I want to talk about the poses we rush through.
You know the ones. Mountain Pose, held for about four seconds before the teacher moves on. Child’s Pose, taken as a quick rest between harder shapes. Downward Dog, used as a hallway between here and there.
I’ve been guilty of this too, as a practitioner and as a teacher. There’s a pull toward the impressive poses. But the longer I practice, the more I return to the same conclusion: the foundational poses aren’t where you start. They’re where you arrive.
Tadasana — Mountain Pose
It looks like standing. It is standing. And it contains every alignment principle in the practice.
Grounding through all four corners of each foot. Lifting the arches. Engaging the quadriceps without locking the knees. Neutral hips. Lengthening the spine without rigidity. Softening the shoulders without collapsing. Chin parallel to the floor, crown of the head floating up.
None of this is passive. Tadasana is active engagement from the ground up, which is why every standing pose traces back to it. Tree Pose, Warrior I, Triangle — they all become clearer once you understand what you’re standing on.
Child’s Pose — Balasana
The most underestimated pose in yoga. People take it — they just don’t take it seriously. There’s a difference.
Child’s Pose is not a rest. It’s a return. And those are not the same thing.
A rest is passive — you stop doing the thing. A return is active — you come back to something.
Knees wide, big toes touching, hips settling back toward the heels. Arms extended, forehead heavy on the floor. Breath moving into the back body, the ribcage expanding behind you.
And then — you come back. To the weight of your own body, to the rhythm of your breath, to the feeling of being held by the floor. Five full breaths. Time to actually arrive in it.
Downward Dog
Everyone does it. Very few people are comfortable in it. And most of us are doing something in it that limits how useful it can be.
The most common pattern: straining for the floor with straight legs, which rounds the spine and dumps weight into the wrists. The fix isn’t complicated — bend the knees. A long spine matters more than straight legs. Every time.
Hands wide, fingers spread, hips high. Bend the knees as much as you need to. Let the spine be the priority — long and decompressed, shoulder blades wide and flat.
The heels on the floor are optional. The long spine is not.
We tend to measure progress in yoga by what we can do. The arm balance. The backbend. The pose that gets the reaction. Our egos love a milestone. But the longer you practice, the more you realize that the impressive poses are built on the quiet ones.
When we slow down, every pose becomes interesting. Mountain Pose isn’t just standing. Child’s Pose isn’t just a rest. Downward Dog isn’t just a hallway. Attention changes everything — including the poses we thought we already knew.
Three things I’m carrying this week
- Practice experiment: Spend three minutes in Child’s Pose tomorrow morning with no goal other than to feel your breath in your back body.
- What I’m reading: The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry. A short poem about returning to stillness. Read it slowly.
- A thought to take with you: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” — Simone Weil
With warmth from Yellowknife,
Amy