Bernie:
I really appreciated your article in the Apr 18 newsletter, “Your Ankle Bones Affect the Alignment of Your Feet”. I’ve learned from practicing yoga for 22 years and teaching for the last 12 years (mainly Hatha, Yin, and Kripalu, and associated trainings), the importance of respecting your body as it is, to adapt poses to you and your anatomy instead of trying to fit a particular mold. I identify with this concept, as well, as my ankle bones and knees do not allow my body to fit into the strict forms of many poses. That said, even within an approach that allows for exploration to find what’s right for you, there are some basic alignment principles that we try to incorporate. For example, I work with a private client whose feet naturally turn out excessively. If he stands on the mat in a wide-legged stance facing the long side of the mat, his big toes naturally point toward the corners of the mat without turning them out. For him to stand with the outer edges of the feet parallel to the short ends of the mat, as is often cued prior to Prasarita Padottanasana, requires great effort on his part. And when moving into Virabhadrasana II stance, his front foot doesn’t have far to go for it to point to the short end of the mat, but his back foot must move inward to a much larger degree, again with great effort. Is this harmful to him? It seems that his pelvic alignment would be out of whack if he did not internally rotate on the back side. Thanks for your insight.
