Reading a Pose

A four-question method for meeting an unfamiliar shape and working out what it wants, without waiting to be told.

This is what separates copying a picture from doing a pose, and it takes about ten seconds once you know the questions.

Question one: what is the base?

Which parts of me are on the floor, and what are they doing?

Every pose has a base — the contact points that everything else is organised around. Find them first, before anything else.

• Two feet: the three points on each foot, pressing down, arch lifted.
• One foot: the same, plus the outer hip of that leg firming to hold the pelvis level.
• Hands and feet: spread the fingers, press through the base of the index finger, distribute the weight.
• Sitting bones: both on the ground, evenly, pelvis upright.
• Shoulders and upper arms: as in shoulderstand — pressing down, taking weight out of the neck.
• Forearms: pressing down, elbows not splaying.

Almost every failure in a pose is a base failure, and it is the first thing to check when something feels wrong. If the base is not established, nothing above it can be.

Question two: what direction is the spine going?

There are only four: flexion (rounding forward), extension (arching back), rotation (twisting), and lateral bend (sideways). Most poses combine two.

Identify which, and then ask where in the spine it should be happening.

• Rotation belongs in the mid-back. The lower back has almost none and should not be forced to provide it.
• Extension should be distributed along the whole spine, not hinged at the lower back.
• Flexion, in a forward fold, should mostly be the pelvis tipping rather than the spine rounding.
• Lateral bend should be long on both sides — the compressed side lengthening too, not collapsing.

Knowing the direction tells you where the sensation should be and where it should not.

Question three: what is the intended stretch, and what is the intended work?

Every pose has both, and confusing them is why poses do not do anything.

The stretch: which tissue is meant to lengthen. Usually obvious from the shape.

The work: which muscles are meant to be contracting. Usually not obvious, and usually the thing that makes the pose worth doing.

In Warrior II, the stretch is minimal and the work is the outer hip of the front leg and the whole back leg. In Triangle, the stretch is the side body and hamstring, and the work is both legs and the rotation of the chest. In a supported backbend, there is no work at all — and if there is, you have propped it wrong.

The test: if you cannot name what is working, you are probably hanging in the shape rather than doing it. Find the work.

Question four: what will go wrong first?

Every pose has a characteristic failure, and it appears under fatigue. Predict it and you can prevent it.

The common ones:

• Front knee collapsing inward in any lunge or Warrior.
• Outer edge of the back foot lifting in Triangle and the Warriors.
• Lower back rounding in any forward fold.
• Lower back over-arching in any backbend or arms-overhead shape.
• Ribs flaring whenever the arms go up.
• Shoulders shrugging in anything weight-bearing.
• Pelvis tipping in any asymmetric hip pose.
• Head dropping or craning in almost everything.
• Breath stopping in anything hard.

Pick the one likeliest for the shape in front of you and watch for it at breath five, which is when it arrives.

Running the method

In an unfamiliar pose:

1. Set the base. Whatever is on the floor, press it down and organise it.
2. Identify the spinal direction and put the movement in the right region.
3. Find what should be working, and work it.
4. Predict the failure and hold against it.
5. Breathe. If the breath will not settle, back off until it does.

Ten seconds, and you are doing the pose rather than standing in an approximation of it.

Two useful habits

Compare sides deliberately. Do the second side with attention on what was harder on the first. Asymmetry is information, and it is the fastest route to knowing your own body.

Come out slowly. How you exit tells you whether the range was yours. If you can only leave a shape by collapsing out of it, you were being held there by gravity rather than holding yourself.

When the method says stop

Three answers mean come out rather than adjust:

A hard, blocked feeling at a joint. Bone contact. It will not change and forcing it damages cartilage. Change the shape — widen the stance, alter the angle, use a prop.

Sharp, burning, or electrical sensation. Never productive. Out immediately.

The breath will not settle. Whatever the shape looks like, it is past your working edge today.

Everything else — the broad dull pull of a muscle at length, the effort of a muscle working hard — is the pose doing its job.