Does Yoga Alignment Really Matter?
Unpacking yoga alignment myths.
Hi folks, it’s your senior yoga educator Heather Agnew here, and today we ask the question: Does Yoga Alignment Really Matter?
We are going to talk about some of the alignment cues and ideas you might have learned over the years in yoga class – some that you might have even learned from me – unpack some general yoga alignment myths, and whether they really do make our practice safer, more effective, or help us to progress in our practice.
Watch the video below, or scroll down for the discussion notes, an alignment themed yoga class reading, and some cool resources to keep exploring.
Does Yoga Alignment Really Matter?
I have been making notes on this discussion for a few months as students have been writing with concerns they have or sharing cues that are based on some of these alignment myths and we’ve been having a lot of conversations around these ideas.
This discussion is aimed at yoga teachers or teachers-in-training, but I hope that anyone who is keen to learn more about yoga alignment and get curious about the practice can benefit.
To be clear, this isn’t a discussion about right and wrong ideas, or right and wrong alignment – quite the opposite. This is a discussion that I hope will free us up a bit from the constraints of right/wrong thinking and allow us to get curious about how each unique body can experience yoga asana.
Where do our yoga alignment ideas come from?
To begin, a quick bit of history I want to mention is that a lot of the alignment ideas we have, at least in the Vinyasa Flow world, come from two places – BKS Iyengar, who created the, very alignment-oriented, Iyengar method, and from Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga – first developed by Krishnamacharya over 100 years ago in Mysore, and then carried on by the Jois family. It’s worth noting that Iyengar and Pattabhis Jois were both students of Krishnamacharya – but followed quite different paths in their teaching and their ideas about alignment.
Most, if not all alignments we hear about in Vinyasa Flow come not from the 5,000 year old ancient tradition of yoga but the modern age of what we’ll call Modern Postural Yoga – something that’s been developing over the past 100 years or so.
Older yoga traditions were likely more concerned with energetic alignment or mental alignment than where you put your big toes.
One of the issues of our time in Modern Postural Yoga is that we have explored so many yoga styles and so many influential teachers and brought back alignment ideas and cues from each of these – from Ashtanga and Iyengar to Kripalu to Sivananda to Satyananda to Anusara – and they all have different ideas about alignment – some very rigid, like Iyengar, and some very loose, like Kripalu.
We’ll talk in a moment about how this blending of alignment ideas can get us into trouble.
Moving past right/wrong
First, I want to clearly say that, at this stage of our understanding of anatomy, yoga anatomy, and the benefits of yoga, there is no right/wrong alignment like we might have heard (and that some might prefer).
Instead, there are some basic architectural guidelines, a lot of maybes and a lot of “how does it feel for you?”
3 reasons why we might prefer there to be yoga alignment rules
1) We like rules. It gives us structure and a sense of control and a sense that we can learn how to do things right and progress in a straight line in our practice.
2) Because to make space for people to find their own alignment is more complex, it takes more time, it’s harder to learn as a student and as a teacher – which in the drop-in-all-levels studio class environment is a challenge. It’s more complex – but it’s also more true.
3) We have a sense that if we can control our bodies, we can control our health outcomes. And, while yoga can be a great practice for overall health and wellbeing, doing yoga ‘right’ will not reverse the aging process and cannot prevent accident, illness or disability.
Yes, basic shapes matter
Having said all this, there are alignments in yoga that can be helpful. Basic shapes of poses matter – especially when it comes to the essence of a pose – we are making certain shapes, and there are generally more efficient ways to make those shapes, and those shapes do have a purpose. But is not making the exact shape you see in your teacher or in a book or on social media unsafe?
Not necessarily.
Aesthetic alignment vs safety alignment
It’s important to be able to see the difference between aesthetic alignment and safety alignment. Safety alignment is important to understand so we can help to guide our students in a safe practice. Aesthetic alignment is what we’ll talk about today – where we have ideas about how a pose should look that is more about looks and less about safety
8 alignment rules that you might reconsider
1) Your shoulders should be down and back at all times.
This may come from the rigid, militaristic posture that was common in the creation of many of these yoga styles like Ashtanga and Iyengar, and may have some roots in the development of physical culture in India, along with some common ideas about what ‘good posture’ means. Often we mistakenly relate good posture to things like morality, health, class. The truth is, our shoulders need to move in all their directions to maintain healthy range of motion, strength, flexibility – and honestly, how is it serving us to be stuffing our shoulders down all the time?
2) It’s dangerous to jump back into Plank so you have to jump back into Chaturanga.
There is no evidence for this, and in fact if we look at fitness and athletics, we see lots of examples of movements where we jump into a Plank with no ill effects. For many, in fact, Plank is a much more stable position to jump into.
3) Relax your glutes in backbends.
