We've all heard from yoga teachers to NEVER put your lifted foot on the knee of your standing leg, but can you safely put your foot on your knee in tree pose without catastrophe?!? Short answer is... probably. Fellow yoga teacher, Kellyn, recently asked for my thoughts on an article about this Vrksasana (Tree Pose) topic.
The article basically says that centering your lifted foot on the inside of your standing leg can possibly act to provide stability in a similar way to the collateral ligaments on the sides of your knees. The author compares stacking 2 yoga blocks on top of each other and having your foot on your thigh being like pushing the top block from the side or having your foot on your shin like pushing the bottom block. She suggests that pushing the bottom block would be like pushing the your shin out and creating forces that make your knee bend sideways - which we all agree would not be good! So then pushing the top block would be like pushing your thigh and bending the knee to the other side. She concludes that pushing on both blocks at the same time in the middle (knee) should be safe, and also provide support at the joint.
As long as you are not pushing really hard directly on the joint line, I agree that your foot on the inside of the knee is probably safe. My reasoning is a little different though. I feel that we have forgotten about a very significant force - the weight of the rest of your body! That stack of blocks has a big weight on top of it! This is a huge part of what causes a knee injury. If all your weight is coming down on your standing leg and you "kick out" that shin, the weight comes crashing down on the ligaments on the inside (medial) of the knee. If you push out the thigh, the weight would crash down on the outside (lateral) of the knee.
As long as you are not pushing really hard directly on the joint line, I agree that your foot on the inside of the knee is probably safe. My reasoning is a little different though. I feel that we have forgotten about a very significant force - the weight of the rest of your body! That stack of blocks has a big weight on top of it! This is a huge part of what causes a knee injury. If all your weight is coming down on your standing leg and you "kick out" that shin, the weight comes crashing down on the ligaments on the inside (medial) of the knee. If you push out the thigh, the weight would crash down on the outside (lateral) of the knee.
I think this becomes a hip stability question, and if you can keep your weight balanced on your standing leg (which means your hip muscles are strong and working) a little push on the knee won't do much. You can't even push that hard because the leg that you are pushing with is attached to you and not pushing off of a wall or the ground from outside your body. In fact, for you to be able to push with your lifted foot at all means, that the standing leg hip muscles must contract to give the lifted leg something to push off of, so more stability would be created when you are pushing your foot onto your standing thigh. That said, the inside of your shin is probably the least desirable place to hold your lifted foot since there is not much muscular support keeping the shin from getting pushed out of place like at the hip/thigh. Even then though, a little push from the lifted foot shouldn't be too big of a deal due to the angle of the push changing as your foot gets lower and other factors. So, I guess the answer to the question is put your foot wherever you like! Just make sure the hip muscles and core are properly engaged to keep the weight from swinging around too much on top! Thanks for the question. I hope that helps!
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Vrksasana image: http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl0/1/12981/07_2008/tree.jpg
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