I Love Anatomy – SRL

ILA Lesson 1: Standing Poses – SRL

Standing Poses are Grounding

(For more, read Anatomy and Asana, pages 48-57)

Standing Poses are powerfully grounding. With one or two feet on the ground, they can move the body in all sorts of directions. As a group of poses, they tie together the delicious qualities of backbends, the graciousness of forward bends, the delight of twitsts, and the lightness that imbues inversions. Standing Poses are powerful, yet the subtly connect parts of the body from the spine outward - from the spine, into the pelvis, legs and feet and from the spine into the shoulder girdle and out to the arms and hands. In doing so, not only do they train us for all the other yoga asanas, they also train us for our most day-to-day activities including standing still, walking, bending forward, sitting down, and standing back up again.

Your Feet: The Common Factor to All Standing Poses

Your feet are the punctuation to your posture, they are the contact with the ground and the connection to the earth. Not only do they bear our weight; if our posture is slumped or imbalanced, the forces downward will be that much greater, and the stress imposed will make the feet that much tighter. The effects will be felt further up the chain.

There is much we can do for our feet which will make them suppler, stronger and in turn make our posture freer and more stable. By posture I mean both our yoga asanas and our day-to-day posture.

To begin, we need to remember that the feet are a combination of bones, muscles and fascia. We can group the muscles into:

  1. Muscles which attach solely to the bones of the foot. (see Figure 1)
  2. Muscles which attach to the bones of the foot and/or the tibia and fibula. (see Figure 2)

Standing Pose

The peroneals (lateral side of the shin, also known as fibulari), the tibialis anterior, extensor digitorum and extensor hallucis (anterior side of the shin), the gastrocnemius and soleus (posterior side of the shin) and the tibialis posterior (between the fibula and tibia) are all muscles that attach to the foot bones and above the ankle on the fibula and/or tibia).

Soften and strengthen the feet. Your posture and your practice will love you for it.

Standing Pose2

But there is More!

Yes, the feet do indeed punctuate our posture. AND....the hips provide stability so that we don't dump into our feet. If we don't have adequate pelvic stability than our weight has a tendency to fall into our feet, creating tightness and shortness in the myofascia in the foot and calf myofascia.

Stand in Tadasana. Bend your knees slightly. Place your hands on the outside of your legs. Press your legs into your hands. Now, look down at your ankles and feet as you do this. Can you see the position of your feet change as you move your legs into abduction? This will happen if you tend toward pronation. Why I think this is cool: Your arch position is highly impacted by your hip stability, and your hips are highly impacted by your arch position. Impact both by improving the mechanics of your hips.

Tadasana

Tadasana is the mountain of all yoga asanas. Strong and steady in the feet, stable in movement.

Anatomy: In Tadasana, your postural muscles are contracting isometrically. There is nothing to release, there is nothing to do. Just be. Just be aware.

Exploration: Stand in your Tadasana. Feel your feet on the ground, each individual toe, and sense your legs, your pelvis, torso, shoulder girdle, arms and head. Staying aware, close your eyes. Now that you don’t have vision to balance you, where are you finding your ground? Through tension, though weight moving backward, forward, sideways, or with a slight twist? Just observe. Notice your tendencies. Open your eyes.

Virabhadrasana 1

Virabhadrasana 1 explores the legs moving in the pelvis.

Anatomy: From Tadasana, whether you step back or out to the side, the movement into Virabhadrasana 1 is all about how the femurs move in the pelvis.

Exploration: Stand in your Tadasana. Feel your feet on the ground, each individual toe, and sense your legs, your pelvis, torso, shoulder girdle, arms and head. Step back into Vira 1, keeping your pelvis square. You may need a mirror for this to truly see what you are doing.

Vrksasana

Vrksasana is the basic of basic balance poses. Steady in the standing leg, allow for ease and stability to be evoked in the pelvis and torso.

Anatomy: The movement of your femur in your hip is the most important component of this asana. You’ll be externally rotating and slightly abducting the femur and then adducting the femur to place the foot on the standing leg. Be sure that your pelvis stays square and your SI, back and knees will love you for it.

Exploration: Stand in your Tadasana. Lift the leg into your Vrksasana. How much did your pelvis move? Were you able to move the leg bone easily and freely into the pose, or did you have to hike your hip?

Garudasana

Garudasana takes balance to a whole new level. Be aware of the pelvis and watch yourself fly.

Anatomy: The connection of your hip, knee and ankle; the connection of your adductors and external rotators and abductors; and the connection of your shoulder girdle and arms are all important and necessary in this asana. Without these connections, knee and ankle pain can occur, excessive belly tightening, gripping in the back and breath holding can occur.

Exploration: Stand in your Tadasana. Lift on leg up, adduct it across your body and slightly internally rotate the femur – (Check in – How much did your pelvis move)? Hook the lower leg around the shin of the standing leg. Check in with your knee. If there is pain – you have gone too far. Check back in with your hips. Have they moved? Now, complete the pose with your arms.

What did your pelvis do in this pose? How about the back half of your pelvic floor?

Virabhadrasana 3

Virabhadrasana 3 helps you explore your balance.

Anatomy: Your hip and pelvic stability continue to be the most important components of this asana. If you are unstable in your pelvis, you will either fall over, or compensate somewhere else.

Exploration: Stand in your Tadasana. Begin to tip forward. Think of your hips as the fulcrum, and you are a teeter-totter.

Virabhadrasana 2

Virabhadrasana 2 is a great exploration of a movement so rarely done in day-to-day life.