I’ve addressed this one before, this was a trend in the Ashtanga and Vinyasa communities years ago and still has a hold on some teachers. Your glutes are a primary hip extensor – they are essential in movements like Bridge, Upward Facing Dog, Upward Bow, Warrior 1, Locust, etc.
4) It’s dangerous for your knee to travel beyond your toes in Warrior or Crescent Lunge.
Well, look, if it hurts, don’t do it. But please tell me how you climb stairs or get out of the car or squat down to get something from the back of a cupboard without your knee going past your toes? This one is more about aesthetics, and – at least in my classes – about what muscles we are recruiting in a pose, but it’s not inherently dangerous for your knees to travel past your toes.
5) Your feet must be on ‘train tracks’ in Warrior 1.
This means having your feet in a direct line from one another, and for many people this isn’t possible without compromising the rest of the pose. There’s no reason we can’t take a shorter, wider stance in this pose to encourage hip extension and reduce spinal extension and rotation. It’s a safety issue for those with less balance to use the ‘train tracks’ and likely much more comfortable for many as well. Does it flow as well into Warrior II then Reverse Warrior etc.? No, but yoga isn’t choreography, and we shouldn’t compromise comfortable alignment for cool flows.
6) In Bridge you should be able to touch your heels with your fingers – depending on body design – short arms, bigger thighs, or knee flexion issues may prevent this. It’s not a safety cue, it’s just a quick way to get people to bring their heels to their hips, but because it’s not universal, it’s not really helpful.
7) In Bridge/Upward Bow your feet have to face forward and be only hip-width apart.
This is another cue that has it’s roots in the aesthetics or look of a pose, and doesn’t relate to safety, or even to function. For many of us, having our feet a little wider and toes turned a little out helps us to recruit our glutes, which strengthens our hip extension to create the pose, and may help us to use less lumbar extension (lower back arching) and reduce some of the stress of the pose.
8) Never put your foot on your knee in Tree Pose.
This feels like common sense (I’ve used it for years) but the much smarter biomechanics teachers like Jules Mitchell and Jenni Rawlings have done their research and ensure us that our knees can handle the lateral stress of putting our foot on our knee. In fact, if you look at Side Arm Balance version where we put our foot on our knee, the forces in that pose are much greater and it’s not been a worry.
So, there are a few cues to reconsider, this might be a good time to jot down any alignment ideas that you’ve been wondering about and maybe do a bit of reading. Are these ideas rooted in evidence, or just a carry-over from older teaching styles?
What do we know?
Basic shapes do matter – what makes a Triangle different from a Side Angle, or Cobra different from Upward Facing Dog?
Alignment rules can make yoga inaccessible – there are some shapes that some bodies can’t make – perhaps due to flexibility or strength, perhaps due to body design or proportion – and regressions, progressions, props, and versions can help people to make those shapes and experience those poses which might not conform strictly to those rules.
Think more about the essence of the pose – what’s this pose about? Is it hip flexion, backbend, spinal twist, balancing pose, creating a line from the back foot to the top arm etc. I f you can take some time to think about the essence of the pose – what makes this shape uniquely this pose – then you’ll have a much easier time figuring out how people can find the essence of the pose in a way that works for them.
How to scramble an egg
I was thinking about this discussion when I was scrambling some eggs for my lunch. Do you have strong ideas, or a strong family tradition of how scrambled eggs are made? High heat, medium heat, low heat? Stir a lot, don’t stir? Season first, season last, add chilis, pepper, chives, top with hot sauce, ketchup, barbecue sauce. These are all valid ways to make eggs – even the top chefs have disputed the ‘right’ way to scramble an egg. As long as you get tasty eggs, do the intricacies of the method matter?
Know your asana aim
Understand that some of our common cues in poses are actually conflicting advice from different yoga styles. Teachers who had strong opinions on the ‘right’ way to do a pose. A good example is Triangle. In Ashtanga the goal is to catch the bottom toe – so we can make adjustments to position of the hips, the chest, the spine, in order to catch the toe. In Iyengar, the goal is to keep the hips and chest square to the long edge of the mat, so we make adjustments to the hand position – maybe hand on thigh, shin, or brick – to keep the hips square. These cues don’t go together because they are about different goals – this is like asking for both high and low heat for your eggs, stir a lot and don’t stir at all. We can’t do it all. We either keep the hips square and the hand stays higher, or we catch the toe and the hips turn a bit.
Does this make sense to you? To clarify – not all the cues you’ve heard in yoga can be used in the same pose.
In my own learning journey, I went around gathering up all the cues from all the teachers and all the styles, and then brought them all back to my classes – not taking the time to think about whether this cue goes with the way I’m teaching this pose, or the goal of this version of the pose. If this sounds like you, too, it might be good to really think about what’s our aim in this pose, and what alignment cues are relevant to that aim.
