Early in my yoga practice and teaching, I was steeped in Anusara Yoga — a well-rounded style with a clear alignment system and strong themes rooted in yoga philosophy and "heart qualities."
Every student of Anusara learned the five Principles of Alignment:
Open to Grace - Ground, breathe, release expectation, align with intention
Muscular Energy - A gathering of energy, drawing toward the midline for stability and strength
Inner Spiral - A nuanced internal rotation and broadening of the back body
Outer Spiral - A nuanced external rotation and broadening of the front body, to balance the inner spiral
Organic Energy - An outward expansion of energy from the midline through the extremities
If you’re thinking that’s a lot to do in one pose, you’d be right! But to me, this system is an invitation to explore. What happens when I apply each principle alone vs in combination with others? Which actions come easily to my body, and where can I apply more attention to achieve balanced action?
Working with nuanced actions inside poses has always facilitated presence and curiosity for me. I’m not thinking of other things; I’ve turned my attention inward to notice what happens when I try to layer different actions into a single shape.
And while a systematic framework can be genuinely useful for learning, especially in groups, it can also become limiting, and sometimes exclusive. These days, I think less about applying these specific principles and more about “layering actions.”
For example: In virabhadrasana II (warrior II), I could lift my arms out to the sides and hold them there. That is a perfectly sound way to engage the pose. But I could also:
Breathe
Keeping that, firm the muscles around my arm bones
Keeping that, draw from my fingertips toward my spine to retract my shoulderblades
Keeping that, move my armbones back a little in line with my torso
Keeping that, broaden across my collarbones and widen from my spine through my shoulderblades, and out through my fingertips
Uh oh - I just said to simultaneously draw from my fingertips toward my spine and widen from my spine through my fingertips. Those sound like opposing actions, impossible to achieve at the same time. But this is where the magic happens! And that magic is called co-contraction.
When muscles that do opposite things contract at the same time, there can be a sense of balanced action, increased strength and stability, a change in sensation, or a nuanced shift of joint positioning. There’s also something happening at the tissue level. Muscular contraction moves force through your tendons and other connective tissues, which can stimulate those tissues to adapt to become more robust and capable of handling the demands placed upon them. And when you load your tissues in a variety of different positions, you build the capacity for more movement! It is very cool.
To be clear, I don’t think there’s only one good way to practice asana, and yoga is about far more than asana. If we’re talking about balanced actions, there are plenty of times when softening, letting go of effort, and releasing control is a valid move (on and off the mat). That said, this particular approach of layered action offers a specific “how” and “why” for asana practice that includes intentional effort. In truth, many bodies are more underloaded than overloaded – and underloading is just as likely to contribute to aches, pains, injury.
At the very least, the starting point for layered action is to ground, breathe, settle, and get curious. Then go from there and notice what happens. See if there’s any magic in layering actions for you, and if nothing else, you’ve given your attention somewhere to land for a bit.
If you’d like to learn more about this approach, or need help working out a good approach for your body, try rehab coaching or yoga therapy.