How a Modern Interpretation of Foot Placement May Help Your Standing Yoga Postures

When I began my teaching career I noticed right away that many students had stability problems in standing yoga postures like Warrior 1, Warrior 2 and even Tadasana. As I continued to observe my students and experimented in my own practice, I found time and time again that a wider base of support seemed to eliminate these issues almost instantly. Depending on the lineage of teaching that a student and teacher may have come through, confusion may still remain as to appropriate foot placement for individual bodies in these postures. In this post you’ll find an anatomical explanation for this modern interpretation of foot placement and how it might help you feel more steady and at ease in these commonly practiced standing yoga postures.

Traditional versus Modern Interpretation

I often make the joke to private students when we start to work with these kinds of details in their postures that “this practice was created by skinny little Indian men, and honey, I’m an American woman and I have hips! I need space!” (If you’ve never met me in person I’m nearly 6 feet tall and weigh about 185, so I am neither small nor skinny!) All joking aside, what I’m pointing out is something very important to this understanding of foot placement - the traditional interpretation of the postures revolved around the narrow pelvis of the people that “created” the postures and the people that were being taught. Students of yoga in those days were of typically of Indian decent, young and male. They therefore had a naturally more narrow pelvis and were taught a more narrow placement of the feet in standing postures.

Anatomically speaking, our knowledge of an individual’s unique differences in their anatomy and how they might affect their practice has improved in the last century. We now know that the female pelvis is wider than the male pelvis, primarily to accommodate childbirth. This google search will give you some images and articles to make this more clear. But the important part for our asana practice is that, generally speaking, our unique anatomical make up, our general range of flexibility and the shape of our frame will have a great deal of affect on the stance we take in our standing postures. The majority of yoga practitioners in the US are female and with our more recent anatomical understanding many teachers, myself included, have begun to teach foot placement in standing postures in a more anatomically informed way.

Let’s give you some examples so you can start to put this into practice. And please bear with my rather rudimentary illustrations! And also bear in mind, the use of traditional vs. modern is NOT a value judgement, but a way of making a distinction.

Let’s take Tadasana (Mountain Pose) for instance:

In the traditional interpretation of the posture, the big toes would come together to touch as you stood at the top of your mat. Some people would even bring their inner heels together. Let me be very clear here: THIS IS NOT WRONG. For many bodies this won’t be a problem. For many other bodies this may feel like a very narrow base of support that isn’t at all grounded. In my body, this additionally creates a tension in my outer hips that doesn’t feel beneficial.

Also, when I look at the center line of my foot, it is offset compared to my pelvis. I can tell because when I feel my hip points (the two bones you might be able to feel if you palpate the front of the pelvis), if I were to draw a straight line down to the center of my foot, that line hits more towards my outer ankles. So instead, I take my feet “sit bones distance apart” (I often have people measure this by bending forward and taking two fists together between the arches of the feet. It seems to work well.) which gives me a broader base and more appropriately aligns my body. So it would look more like this:

With this broader base I’m more able to hold my ground, or be more firmly grounded in this pose that is supposed to embody stability.

This wider foot placement in Tadasana also translates into other common standing poses. Tadasana, is after all, the foundation for every other yoga posture. Take Warrior 2 for example. Here’s what the traditional foot placement would look like:

You can see from the lines on this mat (thank you Liforme!) that the heel of the front foot would have bisected the arch of the back foot. (I have also heard it described slightly wider, so that the heel of the front foot would have lined up with the heel of the back foot in traditional teaching.) This might give a practitioner with wider hips a feeling of, what I often call “walking the tightrope”; the base of support is too narrow to be stable. This often shows itself not while the practitioner is in the pose, but when they are making the transition up into the pose from a lunge, for example. There’s a wobble that happens in that transition and I’ll often see students reflexively step the back foot wider to catch themselves! What they’re instinctively doing is creating a stance more like this:

This comes into play again when we look at Warrior 1. Again, the more traditional placement would look like this:

But for many bodies, this foot placement becomes problematic when the practitioner attempts to make the transition into the pose from a lunge and/or places unnecessary forces into the knee joints in particular as the pose is held. With Warrior 1, as the pelvis rotates toward the top of the mat, the narrow stance may not allow for much rotation. With the pelvis unable to rotate and force still being applied (a discussion for another day), that torque has no where to go but to the next available joint, which is the knee. Unfortunately for our poor yoga student who is fighting to do what is asked, the knee is a hinge joint and does not lend itself to rotation. Chances are, they feel this as something happening IN the joint, a thing we typically want to avoid in a vinyasa yoga practice. This can all be avoided by stepping the feet wider like so:

With the broader stance pictured above, there’s greater freedom for the rotation of the pelvis, the integrity of the knee is no longer questionable and there will be a greater sense of stability in the pose overall.

What Does This All Mean for You?

To apply what you’ve learned here you might take the time to experiment with these different foot placements outside of a class. Start with Tadasana and see how your body feels with the two different foot placements. Depending on your specific body type and shape, you may find one that feels more stable and easeful than another. Then do the same experiment with Warrior 2 and Warrior 1. Take the time to really notice the effect on the joints of the legs in particular and your sense of stability. Do you feel like your “walking the tightrope” or if a strong breeze came by would you be steady? As with anything in yoga, the proof is in the experiment within the laboratory of your own body, life and practice!

I’m considering offering a workshop on this topic in the near future. If you’d be interested in such an offering, let me know in the comments below or send me an email!

If you’d like to experience a group class with me where I teach this more modern interpretation, check out my schedule for an upcoming vinyasa yoga class.

