Defining Alignment

• Alignment refers to how the body is placed when practicing a pose.
• It often refers to the outer body: bones, muscles, feet, arms, head, etc.
• It may also refer to the inner body such as organs.
• Typically, the goal of alignment is to move and explore in healthy, functional, safe ways, and to avoid injury.
• Breath is an intimate aspect in placing the body.
• With excellent alignment, the practitioner may feel prana flowing optimally.

Relation Between Inner & Outer Body

Instructions regarding alignment express relationships and set the shape of the pose, the vessel within which the alchemy of yogic action takes place… On a subtler level, alignment extends to the relation between inner and outer body—most specifically, how harmoniously the movement of the breath or prana as an expression of mind and intention complements the posture. If breath and body are in conflict, your practice is missing the kind of inner alignment that really counts, regardless of how your posture appears outwardly. – Doug Keller, Hatha Yoga in the Anusara Style Third Edition

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Beauty = Anatomically Functional

If alignment is our focus, what we view as “beautiful” then becomes what is anatomically functional… When we see photographs of models hunching or knocking their knees, our first thought may not be admiration, but rather, That looks like it hurts! Our aspiration becomes not to look a certain way, but to be able to move our bones along their intended lines. – Amber Burke, Yoga International, The Pros and Cons of an Alignment-Focused Practice

Teaching People vs Poses

• There is no one way for individual students to practice and perfect a pose.
• What is helpful for one person is not helpful to another, and in fact, can be counterproductive.
• The way an individual can optimally approach asana varies according to her experience level, body and bone structure, stage in life, injuries and conditions, etc.
• Therefore, no alignment cues apply to every person all the time.

Being Unique is What’s Normal

We teach because we want to share what we’ve learned—and gained—from the practice of yoga. But frequent corrections aren’t without risk. They can leave students with the impression that they need fixing, that there’s something wrong with their bodies or lacking in their abilities. The truth is, no two bodies are the same. To put it another way, no one’s downdog will look exactly like anyone else’s. “There is no single normal,” [Leslie] Kaminoff insists. “Being unique is what’s normal.” – Anna Dubrovsky, Yoga International, 3 Reasons to Curb Corrections in Yoga Class

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Our Journey May Not Apply

As teachers, we need to be mindful that we are observing patterns in our students on multiple levels. In addition to seeing their bodies in motion, we have our own patterns to be aware of. How stuck are we on our way of seeing a particular posture? Can we acknowledge that our journey through a posture may not apply to a particular student? How much are we imposing our pattern on our students? Are we doing this consciously or unconsciously? Are we dogmatic about a particular approach? Have we applied generalizations about a posture to someone who is the exception? – David Keil, Functional Anatomy of Yoga 2014 pgs 237-238

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One Medicine

Alignment is important! Proper alignment reduces stress in the joints and protects them from dynamically moving into hypermobility, where injury may occur. Good alignment may build architectural stability, minimize muscular effort and allow a student to safely linger in a posture. It would be very nice if every posture had alignment cues that worked for every body, and if one medicine would cure every body of cancer. But the reality of human variation teaches us that life is not so idyllic. We are all different, and what works for one person is not guaranteed to work for another. – Bernie Clark, Your Body, Your Yoga 2016 p 98

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Use the Pose to Get into your Body

The genetic lottery of inheritance plays a far bigger role in determining alignment, flexibility, and our capacity for performing the most acrobatic or extreme yoga postures than most practitioners believe… Some rank beginners wander into a yoga class and pull off a deep backbend pose… on their first day–while some lifetime yogis simply cannot. When you realize everybody’s alignment is unique, your yoga practice shifts. You stop seeing the poses as idealized linear shapes that you try to achieve, but as tools for learning and moving towards a deeper level of self-understanding and acceptance. Rather than making corrections, you start making more energetic connections.  You no longer use your body to get into a pose, but instead use the pose to get into your body. In every yogi, in every asana, bone eventually comes into contact with bone, and no yoga teacher in the world… will get you any deeper. At that point, whether or not you’ve achieved an asana worthy of the cover of next month’s issue of the Yoga Journal is determined almost entirely by the shape of your bones, your genetics. – Johnny Kest, Lifetime Fitness, The 5 Myths of Alignment in Yoga

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Re-imagining Alignment

The Claim: Yoga Poses Don’t Have Alignment. Come again? This contradicts most of what most yoga teachers are taught in training—to look at the alignment of asanas intrinsically, breaking down each posture and then asking students (as a class) to build the pose from the foundation up. In other words, Warrior I has this alignment, Warrior II has that alignment, and so on and so forth through the entire syllabus of yoga poses. Kaminoff is attempting to change the conversation, though, by asking us to reimagine alignment as entirely based on the individual performing the pose. That is, “never say never” when teaching asana. – Meagan McCrary, Yoga Journal, Leslie Kaminoff: Asanas Don’t Have Alignment

No Right and No Wrong, Either?

• When the perspective that there is no one right way to do an asana is being expressed, a typical related point is that alignment approaches that may be considered “right” by some would not be at all right for others with particular body types or conditions, for instance.
• Considering this topic from a different angle, Jenni Rawlings suggests that there are also no “wrong” ways to practice.
• Rawlings expresses that this is a more empowering approach. Of course, there are ways of teachings poses that carry a lesser likelihood of risk than others. And as in the quote below, Rawlings point is more likely about the words we use to evaluate whether a movement is best for this student at this time, and how we express desired action rather than any advocacy to not teach safely.

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Is Your Body Adapted for this Movement?

We are often taught that there are ways the body can move that are inherently bad for us. We’re told that these movements will cause damage, “wear and tear,” or imbalance in the body, which will inevitably lead to pain and discomfort… While this perspective is certainly well-meaning, it is missing some key insights about the body that recent science has revealed to us. Instead of asking whether a movement is good or bad, a more nuanced and helpful question is: Are one’s tissues adapted to withstand the load of a particular movement? When we approach movement from this perspective, it becomes clear that there are no inherently bad movements—there are simply movements whose loads our bodies are not currently adapted to handle.  – Jenni Rawlings, Yoga International, Are Some Movements Inherently Bad?