BREAKING

YOGA’S
ALIGNMENT
STEREOTYPES
DANIELLA WITTERN BUSH #TEACH

I arrive early, as always, giving myself time to roll out my

mat, adjust the lighting and the sound system, and open
the cabinet of yoga props. Sometimes one or two mats
have been strategically placed before I get there; most
often there is a slow drift as the class enters the room
little by little.

Light chatter fills these early moments: a casual

conversation with the regulars about the weather,
shoulders, and hips, kids young or old, or about books and
shows. When new faces appear, I walk over with a set of
blocks and a strap to introduce myself, asking their
names and inquiring about any salient elements of their
movement history and experience with yoga I should
know about before class begins.

Then I tell the new student about the way I teach: I offer
hands-on assists in class. Offer being the key word,
because I know that some people love to be touched, and
some people don’t, for all kinds of reasons! So along with
the blocks and strap, I give each person a little glass
stone. If you place the stone on your mat, I know that you
welcome hands-on assists; if I don’t see the stone on your
mat, I will be happy to support your practice in other ways
but will be sure not to touch you.

Please Correct Me
The responses I get when people hear about the
permission stones is so telling about the state of yoga as
it is currently practiced in the US. Almost always I hear a
variation of, “Please, correct me! I know I make mistakes
all of the time. I can use all of the help I can get!”

(Where in that introduction statement do I ever say

anything about corrections? Right, I don’t.)

These comments reflect the widespread and deep-set

belief that there is only one right way to practice each
pose, and that our bodies can and or should be pulled into
that correct shape when they don’t get there on their
own. That any other shape we may find ourselves in must
be wrong, must require “correction.” And that the teacher
is the expert on what your body should be doing, even if
this is the first time he/she has ever met you.

So this may be surprising to hear, but I

don’t offer hands-on touch for the
purpose of pulling anyone deeper into
a pose or to “fix” their alignment.
Let me say that again: I do not use touch to force bodies
deeper into a pose or to pull them into “correct” shape.

I primarily use touch to foster connection, relaxation, and

proprioceptive awareness (or your idea of exactly where
your body is in space at any given moment.) So, for
example, if we are standing in a bone-stacked version of
Tadasana, Mountain Pose,  and your hips are lining up
over your toes, I might use touch to guide your hips
backwards until they are stacked over your ankles. (Note
that I call this one version of mountain pose rather than
the only version or the correct version!) Or I might use
touch when you are in child’s pose to help you develop
awareness of your breath expanding throughout the full
thoracic cavity so that the space between each of your
vertebra can increase with your inhales, and decrease
with your exhales.

What I’m not doing, though, is using touch to bring you

into “the right alignment” or “the correct shape.”

Inhabiting the Pose

Why not?

Because, my friends, there is no such thing as the one

correct alignment for any given yoga pose.

Most of what is taught as “correct alignment” in yoga

classes is really about aesthetic appeal–about using the
body to create shapes that are symmetrical, or that
consist only of right angles, or that impress through
pretzeling and strength demonstrated with clean lines.
The book in teacher trainings often touted as the asana-
cueing Bible, Light on Yoga, was written by a man whose
entire career was based on performance. That is to say, it
was based on his ability to make shapes with his body
that were pleasing to others (or to the camera).

There’s still much to give B.K.S. Iyengar credit for: for

example, he also brought the use of props into the
practice of yoga, making many poses more accessible to
different bodies. But still, the classic alignment cues for
Trikonasana, Triangle Pose, for example, are not about
finding a Triangle that works well for your body. They are
about using your body to create a specific shape. The
exact same shape out of every body, regardless of
whether or not that shape is going to be good for your
body, today.

Here is the secret, my friends, that I wish every yoga

teacher and every yoga practitioner knew: every pose can
be inhabited in an almost unlimited number of ways,
according to three main factors: 1. The one specific body
moving through or settling into the pose, 2. The yogi’s
intention for this particular practice, and 3. The intention
for the pose itself.

This Specific Body

No two bodies practicing yoga are ever alike—not even if
there are identical twins in the room. What our bodies
need from, are capable of, or are limited by in any given
pose is determined by a complex and extensive set of
factors, of which genetic make up is only one part. Our
lifelong health and injury histories play a huge role in
what our bodies need, can do, and should do. So do our
occupations, our hobbies, our commutes—all of the
factors that determine our patterns of repetitive
movement or holding of tension. Our fears and our
motivations come into play here, as do our recent levels
and quality of sleep, eating, exercise, and stress. It even
matters who else is in the room and how comfortable we
feel with them. And the list goes on, a whole slew of bio-
psycho-social factors that determine how our bodies show
up on any given day.

And we change! What I am capable of and limited by and

will benefit from is not the same today as it was last week
or as it will be in a month. So how I practice a pose today
should not necessarily be the same as I practiced it
yesterday or a month ago or last year. Even within a
single day, or within a single yoga session, how I practice
a pose can and should change, based on how warmed up
or cold, tired or energized my body is.

In other words: The intensity and challenge levels of each

pose are determined not by the pose itself, but by every
other pose—every other move!—that came before it. And
this is true not just on your yoga mat. How spinal
extension feels—and what your body needs from spinal
extension—differs based on the positions in which you
slept the night before, how you have been holding
tension, and what postures you have spent most of your
day in before arriving to the yoga mat.

