by Gemma Delaney

Achieve body-soul harmony as your right foot turns out 90 degrees, aligning your thigh parallel to the mat, and keeping your knee from crossing your ankle. This evolutionary yoga journey is not merely a sequence of challenging physical maneuvers – it goes beyond the physical to hit the trifecta of a wholesome life: a balanced body, steady breathing, and a focused mind. However, body posture guidance forms just a sliver of this yoga alignment adventure.

‘Alignment connects every cell in your body to a wholesome awareness,’ expresses a highly acclaimed Iyengar yoga expert. ‘Bringing physicality, breath control, and mental stability in harmony to completely embody the pose paves the path to finding alignment.’

Experiencing the Power of Alignment

It is a moment of pure exhilaration when you can lose yourself completely in a pose, feeling firmly anchored to the earth as though invincible or open and expansive, throbbing with vitality. What unfolds is a celestial dance of your body, mind, and emotions in perfect rhythm with each other and your surroundings. This encapsulates the real essence of yoga, the art of ‘uniting’.

Deepening the Yoga Experience

To further mystify your yoga journey, our expert recommends focusing on three core areas – the physical body, the rhythm of your breath, and the direction of your gaze – and embrace the basic perk of all yoga poses – the mountain pose or tadasana.

A Perfect Mountain Pose

Grounding yourself in the mountain pose is the stepping stone to a rewarding yoga journey. Familiarizing yourself with the physical cues for tadasana while maintaining a mindful awareness of your back body can be a game-changer. Shedding the rigid ‘bootcamp stance’ — chest out and shoulders back could lead to unnecessary back stress and a compromised respiratory mechanism. Therefore, keeping your lower belly, groins, and back of knees softened in tadasana is advised.

Aligning knees over ankles, pelvis over knees, staying grounded through your feet, acknowledging the subtle lifts in your spine as you inhale, and exhale while keeping your body loose and relaxed ensures a perfect mountain pose.

Balance Breath with Body

The second aspect is synchronizing your breath with your body in rhythm. To get this right, practice the recommended five-minute exercise. Start with an exhalation, connect the pelvic floor muscles to a light lift, expand with a normal inhalation. Focus on a spot below your navel, and while exhaling, visualize a line to your back body that follows your breath. Repeat the same from your solar plexus and throat area, finally evolving to the point where your entire body breathes rhythmically.

Focus your Gaze

The final aspect of alignment is your gaze or dristi. The importance of fixing your gaze at a point in front of you, like in a tree pose, isn’t just for physical balance. The paradoxical nexus of ‘no mind’ is reached when your eyes find a place to rest. The dristi technique funnels your consciousness inward away from the distractions around you, aiding focus and tranquillity.

In a mountain pose or tadasana, your gaze should be fixed on the floor, a few meters in front of you. Exploring the difference this makes to your experience of the pose can be rather transformative. By familiarizing with the vital three aspects of alignment— your body, breath, and mind—you unite yourself.

Says our yoga expert, ‘Practicing in this holistic manner gives you a sensation of returning home and finding your place in the world. One experiences a spontaneous state of concentrated quietness, feeling very present in your body and mind, yet feeling very light at the same time.’

Embrace the power of alignment and take your yoga journey a notch higher on this mindful highway to wellness.

yoga alignment, body-soul harmony, body posture, yogic breathing body, mountain pose – tadasana, focused mind, yogic breathing techniques, Iyengar yoga, yoga experience, mindfulness, tranquillity