Looking for Steadiness in Half Moon Pose? Here's How to Find It.

"There is a quality of awareness that develops as we move to a deeper level in our practice of yoga. At first, our bodies seem dense and impervious, our muscles thick from exertion. Slowly we begin to differentiate and reclaim the various parts of our body. We learn the placement of the feet, the work of the legs, the lift of the rib cage, the lengthening of the spine, the carriage of the arms and head."

"Initially our sense of alignment, of proper relationship, is intellectual and arbitrary, imposed from outside. But gradually we begin to understand the concept of alignment from our internal experience of the poses. We give up our expectations of finding "the right way" to do a pose and allow ourselves to be "guided by natural line," led by our intuitive sense of what feels right."

"At this point, we are ready to explore the hidden spaces of the body-the joints and cavities, the spaces between the bones. Our awareness now penetrates the "secret openings" of the body."

Yoga practice cultivates evolving awareness as practitioners progress from experiencing the body as dense and impervious to recognizing and differentiating its individual parts. Initial understanding of alignment—foot placement, leg work, rib cage lift, spinal lengthening, arm and head carriage—begins as intellectual concepts imposed externally. Through continued practice, alignment understanding transforms from arbitrary external rules into internal experience. Practitioners gradually release expectations of finding a single correct way to perform poses and instead allow intuitive sense to guide them. This shift enables exploration of the body's hidden spaces: joints, cavities, and spaces between bones. Awareness penetrates what are described as the body's secret openings, revealing deeper dimensions of physical practice.

Read at Yoga Journal