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Why You Cannot Square Your Hips in Warrior I or Warrior II

Older White Female Yoga Teacher in Warrior II

From my earliest days of practicing yoga, I heard teachers instructing “Square your hips” in Warrior I (virabhadrasana I) and Warrior II poses (virabhadrasana II). [Scroll to the video at the bottom of this page to see the essence of this blog post in video format]. I repeated this phrase in my own yoga teaching […]

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Malasana: How to Overcome the Struggle in the Deep Yoga Squat

how to get into garland pose deep squat butt to heels

Here’s a comprehensive guide to getting more comfortable in Malasana Plus, if you scroll down far enough, 7 Steps to Better Ankle Mobility We at Yoga Anatomy Academy love malasana and are on a mission to make this deep squat more accessible to more humans. The motivation is this: a large chunk of what we […]

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7 Reasons Your Heels Don’t Touch the Floor in Downward Dog

lengthen achilles yoga

Have you been practicing yoga for a while, and feel frustrated that you can’t get your heels to the floor in downward facing dog pose? There are a few reasons why heels-to-floor may not be happening for you. First let’s remember that Downward Facing Dog demands a ton of joint motion: approximately 45 degrees of ankle dorsiflexion (top of […]

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Does Ashtanga Yoga Hurt Your Knees?

 The Ashtanga Primary series contains a number of poses in which the hips are externally rotated with the knee or knees in maximum flexion. (Examples include: lotus, lotus variations, janu sirsasana variations — including janu sirsansana C, which externally rotates the shin bone on the femur), one pose in which the knee is fully bent, and the practitioner sits to […]

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