What rules can we rely on:
1) The “it depends” rule
Alignment isn’t one-size-fits-all. Should your arms be beside your ears in Salute to the Sun? It depends. Notice what happens when you try — does your back arch, your shoulders tighten, or your breath catch?
Let curiosity, not rigidity, guide you
2) What is your goal?
Like in the example above, be clear on your intention in each pose. Is your goal to touch the ground, or to keep your hips square? Knowing why you’re doing something helps you align with purpose, not pressure
3) Choose presence over perfection.
Some people will want to work towards a particular alignment, and that’s a valid aim. However, most of the students in your class are likely just keen to just move, breath, and be present in their bodies. Micro-managing their poses distracts from the present moment and can make students feel as though they are doing yoga ‘wrong’ – and this can be a barrier to practice.
4) Does it hurt?
Simple rule: if it hurts, don’t do it. If your knees past your toes (or any alignment cue) causes pain, adjust. Pain is a message, not a milestone.
5) What is your breath doing?
Your breath tells the truth.
If you lose it in a pose, something needs to shift.
Find the version where your breath can move easily – that’s your alignment.
6) Sthira sukham asanam
Remember the asana advice we get from the Yoga Sutras – our asanas should be steady and comfortable or steady and sweet. If our alignment ideas conflict with this advice, are they useful?
Yoga myths to reconsider
I want to wrap up with three more yoga myths that could use addressing. These are not necessarily alignment based, but can influence our ideas and our teaching of alignment:
1) Your back hurts because of poor alignment, a weak core, poor posture, poor breathing.
Back pain is complex, and most cases do not entirely rely on any of these factors. We know this because people with very strong core muscles have back pain. People with so-called ‘terrible posture’ have no back pain. Our tendency to want to be able to control outcomes is at the heart of this idea that if we just stand ‘right’ and keep our core strong we won’t be plagued by back pain. I’ll mention a great resource on this topic in the notes.
2) Yoga heals back pain.
Yoga has lots of benefits, including for many people helping to manage back pain. But it isn’t a ‘cure all’ and doesn’t help everyone’s back pain. The current data shows that yoga is just as helpful as pretty much any other form of movement for helping with back pain. So, yes, yoga can be helpful, but so can lifting, swimming, dancing, walking, or many other movement forms – and none rely on a set of rigid alignment rules to be effective.
3) Biomedical Miracles:
There is a history in Modern Postural Yoga of pseudoscientific ideas about the benefits of poses. Examples include things like Shoulderstand is good for your thyroid, twists ‘wring out’ your organs, hot yoga detoxifies your body, you should never do inversions on your period. None of these are true, and getting alignment ‘right’ is not going to make them true. Stick to evidence-based guidance on the practice, and the (many) benefits of the practice.
In closing
If you’ve never heard any of these ideas or myths, it’s because yoga is evolving. Thanks to a greater understanding of movement science, and lots of research and inquiry, we are moving into a different place in yoga – with more focus on accessibility, understanding of unique body designs and proportion, and learning to adapt poses to each individual, rather than adapting the individual to the pose.
I’m not dismissing yoga alignment altogether. I am interested in alignment and particularly interested in the idea that if we can let go of right/wrong thinking when it comes to alignment, it frees us up to listen to our bodies, get creative, and adapt poses to each unique human.
Could that be the safest alignment?
To me, if I’m going to talk about ‘safe alignment’ as a universal idea, it’s the alignment that considers the individual. Adapting the pose to the body rather than adapting the body to the pose.
So, that’s a lot of thoughts. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on your own journey with alignment, so please do share in the comments below.
For now, a reminder that I have a few resources in the comments for folks who speak to yoga alignment, movement science, and biomechanics that you might find really useful.
And, to close, a class reading.
Yoga class reading: What are you aligning with?
There is no single right or wrong way for your body to be in a yoga pose.
Sometimes, alignment cues can draw us so far into rules and shapes that we forget to notice what’s really happening -right now – in our own bodies, our breath, and our minds.
Instead of getting caught up in lines and angles, consider a different kind of alignment:
Aligning your breath with your movement.
Aligning your choices with your needs in this moment.
Aligning your actions with your values.
Aligning your progress with your own intentions, rather than someone else’s measure.
This practice is not about fitting into an ideal. It’s about coming into harmony with yourself, here and now.
Thank you all for being here with me to talk about yoga alignment. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Cool Resources:
Jules Mitchell Science of Stretching http://www.julesmitchell.com/
Jenni Rawlings https://jennirawlings.com/
Katy Bowman https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/
Paul Ingraham/Pain Science https://www.painscience.com/
Greg Lehman http://www.greglehman.ca/blog