The Truth about Alignment

Whether or not you like to flow is no longer the most divisive topic in yoga. It is whether or not you practice with alignment.

Here is a recent blog post. I am not joking:

“I’m not interested in your dead guru’s alignment rules.”

And then it had pages of commentary about how awful it is to impose rules on a practice that is meant to re-wild your spirit. Or something like that.

So here’s the good, the bad and the ugly truth about alignment.

The Good:

Alignment is a way of doing a yoga pose putting all the body parts together so that it feels good and it might heal what ails you. If it doesn’t feel good, then you adjust until it does. It provides a framework to keep your body safe and strong. This, in turn, allows your practice to grow.

The Bad:

There are rules about where things go, and sometimes the rules don’t work for a person. A good teacher knows when to adjust the system to fit the student. A less-experienced teacher might try to make the student fit the form of the pose. That never works, and it gives alignment a bad name.

Understanding alignment from either Iyengar or Anusara yoga can take a lifetime of study and dedication, and sometimes teachers make it more complicated than it needs to be. This leaves students confused. I honestly think that being able to take something complicated and making it simple should be the goal.

Then there is the shaming. Someone is always telling me the right and wrong way to do a pose. I am highly suspicious of the people who have all the answers. I seem to know less and less as time goes by.

The Ugly Truth

You might be able to practice yoga without any form or structure and dance your way to enlightenment. Or, you might practice a pose just once out of alignment and end up at the orthopedist’s office. Luck has something to do with that, and getting old.

By all means, don’t impose my dead guru’s rules on your practice. But if you do get hurt, or bored, or old, you can give alignment a try. Even if you hate it, at least you would know what you are talking about the next time you complain about it on the internet.

Michelle Marchildon is the Yogi Muse. She is the author of four books on yoga and life and teaches mobility and yoga in Denver, Colorado.