Yoga alignment for Full Wheel Pose is anything but simple, but achieving an easeful expression of the posture in your body is most definitely attainable. We just have to break through some of the alignment myths that many teachers have been taught are “correct”.

Let’s quickly discuss the name of this posture because it has many. Wheel Pose is usually translated as “Chakrasana” because it opens ALL the energy centers. The posture is also known as Urdhva Dhanurasana which translates to Upward Facing Bow Pose. Many backbends in the yoga posture are either named Bow or after a type of Bow. Moving forward, I will use any of these names when discussing my suggestions regarding the alignment for full wheel pose.

Debunking the 3 Myths

What you may have been taught is the correct Yoga Alignment for Full Wheel Pose:

Hug your elbows in. Do not activate the glutes. Tuck your tailbone.

These are cues used often to move a student into wheel pose, but are they helpful? I don’t think so.

 Wheel pose, Chakrasana is a very active and advanced pose. It requires extreme flexibility AND strength of the hips, shoulders, and wrists. Flexibility is required along the front body, and strength is required along the back body. The good news is, with disciplined practice and a healthy dose of body awareness, this powerful heart-opening extension pose can be accessible to many.

We need to clear some things up so you can start practicing the best alignment for your full wheel pose. Meaning, you may have some things to UNLEARN before you can dive deeply into your practice. Yoga teachers, please take a breath. You are not a bad teacher if you have said any of the following to your students – we are all in the process of learning and developing our skills as practitioners and teachers. Instead, celebrate that you are here, curious and ready to learn.

What is the best alignment for Chaturanga? First, let’s start with what this pose is. Chaturanga is both a yoga pose and a transition, otherwise known as a movement. A pose implies no movement, while a transition implies movement between two static postures. Because Chaturanga is used as both a static posture and a transition, it’s hard to have a universal conversation about it. We have to first agree on what it is in order to analyze. Globally, there is discussion about chaturanga and yet everyone has a different idea of what it is. Thus, there exists much controversy around correct alignment.

How could there be correct alignment when the posture is usually taught as movement from one pose to another? In modern vinyasa, this pose is used to go from plank to upward dog. In order for a movement to occur, it is a law of biomechanics that joint alignment has to change. If it doesn’t, then no movement can occur. SO, while there are many reasons to practice chaturanga as an isolated pose, that is not how most people are practicing it these days. It would be more useful to discuss how to move our bones and which muscles we can engage if we want a smooth flowing posture that minimizes risk to our joints. 

CONFUSED BY GRAVITY 

While movement is not complex, it can be confusing mostly because of our relationship to gravity. There are only there major joints that change: the elbows go from straight to bent, the arm bones go from being in front to by our side (flexion to neutral), and the shoulder blades go from protraction to retraction (more or less), explained in the video below. If you stand with your arms in front of you and simulate the same actions, there is nothing mysterious or complex, but add the weight of your body and gravity, and now it gets interesting. 

While the joint actions are simply moving from plank toward the ground, the muscle engagements that slow the body down in this transition are actually the OPPOSITE of the joints.  For example, the elbows bend, BUT the muscles that engage in order to resist the movement are actually your triceps. Triceps are the muscles that help to straighten your arm. So as you bend into your elbows, your triceps fight back, keeping you from landing on your face.  We do this all the time in transitions. We activate the opposing muscles of what is happening anatomically in our joints. We even do it in most static postures. How many poses have you done where you feel your quads burn, and yet your knees are bent? The muscles that straighten the knees are the quads, and yet they are fully engaged in bent knee postures so that you don’t land on the ground.

Yoga alignment has long been regarded as a way of keeping our bodies safe, but what is it and is it actually effective and important? Let’s first discuss what alignment is in the physical sense. Alignment is how we choose to hold our bones in relationship to one another in any given shape. The key word there is “choose.” The problem that we have fallen into as a yoga community is that many believe and have preached that their way is the right way to do a posture, claiming it will keep you safe, or simply saying “this is the right way.”

Truth is, there are very few wrong ways to do a posture and hundreds of correct ways. What is correct and incorrect based on? More often than not, it has been based on a shape, an aesthetic that may or may not be appropriate for any one individual. In my opinion, it would be better to focus on developing awareness of what our bodies need in order to find greater balance in the muscular system. I like to look at everything as more of a spectrum rather than an incorrect or correct. This way, if something falls far over on the scale as potentially harmful, I can simply make the decision to avoid it. Take the risk of shoulder impingement when dropping the shoulders in down dog. While it may not be wrong, it’s simply not worth the potential harm to the shoulders. For more clarity, please check out the two blogs below:

1. Stop Relaxing Your Shoulders Away from Your Ears
2. 3 Steps to Avoid Shoulder Impingement in Downward Dog

IS ALIGNMENT IMPORTANT?

Alignment may not be very important if your only concern is the external shape of the pose, or if you want some fancy Instagram photo. HOWEVER, If you use alignment as a way to reflect upon your muscular patterns- i.e. strengths, weaknesses, areas of tension etc.-  then alignment can be a powerful tool in the transformation of your body. Trying a posture with multiple alignments will provide a platform for your self-inquiry, and this is what a yoga practice is all about.

THE TWO STEPS

There are only two things you need to do if you want to bring health to your muscular system and advance your yoga practice!

1. Learn your personal muscular patterns. This requires that you seek out your weak, tight, and overstretched muscles, and develop an understanding of how your joints are interacting with these muscular patterns. Sounds complicated, I know. This is why yoga has never been a self-taught practice and we have teachers to guide us. This is why I offer the Livestream Immersions each month – to help you develop your physical awareness, advance your practice, and ultimately transform your body.
2. Once you establish an understanding of your movement patterns, learn which ones are supportive and which are not. Non-supportive patterns will require that you do exact opposite movements. Repeated over time, these new movements will bring balance back to your body. Balance in our muscular system allows our joints to ALIGN more optimally, giving us a greater range of motion in our joints without  the collision of compression and friction that happens when our muscular system is out of balance with itself.

The February 2020 Immersion titled “The Dance” is a unique immersion focused on helping you seek out movement patterns that may be holding you back from flowing gracefully in your yoga practice. If you want to re-pattern the way you move on your mat, this is the live stream immersion for you! See All Livestream Immersions

Is Pigeon pose the best hip stretch? The quick answer: it depends on how you do it. Somebody told me recently on Instagram that I was blessed with open hips. Ha! If only they’d seen me when I first started practicing. My hips were so tight I needed not just one block, but block towers under my legs to come into almost any seated pose. So yes, twenty years later I am blessed with open hips, but only after doing the work to get them.

That said, each of us has unique anatomy so the way my hips open may not be the way yours open. What I hear a lot is something like, “I’ve been practicing for years and I still haven’t increased my flexibility. Likely this is due to the lack of technique – muscle engagements, and joint articulations that result in increased flexibility or range of motion.

WHY ALIGNMENT ACTUALLY MATTERS

In today’s video, I’ll show you a way of making Half Pigeon Pose the best hip stretch by using a block. Not only will this approach help to make this pose more accessible, but it will highlight your muscular patterns.

This is important; the reason alignment and technique matter is not because there is a right or wrong way to do a pose – that’s a completely fictitious concept because it requires that we define a context for what right and wrong means when it comes to making shapes. There is no agreed-upon idea of right and wrong and so there can be no right alignment. However, alignment matters within the context of increasing body awareness and efficacy when striving to increase flexibility.