Anatomy: This is a great preparation for Triangle because of the mechanics of the leg bones in the pelvis, and the orientation of the pelvis to the spine and legs.

Exploration: Stand in your Tadasana. After stepping wide, move your legs in the hip sockets. Your pelvis will move a little bit, so try not to square it. Now, can you lower keeping all the pieces in a stable and easeful relationship?

Trikonasana

Trikonasana demands pure movement, or else! Feel the strength in the legs, fluidity in the hips, and ease in the torso.

Anatomy: Your hip and pelvic stability are the most important components of this asana. To improve hip and pelvic stability think about improving the “authenticity of the movement”. Be sure the hip movement is pure, and move in your pain free range of motion. By not moving at your hips, you can create a whole host of issues in your SI Joints, Back, Knees, Spine.

Exploration: Stand in your Tadasana. Feel your feet on the ground, each individual toe, and sense your legs, your pelvis, torso, shoulder girdle, arms and head. Now step into your preparation for triangle pose. As you move into the pose – are you leading with your hips, your arms, your head or your rib cage? As you continue to move into Trikonasana, are you in your legs, or are you hanging off your knee?

Utthita Parsvakonasana

Utthita Parsvakonasana is gorgeous when done with pure movement and building strength on ease.

Anatomy: On some levels, this is an extension of Trikonasana. Again, the hip and pelvic stability are crucial for completing this asana with strength, ease and pizzazz! You want balance between your hip abductors, adductors on the same side, and between your hip abductors on both sides (contralateral), and between you abductors on one side and the adductors on the other side. To achieve this – move in your pure range of motion, and keep ease in your feet and toes.

Exploration: Stand in your Tadasana. Now step into your preparation for Utthita Parsvakonasana. As you move into the pose – what are you leading with? Are you in your legs, are you connected to your legs and hips in relationship to your torso?

C.Lee   Great breakdown of the biomechanics for these poses, which I love to have because they are both challenging and rewarding. Thanks!

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Susi Hately   Super.

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Wanda M   I continue to be hyper aware of just how much I have been compensating in my movement. I tend to lean on focusing on the stance. Meaning as someone with long limbs I feel like I should always have a wider, longer stance in standing poses and more flexible movement. Understanding the biomechanics of movement has changed my world. This is not something I was taught in my anatomy portion of my yoga training. So so happy I am doing this course. :)

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Susi Hately   Fabulous Wanda, really good work!

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Mallory Guenther   I continue to discover a whole new relationship between my mind and my body through these subtle yet profound movements. Working through this course alongside the Fundamentals of Yoga Therapy is bringing a new light to the way I look at movement and how it is structurally supported in the body. This course is affirming why hands on assists never felt right for me. I am seeing more and more the difference between this idea of how the shape 'should look' and how it is structurally established to create the desired function and expression of each shape and movement. I am excited to work with small groups again when things open up again and will take this into my private sessions for practice. I am also witnessing a shift in the relationship between my mind, body and emotions. I am discovering a deeper awareness of the intricacies in my movement patterns, especially in my hips, there is so much more freedom in my mobility from practicing these subtle shifts. Overall I am having a lot of fun! Thank you for this work. I am excited to continue the exploration.

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Susi Hately   Super Mallory!!
I also want to offer you another view on hands on. Your hands can become guides, teaching tools rather than "assists" or "adjustments". Not that we can touch right away, but they can be very powerful teaching opportunities.

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Alison Duncan   I am discovering and learning so much from your tools. I am really understanding the connections through my body so much more. I am noticing so many things that I hadn't been aware of before which is continuing to help me through my own personal healing process.
I have come from a place of physical pain and lack of mobility and the knowledge you share is really helping me to realise I often pushed through these things to get into a pose rather than truly understanding the best way to access the benefits of an asana for me. Truly so glad I joined this course and looking forward to being able to help others with this knowledge and understanding too.

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Susi Hately   Very cool Alison. Well don on the practice.
Well done.

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Charlotte Huggins   This is all great self inquiry and reinforcement of principles which I “know” or thought that I did. The most enlightening posture was Garudasana which I did in front of a full length mirror and sure enough, to hook the foot, I needed to corkscrew through my pelvis. With pure movement, my femurs do don’t have the range of inward rotation to perform the pose fully atm. I am finding that I as I unravel the physical patterning I am unravelling mental ones too. Playing around with the warriors I experienced an emotional letting go too but only later on when I was walking across the fields. Also good news: my hip pain is diminishing too.

Posted 4 years ago  Reply

Endri   Hi Susi, these are great! I never knew just HOW much I've been compensating - especially in Garudasana. There has been a huge shift happening for me - and I never realised that Warrior 2 is probably a much more complicated pose than Warrior 1! This is the first time I've played with Warrior 1 and square hips - as I understood from previous trainings that it is just anatomically impossible to do Warrior 1 with square hips - so I always focused more about where initiation of movement came from. But I guess the reason I was taught that way is because we almost always went into Warrior 1 from Warrior 2. So this has been a great revelation. So just so I understand correctly - if you step back with square hips and play with the foot position - the pelvis will 'tell' you where the foot should be - when the pelvis cannot stay square anymore you are at the end of your range in the hip socket.
Another big revelation has been Dandasana, I've learnt to flush out / back the sitting bones - which I realised a while ago is just tilting the pelvis forward. So I always had students who were tight in the backline sit higher up on bolsters etc - but always flushing the sit bones out. I now realise that it causes a greater lordosis in the lumbar spine and putting more pressure in the spine - just to relieve the muscles in the backline. Thank you for your guidance - I am slowly working my way through these and am making lots of discoveries!

Posted 3 years ago  Reply