Many schools of yoga have their own formula or recipe of “cues” to get students into Tadasana/ Mountain Pose. The purpose of Tadasana from a strictly anatomical perspective is to teach proper postural alignment, i.e. a biomechanical neutral position of the muscles, bones, joints and tissues. Once the structural anatomy of Tadasana is understood and embodied, it creates healthy breathing habits and positively affects your mood. Additionally, you can be calm, happy and healthy not just in the pose, but also when you stand in line at the grocery store reading Us Weekly magazine.
If you are a yoga seeker/explorer like me, and you study with teachers from multiple schools and yogic lineages, you are given different cues in Tadasana. I lived in FIVE different states over the course of nine years. Because of this, I had the opportunity to study with many teachers from varied backgrounds. Some places I lived had more Bikram, Ashtanga, and Power Yoga teachers and studios, others had more Anusara, Kundalini and Iyengar teachers and studios. Sometimes I felt like a bouncing ball ping ponging all over the country from style to style and studio to studio. Other times, I was grateful for the opportunity to explore so much and then be able to decide for myself which methods resonated most with my body, mind, and soul at the time.
As you can imagine, being a diligent student of so many different schools of yoga for many years was CONFUSING! By the time I completed my 200 and 300 hour teacher trainings, I had memorized the cues to teach Tadasana from my training as well as the other Tadasana cues from other lineages. The problem was that I didn’t know what was “right” or “wrong” for my body or my students’ bodies, because the cues were universal or energetically esoteric. Unfortunately, those cues were unhelpful when teaching to a room full of uniquely beautiful bodies.
On the home front, I knew I was a “rib popper” and that the external rotators of my shoulders were in a state of overuse at the time (see my blogs: “Happy Tail vs. Sad Tail: Which Way Do You Tilt?” and “Are Your Shoulders in Your Back Pockets?”). Was I a “bad student” if I didn’t open my heart, lift my sternum, and outer spiral my arm bones during Tadasana after the teacher cued it?
Once again, I searched outside of the yoga community and dogma of guru lineage for some unbiased anatomy-based answers. My Pilates teacher, Rise Karns Stokstad, taught us anatomy in my STOTT Pilates teacher training, and I went to her twice weekly for privates. She helped me to shine a light on my own good and not so good postural habits, and how to practice Tadasana, while maintaining the normal curves of my spine.
The next step was that I needed to be able to teach Tadasana in a group class to a room full of individually different bodies. As they say, “Ask, and you shall receive.” During my Yoga Tune Up® teacher training, I learned “implied anatomy” and how to coagulate complicated anatomical concepts into simple and easy to perform poses such as Tadasana. Tuning up your Tadasana involves a heightened activated stance that coordinates the following:
- Active static stretch
- Isometric contractions of all leg and hip muscles at once
- Attempted PNF contractions of all muscles and joints being stretched in Tadasana
- A Tubular Core (see my blog called “Navel to Spine: Are You Hyperventilating Yet?”)
All of the above are done with Unmani Mudra, which is an attitude of relaxation.
To learn Jill Miller’s 10 steps to Tune Up your Tadasana and get creative with your teaching style, come to Kripalu February 24-March 2 for the Yoga Tune Up® Level 1 Teacher Training. You will NEVER again find yourself stuck in a rut of parroting memorized formulaic cues to teach a yoga pose.
Tadasana, it seems so easy pose, but really so many different moments to think about. One of my teacher always starts with the edict that “all poses are tadasana”. I think it is a simple and easy formula to follow.
As we know, another name for tadasana is samasthiti, or equal standing suggesting a balanced body in all planes. We don’t meet many people who live in balanced bodies. We all tend to be too long in the front of the body and too short in the back of the body. The hamstrings, lower back and neck all tend to be tight while the front of the body is overly stretched.
The essence of tadasana is an alignment that follows the plumb line of the body; a straight line that runs through the center of the ears, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles. The pelvis should be in a neutral position, with the legs directly underneath, and there should be a soft and gentle crease in the hips. Warrior two should reflect all of these alignment cues. A neutral pelvis has a tiny anterior tilt that allows for the necessary arch of the lower back.
Warrior two is a pose with the legs spread as wide apart as possible, and then maybe a little wider. The arms lift in line with the shoulders and the gaze follows the finger tips. It should be easy to feel a sense of tadasana with the legs apart before the knee begins to bend. Once the knee begins to bend over the ankle pay attention to where the pelvis wants to go.
What do your hips allow in terms of the ability to stay in tadasana? Can the hip creases stay deep? Can the thigh bones stay under the pelvis and the plumb line continue to run through the ears, shoulders, thighs, knees and ankles?
The more I practice and learn the more questions comes up.. It¨s greate and really love yoga..
I can’t wait to implement the tubular core in my classes. I know that many of my students will definitely get it.
I, too, have studied many different disciplines and occasionally have had questions about some of the differences in directions. I like that you did your own anatomical and personal experiential research to determine your Tadasana and the best way to guide your students there. I’ve had a wonderful therapeutics mentor whose philosophy spoke best to me regarding bringing the skeleton to a neutrally aligned position. She started supine and used breath to create space and then moved on to many other things I don’t have time to list here. (We once did a 2-hour workshop leading up to Tadasana.) I’ll play around with this in different relationships to gravity and different positioning in the hips. Jill’s philosophies have great similarities to this mentor, which is why Iove Jill. Slightly different paths to the same place.
