Excerpted from Teaching Yoga, Chapter 4 sidebar on “MULA BANDHA AND UDDIYANA BANDHA”

Earlier we looked at the cultivation of pada bandha, the energetic awakening of the feet through the stirrup-like effect of contracting the tibialis posterior and peroneus longus muscles on the lower leg. The fascial attachments of these two muscles interweave with those of the hip adductors, which have origins in and around the ischial tuberosities (the sitting bones). The sitting bones are the lateral aspects of the perineum, with the pubic symphysis at the front and the coccyx at the back. The front half of this diamond is the urogenital triangle, a landmark for the urogenital diaphragm, a hammock-like layer that is created by three sets of muscles: transverse perineal (connecting the two sitting bones), bulbospongiosus (surrounding the vagina or bulb of the penis), and ischiocavernosus (connecting the ischium to the clitoris or covering the penile crura) (Aldous 2004, 41). Contracting this se...

With twenty-six bones that form twenty-five joints, twenty muscles, and a variety of tendons and ligaments, the feet are certainly complex. This complexity is related to their role, which is to support the entire body with a dynamic foundation that allows us to stand, walk, run, and have stability and mobility in life. In yoga they are the principal foundation for all the standing poses and active in all inversions and arm balances, most back-bends and forward bends, and many twists and hip openers. Meanwhile they are also subjected to almost constant stress, ironically one of the greatest stresses today coming from a simple tool originally designed to protect them: shoes. Giving close attention to our feet—getting them strong, flexible, balanced, aligned, rooted, and resilient—is a basic starting point for building or guiding practically any yoga practice, including seated meditation.

In order to support the weight of the body, the tarsal and metatarsal bones are constructed int...

This is excerpted from Chapter 9 of Yoga Therapy, "Kinesiology and the Biomechanics of Movement."

The trouble with the fast lane is that all the movement is horizontal. And I like to go vertical sometimes.

—TOM ROBBINS

YOGA ASANAS ARE TYPICALLY DEPICTED in the yoga anatomy literature in the same static form that we find presentations of human anatomy more generally. We are given idealized perfect forms showing the precise position of the bones (and occasionally ligaments) in various asanas, with muscles added to show how the skeleton is held in that position. These portrayals help us understand the basic form of the asana and which muscles are doing what in support of it, sometimes including identification of the role played by each muscle. Many of the best of these published works on yoga anatomy are written by teachers with a primary background in Iyengar-style yoga, which emphasizes, in the words of B. K. S. Iyengar, the “perfect pose.”

The American yoga teacher Erich Schiffmann...

People across the world from ancient times to the present have turned to the just before dawn and bowed, praying or chanting or otherwise asking for the mysterious sun to return. In India and with yoga, we find a particular  mythology.

The Sun Salutations that initiate many yoga classes are rich in symbolism. Surya is the chief solar deity who drives his chariot across the sky each day as the most visible form of God that one can see. It is also the ancient Sanskrit term for “sun,” which in most ancient mythology is revered, as Richard Rosen (2003) says, “as both the physical and spiritual heart of the world.” Namaskara is from the root namas, “to bow” (as in “namaste”). In the myths of the Vedas, the gods use the sun’s heat for many purposes, especially creation. Our “inner sun,” the spiritual heart center, is seen as the source of light and truth along the life’s path. In Surya Namaskara, we are bowing to the truth of who we are in our essence, releasing the head lower than the he...