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Exercising Barefoot

To a yoga practitioner, exercising barefoot is a matter of course. It helps keep us from sliding around on the mat, gives us better connection to the earth and creates more flexibility and strength in our feet. We probably don’t even think about the fact that we’re doing something that you don’t typically do in most other forms of exercise. But have you considered that you might be able to find benefits from being barefoot in other forms of exercise? Learn more with today’s guest blogger, Laurie Gouley, Creator of The Dalai Nala!

Have you ever exercised barefoot? You may be thinking, with all the super cool sneakers on the market that "support your arches" or "absorb impact" why would we ever workout barefoot? But that is exactly why we should workout barefoot. Wearing those fancy shoes have made our feet and ankles weak.

Of course going barefoot is not for everyone. If you have diabetes, open sores, numbness in your feet, a contagious foot disease or poor circulation, going barefoot is really not recommended.

However, most of us learned how to walk barefoot and spent lots of time as a child barefoot. We have grown accustomed to shoes but it is a very liberating feeling to be without shoes. It's so freeing!

Think about when you were small and outside barefoot in the grass. How did it make you feel? When I remember that, I get a happy feeling. There is an actual name for this! It's called, earthing. Earthing means walking barefoot on soil, grass or sand (meaning: any natural surface). Sorry this doesn't include sidewalks. :)

A review published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health looked at a number of studies that highlight how drawing electrons from the earth improves health. In one, chronic pain patients using grounded carbon fiber mattresses slept better and experienced less pain.

Another study found that earthing changed the electrical activity in the brain, as measured by electroencephalograms. Still other research found that grounding benefited skin conductivity, moderated heart rate variability, improved glucose regulation, reduced stress and boosted immunity.

One particularly compelling investigation, published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, found that earthing increases the surface charge of red blood cells. As a result, the cells avoid clumping, which decreases blood viscosity. High viscosity is a significant factor in heart disease, which is why so many people take blood thinning aspirin each day to improve their heart health. Another study in the same journal found that earthing may help regulate both the endocrine and nervous systems.

Most shoes act as a crutch, thus contributing to foot and ankle dysfunction.

Going barefoot improves bio-mechanics, strengthens the foot (ligaments, tendons and muscles), lengthens the Achilles tendon, and enhances coordination and balance. Going barefoot strengthens the stabilizing muscles of the foot and ankle and makes them stronger. It us true that shoes give a lot of stability and support, however, this is what makes the foot and ankle lazy. Strengthening the small stabilizing muscles of the feet can improve our balance and overall sports performance. Improving foot and ankle function will do wonders for movement mechanics, particularly in the hips and lower torso.

Going barefoot can improve our proprioception. Proprioceptors are sensors that provide information about joint angle, muscle length, and muscle tension, which is integrated to give information about the position of the limb in space. The way that we can tell that an arm is raised above our head, even when our eyes are closed, is an example of proprioception.

Going barefoot helps us to feel and connect us to our environment and this helps our balance and develops our natural movements. While it may seem the padding of shoes will reduce the impact on your feet and legs, in fact it may increase it since your proprioceptive system depends on feedback to adjust to impact and the padding can cause you to impact harder to activate it.

No stinkies! Bare feet do not naturally stink. The sweat glands in the feet are just like the sweat glands in the hands. Feet will only stink after being cooped up in shoes for hours.

Benefits for athletes! Athletes who train barefoot have amazing results and experience fewer injuries. No matter how strong, powerful, mobile, agile, fast, or explosive an athlete is, correcting these foot and ankle deficiencies will only improve upon their pre-existing bio-motor capabilities as well as reduce their risk for injuries.

(There are 5 bio-motor abilities. They are strength, endurance, speed, flexibility, and balance or coordination.)

An example why doing a lunge bare foot is better - To properly perform any variation of a lunge (front, reverse, walking, or lateral), first and foremost, you need balance. Performing them barefoot allows you to grip the floor with your entire foot—your toes, the balls of your feet, and your heels—for maximum stability. A sneaker would impede that ability.

While there are many benefits of going barefoot; don't just jump right in with both feet. :)

Train up to it just like you would with anything. After all we spend most of our lives in shoes now so our feet and ankles have weakened! Slowly transition. Your feet will be tender for awhile, so don’t do a whole workout right away.

Give your feet time to adjust. Begin with a barefoot warm-up for a couple of weeks. Slowly increase the number of exercises or drills you do without sneakers. If your gym doesn’t condone barefoot training, try minimalist footwear.

Take your shoes off when you’re in your house or sitting at your desk, too. You can also roll a tennis ball under your arch, and flex and point your toes to strengthen all the muscles in your feet.

I’m a huge believer in barefoot training just for the foot-strengthening and injury-prevention benefits alone!

"But, what if I drop a weight, Laurie?!"

Let's face it...if you are worried about a weight dropping on your foot, your sneaker is not going to do much to save you. Either way it will suck if that happens. So use caution. :)

If you're unable to perform a majority of your activities in barefoot or minimalist conditions, then you have foot and ankle deficiencies. Your feet & ankles will need to be re-trained. I will say it again, if you'd like to start barefoot training, ease into it slowly. The feet, ankles, and toes need to be trained just like any other body part. In fact, you could easily say they require greater emphasis considering most individuals wear shoes that limit, constrict, and bind their feet in unnatural positions, ultimately promoting dysfunction of the lower extremity.

Do you have blisters, corns, ingrown toenails, bunions, skin irritations of the feet, and calluses? Most of these can be traced back to either poor footwear, improper foot and ankle mechanics, or a combination. Most of these are a result of placing uneven pressure on various locations of the feet, a common result of faulty foot mechanics.

But remember whether you choose to workout with shoes or not, be sure to pay attention to any signs of discomfort in your toes, arches, heels, or ankles, and consult your physician if you feel abnormal pain or discomfort.

Do you dare to go bare?

Thank you Laurie! Check out the original posting here.