5 Alignment Tweaks That Will Make Your Yoga Practice Safer

Over the weekend, I took a training with Boston-based senior teacher, Ame Wren. To say that the training was eye-opening and has forever changed how I think about teaching asana is an understatement. 

I took in a lot of new information during this weekend immersion--and am still letting much of what I learned marinate--but wanted to go ahead and share 5 very important, very tangible takeaways with you now. 

Each of these tips are new to me, despite the fact that I've been a full-time yoga teacher for almost 4 years now and have done both a 200 and 500-hr training. This goes to show how important it is to keep learning, to expose yourself to new people and new places, and to stay open to making changes as you develop as a person, a teacher, and/or a yogi. 

So here goes--5 Small Alignment Tweaks That Will Make Your Yoga Practice Safer [all courtesy of Ame Wren!]:

1. Don't spread the fingers TOO wide in downward facing dog. 
Ame explained an interesting "spreading the fingers" phenomenon to us: Basically, when new students come to class, their fingers are all crunched up (see image below), so we tell them to spread their fingers. We keep saying this aloud, every time that we see a new student's hands in class--and it's a great cue for people with crunched up hands (!)--but this cue also causes the more experienced practitioners, whose fingers are already spread, to keep spreading and spreading. 

At a certain point, the pinkie finger, which has the most mobility in terms of spreading (besides the thumb, obviously), starts to spread more than the other fingers, and starts to move away from the hand at an angle. This angle is too much and is not normal range of motion for this finger. This strain in the pinkie and this extreme spreading can travel up the arm to cause wrist pain, elbow pain, and even shoulder pain.

The correct way to spread the fingers is to keep the pinkie finger in line with the outside edge of the hand and spread each finger evenly--so that there's an even amount of space between each finger. See the images below for an illustration of what I'm talking about. 

2. When moving from chaturanga to upward facing dog, flip the feet at the SAME time. Not one at a time. 
Confession: I've always flipped my feet one at a time. But, as Ame explained to us, so did she, for many years. And it caused injury and pain in her SI joint (which is pain that I also have!), due to the fact that when you flip the feet separately, you're constantly letting one side of the sacral plane dip down, which causes instability in the SI join. Most people who flip their feet separately favor one foot--meaning they usually flip leading with the same foot every time--which causes this imbalance in the body that of course, can lead to injury and pain. 

Simple solution? Learn to flip your feet at the same time! It takes a little practice, but you can do it. I made the change this weekend and it was pretty easy to get my body to start doing it. The only thing to be sure of? That you push the feet back a bit before you flip, so you stay in alignment. I'll do a Mat Matters video about this soon for anyone who is confused ;) 

3. Wrinkles in the skin are a sign of stress in the body (ditto for fingers and toes turning white!).
Get in your downward facing dog the way that you usually do, with your heels reaching towards the floor, and check out the front of your ankles. If they're super wrinkled, you're pushing too hard and need to lighten up. The same goes for your back foot in warrior 1, in warrior 2, in triangle, and for your wrists in side plank, or your neck in upward facing dog. If you have deep wrinkles in the skin in any yoga pose, it's usually a sign that you're out of alignment. Small wrinkles are a normal part of aging and movement, but deep wrinkles are a sign of stress and misalignment (the bones are being moved in a way that they're not supposed to move!).

To get rid of those wrinkles, ease off by pressing into the opposite side of the foot, or by adjusting the placement of your hand, or by lengthening your neck. Your body will thank you as the wrinkles disappear.

Oh, and if your toes or fingers are turning white in any pose, same goes--make an adjustment! White digits means that there is a constriction somewhere and blood isn't going into that part of the body. This is not something we want in yoga. 

4. You can (and should) measure out hip-width and shoulder-width when practicing poses that call for this alignment. 
Hip width = two fist distances apart. Shoulder width = 3 fists distances apart. Ame teaches that every time you're asked to find hip-width or shoulder width (with your feet), you measure it out. This is helpful for finding hip-width in down dog, in plank, and in tadasana, and for finding shoulder-width in preparation for wheel (I learned that your feet should be shoulder-width apart in wheel, not hip-width). 

Simple enough, right? Start measuring it. 

5. When you come forward to plank in preparation for chaturanga, you want to be on the balls of your feet, not on your tippy toes. 
So, I was humbled when I learned this. Somewhere along the way in my teaching journey (I couldn't tell you where or when), I was taught that you should be on your toes when preparing to lower to chaturanga, because this puts you in the correct alignment, with your shoulders a bit past your wrists. This is one way that it is taught, but according to Ame, it's incorrect. Here's why:

The legs are supposed to be a part of plank. They should be helping you with plank and chaturanga and 60% of the effort should be in the legs. When you move forward to your toes, you lose all of your leg strength. When you stay on the balls of your feet, you can properly engage the legs. Yes, you still need to have your shoulders a little past your wrists, but you can do this by shifting forward slightly before you lower down (or even by shortening your stance a bit, if you need to). 

Apologies to all of my students who I've taught this to over the years! Live and learn and correct as you go, right...?

Here are a few more Ame quoteables that I think are worth sharing:

-Asana is meant to be a de-conditioning tool. If you're already super flexy, you don't need more flexibility (you need more strengthening and to learn how to pull it together)!
-There are no universal instructions, only universal actions. All students are different, every body is different, so the instructions for each person will be different in each pose. You can, however, have everyone do a universal action like "bend your knee." 
-The best teachers are the most authentic teachers. Yes, I already knew this, but it's always a great reminder to BE YOURSELF!

I hope that you, too, found these tips helpful. 

I simply LOVE learning small tweaks that can make a huge difference and save you from pain and injury down the road! It's so important in this practice full of repetitive movement...

Happy tweaking! {Not to be confused with twerking...}