From the Ground Up
Establishing a strong, even foundation in your yoga poses will go a long way toward improving your alignment in yoga postures.
In Knoff Yoga we learn that all yoga poses can be understood and practised correctly by applying the Principles of Practice. It does not matter which pose you are practising – whether it is complex and challenging, relatively easy, or even if it is the very first time you have done the yoga pose, the Principles of Practice assist your understanding so you can correctly practise the posture. For example: in Utthita Trikonasana (Extended Triangle Pose), you do not need 108 instructions to be able to execute it well if you apply the Principles of Practice.
The very first Principle that we establish in our poses is the Foundation. Knoff Yoga describes Foundation like this:
“The part(s) of the body which make contact with the ground (floor or yoga mat), which distributes the weight of the body onto the ground – the basis on which the asana stands. For example, the feet in Tadasana (Mountain Pose), or the hands in Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand), or both the feet and the hands in Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Dog). The Foundation is the support for the superstructure of the rest of the body. With a weak foundation the superstructure can never be solid and the rebounding energy from the earth will not be able to rise effectively.”
I would like to add a little more to this definition and take it one step further. If you look carefully at the description you will notice that there is an important element of Foundation which has been left out. Do you know what it is? It is the surface that the Foundation rests on.
Allow me to clarify, for our Foundation to be evenly distributed onto the ground and therefore our body weight to be evenly distributed in the posture, the actual surface of the ground or floor will also need to be even and level. As well as this, the floor surface also needs to be quite firm. If the surface we are practising on is too soft or spongy then the muscles have to work so much harder to keep the pose balanced. If your muscles are working harder, you will become tired more quickly and will be less able to perform the pose skilfully. Also imagine if you were doing the yoga pose on a bumpy or slanting surface. Tricky.
Expressed as an equation Foundation would be:
Supporting body parts + even firm floor surface = solid foundation.
This equation will work as long as the supporting body parts are doing their necessary work. Doing the necessary work will develop strength in the supporting limbs. I will cover this in another article, suffice to say for now that this is covered in other Principles of Practice.
When we first start yoga as a beginner, establishing a reasonable foundation is fairly straight forward. The yoga studio will more than likely have an even floor with a mat. Generally, the majority of poses that we learn in a Beginners class are usually done on at least two body parts – two feet in standing poses, maybe two hands and feet or two hands and knees in other poses.
As we develop in our practice and are ready to tackle more challenging poses, establishing a good foundation can often become quite a bit more challenging.
The importance of having all of the supporting limbs pressing evenly into the floor recently came up in one of the classes that I teach. The pose that presented the challenge was Trianga Mukhaikapada Pascimottanasana – or the Three Limb Stretch.
In this seated forward bend one leg is bent in close to the hip in hero pose whilst the other leg extends forward. In many people, due to the flesh of the thighs and calves, and tightness in the quad or hip of the bent leg, what will often happen is that one hip sits easily on the floor whilst the other hip sits slightly up away from the floor. This results in the whole body weight being tilted over to one side. The more you reach forward the more you lean over, sometimes even falling over to the side completely.
This is the challenge of the pose and one of the reasons why in Knoff Yoga, it is considered an Intermediate posture. Even though the hip on one side of the body is lifting we still do our utmost to ground it back into the floor. This takes patience and practice. The work that we do with the Foundation postures will prepare us for the work that is necessary in the Intermediate postures. (Are you beginning to notice a pattern? A good Foundation in the poses and Foundation level poses).
Back to Three Limb Stretch and our lean; in order to help you understand this in your own body, stand on two feet; now keeping your body firm and legs together, lean over to the right so that all of your weight transfers onto the right foot and the left foot is slightly lifted from the floor in the air. You can feel that if you continue to lean over then eventually you are going to fall. This is essentially what happens in the three limb stretch. In this pose we continue to ground our lifted hip toward the floor. Try that now; still leaning over to the right, reach your left foot firmly toward the floor, without actually touching the floor. You can probably feel how that helps you to maintain your balance. However, in the three limb stretch because of the muscular bulk of the thigh and calf, amongst other things, for a while we may be unable to put the lifting hip back on the floor.
