additional stretches may help

My entire lower body is tight and this causes me to have a bad experience particularily with downward dog...I have a colleague who is a certified Ashtanga and Scaravelli yoga teacher...she's been spending time coaching me and we were, at first going to go straight into Ashtanga, but when she saw how tight I was, she reverted to some basics for stretching my legs...this has helped a lot...now I can do the Ashtanga sun salutations better, though I still definitely need work!

S