The intricacies of each pose is overwhelming even in the standing pose of tadasana. I didn’t realize PNF contractions helped with the pose. I am going to focus on one thing at a time in each pose so I can really feel it.
I enjoy this step by step breakdown, as this ‘easy’ pose takes a lot more mental work in my body. I think all the tools combined, cuing, alignment, breathing can create a happy tadasana for me. Specifincally the plumb line created between the cervix and heart.
I taught tune-up tadasana in both my regular yoga class and my senior’s chair yoga classes today and they ALL loved it…they loved the connections to their bodies, the surprise of the work that was being done by what seemingly seems like “just standing” to an onlooker and they laughed when I pointed out how so many of them were “accessorizing their poses–fingers pointed out, funny expressions or even holding their breath. If I could sum up Tune-up Tadasana in one word it would be BRILLIANT!
Tadasana is the basic math for asana practice. Before we can attempt algebra, we must first learn how to add and subtract. Tadasana is this springboard. Each body has its own neutral from which to begin. It is from that particular bodies neutral that alignment cues and more complex asanas can take shape. Once the student has this awareness, they can then shape and reshape while maintaining the basic structure of support.
Having lived in a number of different cities I’ve had a number of “home” studios and each and every time I make little adjustments to what I thought was the key the “correct posture.” I absolutely understand that feeling of confusion. I like the idea of incorporating self exploration and using resources and knowledge outside of the yoga community. It’s important to understand that not all bodies are the same but at the same time we aren’t that much different. I can see how it’s important to trust what works for your own body and use that as the springboard when it comes time to direct students.
I really relate to being a bit confused by the multitude of cues for tadasana etc. from different lineages. If a neutral balance posture is the goal, then it would follow suit that we have an anatomical answer. It’s great to have a sound direction to go when things are murky. Thanks!
The craziest part of this all, is not only are there endless lineages/styles/teachers of yoga, every single body that practices yoga, and/or every body on this earth has a different version of the same “simple” tadasana. The easiest thing to do would be to go to the same class everyday with the same teacher… Which, well for the last year I’ve done; Mysore/Ashtanga is my daily practice, with, for the most part, the same teacher.
However, I’ve noticed even sometimes my teacher changes his mind over time on the structure and/or the important aspects to any pose. Furthermore, as a teacher myself I’ve come to struggle as to what I say to my students, not only in Tadasana but in every pose… It’s not up to me how they’re body functions. I can’t control their limitations. And/or through my words or adjustments I cannot even 100% relay to my students my actual understanding of each pose; it’s all personal interpretation. In a way it’s kind of like a game of telephone; I’ve learned tadasana from any number of teachers, whom have learned tadasana from their teachers, and now I’m giving my students my interpretation/s, and they will then make it into their own interpretation, and who knows, maybe they will pass that interpretation on to whomever… and at the end what does tadasana look like?
Now my struggle is: how to teach a class and not rattle off every potential possibility of positioning for every pose. At this point the best thing I feel I can tell my students is to know and understand they have endless options for every pose. And as one of my teachers Alanna Kaivalya would say, “the only perfect pose is the one you’re enlightened in”
So glad to know I am not alone in the confusion. There are so many different cues and I certainly don’t want to parrot memorized cues as they are not conveyed naturally and sincerely. Thanks for sharing!
I have had many conflicting cues in this pose depending on the style of yoga or teacher. i had been instructed to tuck the tailbone to get rid of the lumbarcurve, then was instructed to not tuck so much by another teacher. Finally tadasana makes sense, so grateful to yoga tune up. Thanks Trina for the article!
I have been having these exact same questions, as I was taught tadasana one way by one teacher and another way by another teacher, and so on and so forth. Recently I have been working with a rolfer who said the the pose should be energetic and alive. Even though I had learned tadasana as an active pose, this language really had an impact on me and the way I feel in the pose. In regards to alignment, I’m still learning and feeling that out in my own body, but have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed tuning up my tadasana. It made me feel both energetic and alive in my tadasana!
Thanks for the post. Yoga Tune Up Tadasana addresses the core which I feel is missing in most styles. Tuck in the tailbone and pull the navel to the spine is what I usually hear. What about the clavicle? What about the upper ribs? Thanks
This was helpful for me to read, especially because I am currently in my teacher training and I know how important and key Tadasana is. It’s the first pose they had us teach in our training. Thanks for the tips!
Thank you for the article! For me, one of the most interesting parts of our Yoga Tune Up weekend was noticing the radical differences in people’s bodies, and especially the spine. It will help us to know that there is not one template that all should conform to, and to find which verbal instructions work best for each individual.
Thanks for breaking down tadasana from a YTU perspective. Until very recently, I thought that tadasana was a passive standing position. Some of my teachers would provide cues for the pose, while others would assume that we knew how to do it (since we were copying the basic gestures). WIth that said, I love how you focused on the muscles that need to be activated and how tadasana involves a variety of stretches and contractions to achieve the full pose. I look forward to seeing how I can take these ideas and continue to work on my tadasana in my own practice.