Many teachers of yoga feel that this lean is unacceptable and have various ways that they can counteract it. In many yoga classes the teacher will insist that everybody use a prop to bring the body weight back to the centre so that the pose is easier to perform. To do this they will support the hip that is on the ground with a prop, usually a folded blanket or small bolster, to lift the hip level with the one that is not on the ground.
This use of yoga props addresses the immediate concern; the lean, but it does not address the underlying issues, weakness or tightness in the body that are causing the problem.
During my class, I suggested to the students that if they were using a prop to prevent them from leaning too precariously to one side, that they were to place the prop under both hips, as opposed to just the one.
A student in the class who normally goes to another teacher immediately commented. They said that having the folded blankets under both hips did not make it any easier to do the pose. The student said that when they have the yoga prop under one side only it was easier to keep the lifted hip down. That is true, it is easier, but it does not address the underlying issues causing the problem. Of course I wasn’t asking them to use a prop to make it easier, we were using props to assist us in understanding the importance of an even foundation and grounding into that foundation.
In my own practice, Trianga Mukhaikapada Paschimottanasana (Three Limb Stretch) is one pose where I used to be extremely challenged – to put it bluntly, I have thunder thighs – I would come into the pose, extend forward and promptly fall over to the side. One day my teacher, Nicky Knoff, suggested I put a rolled bath towel under both of my hips and to work forward from there, whilst grounding backward and down.
The rolled towel helped to lift both hips to the point where I was no longer falling to the side. Then as I came forward my teacher would press into the crease of the hip of the leg that was in hero pose. She would press firmly down and backward with a slight inward rotation of my bent leg. As she did this I was able to feel which muscles needed to work, which ones needed to release and how to ground backward into my foundation, through both hips. It was in that moment that a light switched on in my head and in my body.
After a week of working this way I was able to come off of my prop and work on the floor. No longer did I fall to the side. My hip still lifted the smallest fraction but now my muscles knew how to work. I was able to practise the pose and maintain a good foundation – without a prop and without leaning.
This is the correct use of yoga props – you use props to help you understand the actions in your body that need to occur to address your physical imbalances. If we place the yoga prop under one side of our foundation only, then we do not address the underlying cause of the problem. If we were to come back to our example I gave earlier when we were standing, by placing the prop on one side it would be similar to standing just on that one leg with the other leg in the air. This time however the body weight would be centred, yet what has happened to our foundation? Putting a prop under one standing leg is not going to get the other leg to the floor and in fact if we did put the other leg on the floor than we would have over-corrected and created another set of issues to deal with.
In Trianga Mukhaikapada Paschimottanasana, by placing the prop – either a rolled towel or a folded blanket under both hips, we essentially raise the level of the floor. This counteracts the tightness of the bent leg hip but it also allows us to work evenly into our foundation on both sides of the body. Only with a solid, strong and grounded foundation can the superstructure be sound.
The next time your teacher suggests for you to use a prop on one side of your base of support and not the other, ask yourself what you would really gain by doing so. Is it enough for the pose to feel easier, or do you want to address the causes of the problem? What would be the more intelligent way to work?
Yoga props are an essential learning tool and invaluable in yoga therapy, yet once we no longer need the prop we should work toward full independent expression of the pose.
An afterthought: by no means should you use this article to be rude or challenging to your teacher!
Reader Comments
are yoga props effective?
Thanks for visiting and reading Eileen.
In many cases yoga props are very effective. They can help create good alignment and understanding of the work that needs to happen in the body to create good alignment. My philosophy in the use of props is: if you need them use them, if you don’t then don’t use them. Another way to think of it is: would you continue to use crutches once your broken leg is healed?
I will use props if necessary or as a learning tool in my classes, but generally I prefer not to use them, and I encourage my students not to use them.