This Specific Yoga

Practice
At the start of every class, I offer an opportunity to set an
intention for your yoga practice. Often, people’s intentions
fall along the lines of peace, relaxation, or stress relief.
Sometimes it is strength. Patience. Joy. There is no wrong
intention for your practice—it is whatever you would like
to get out of your time on the mat, today.

But if your intention for your practice is peace or

relaxation, how you approach a Vrkasana, Tree Pose,
should be different than if your intention is strength.

For one intention, you might choose to keep your hands

wherever you feel is most stable on your body, set your
gaze on a fixed point, and let the sole of your lifted foot
come down whenever you notice yourself holding your
breath or working too hard. For a different intention, you
might take your arms up to the sky, or let them and your
torso sway around like the branches of a tree in a breeze;
you might choose to challenge your propioception and
balance by closing your eyes, or by shifting your gaze
from point to point around the room.
 Tree pose, Vrksasana, with three different intentions.
Intention 1: A strong practice. Variation of tree: Side
bends plus extra isometric muscular engagement from
pressing right hand and shin into each other. Intention 2:
Challenge proprioception. Variation of tree: Move gaze
around the room. Intention 3: Self-kindness and peace.
 Variation of tree: right toes to ground, finding length
through the spine, opening through the heart.

There are no enlightenment points for choosing what

might appear to be the “deepest” or “most advanced”
(i.e., most aesthetically appealing or impressive) variation
of the pose. Nor is there any one single option that is the
best or “most correct” for all bodies at all times. There are
only the options that make the most sense for your body
and your intention for practicing today.

The Intention
Behind the Pose
I want to let you in on one of yoga’s most well-kept
secrets: every pose can be worked—and worked
differently!—to achieve a wide variety of physical
intentions.

Let’s take Uttanasana, a standing forward fold, as an

example. Most often, people assume that forward folds
are about lengthening through the hamstrings. And it’s
true: you can keep your legs straight as you fold forward,
reaching your tailbone towards the sky, and you will find
length through the hamstrings.

Even here, however, intention matters. You can lengthen

through the hamstrings as a passive stretch, letting the
weight of gravity do the work for you. And that might be
the perfect thing to do, especially if the pose is serving as
a rest or reset between sequences! But you can also
choose to work eccentric strength through the hamstrings
as they lengthen– and hamstring strength is something
that everyone who spends too much time sitting needs to
work on! Hinge from the hips s-l-o-w-l-y, and send the hips
slightly backwards as you lower down, resisting the effect
of gravity the whole way. This is an entirely different
experience of the pose, based on a very different
intention for using it.

Uttanasana, forward fold, inhabited four ways, working

towards different physical goals: passively lengthening
 the hamstrings with a long, neutral spine; bending the
knees to release the head towards the floor; separating
hip hinge from spinal flexion; keeping hips over heels
while folding forward to work the eccentric contraction of
the hamstrings.

These are just two possible options based on working

hamstring length in different ways. Neither one is the
correct way to practice. They simply serve different
purposes.

And there are so many other things you could choose to

work on in a forward fold! You might be interested in
separating hip hinge from rounding through the low back.
Or in allowing your spine to lengthen with the help of
gravity to create space between the vertebra. Maybe you
want to drop your head down below your heart for a
moment. Or perhaps you are simply passing through the
pose, using Uttanasana as a way to transition as you flow
from standing to a lunge or a squat.

You could even have an entire class or workshop

sequenced simply around forward folds (not that I
necessarily recommend this!), exploring as many different
ways to inhabit the pose and opportunities for work or
rest as you can imagine. None of them would be wrong—
although you might find some that are wrong for your
body today, or that are wrong for your personal intention
for this practice session, or that are wrong for the stated
reason for being in the pose. None of them would be more
correct.
Your Practice, Your
Pose
As a practitioner taking a class, you don’t always need to
know what the intention behind the pose is. But the
teacher leading the class should know and be able to
articulate why he or she has chosen each pose, what it is
that he or she would like you all to get out of it, and how it
fits together with all of the poses that came before it and
that will come after it. That knowledge, that why for each
pose, should determine the way the pose is cued– and the
way it is experienced.

Even so, you, the practitioner, are always in charge of

your own body, your own experience. If I am teaching a
class centered on hamstring and gluteal strength today,
but yesterday you moved and did a lot of squatting while
lifting heavy objects, or you skied all day, or you are
feeling run-down and your intention is to relax rather than
work hard, you can choose to inhabit the poses
differently! You can choose what to work on, and what to
let go of.
Low lunge the way I practice and teach it most of the time
now, versus the way you’ll more often see it on
Instagram. One version is about deep, all-over sensation
and aesthetics; the other is about separating hip
extension from spinal extension. Is one “better” or
“deeper” or “more correct” than the other? Only you can
answer that, based on where your body is today.
This can be a little difficult if you’re new to yoga or not
used to taking charge like this, so when teaching, I will
sometimes bring a class into or towards a pose, and then
offer a whole series of options, each one working
something different. I do this not because I want you to
try each one of them as I offer them, but because I know
that we all come to our mats from different places, in
different bodies, and with different needs. And even for
more experienced practitioners, a reminder of different
options to focus on can be helpful. Most often the whole
class wants to come with me, from the first option all the
way to the last one, but no single option is the correct or
best one. They are simply different destinations.

Your yoga practice is a journey, not a test. You choose

where you are going, and what path you are taking to get
there. And a good teacher is just the tour guide, delighted
to point out some of the sights you can explore along the
way.