadrasana I style pose with the back heel lifted (high lunge) as well as when the fingertips are on the floor framing the front foot, back knee either on the floor or straight back, toes tucked, heel lifted (low lunge). Since both feet are making contact with the floor, that's enough to qualify as "standing" for me. And also, with enough attention to alignment and engagement, that's what my body requires first before going into the seated openers as you described. But without those lunges, I'd be toast. I was just wondering if this wasn't a universal thing, that's all.