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Mountain Pose (Tadasana)

Learn how to practice and teach Mountain Pose (Tadasana) with detailed anatomy and informed, verbal cues to help you and your students enter and exit with safe alignment.

Sanskrit name: Tadasana (also called Samasthiti)

English translation: Mountain Pose

About Mountain Pose

  • Symmetrical standing pose
  • “Tada” means mountain. “Sama” means upright, straight, unmoved. “Sthiti” is steadiness.
  • “Bija” or “seed” pose (i.e., the pose that all other poses come from)
  • Teaches vocabulary, fundamentals of movement and actions, and the relationship of our limbs to our spine
  • Teaches how to practice asana with awareness, as we discover and cultivate dynamic tension

Instruction Cues

  1. Stand with your feet together. Bring the inner edges of your feet together: big toes touching, heels touching.
  2. Stand up tall and look straight ahead.
  3. Straighten your legs. Lift your kneecaps upward to firm your thigh muscles.
  4. Turn your thighs inward. Drop your tailbone toward your heels to lengthen your lower back and lift the front of your pelvis slightly.
  5. Lift and broaden your chest by drawing your shoulders back and your shoulder blades down. Reach through your fingertips.
  6. Lift up through the crown of your head. Keep your gaze level and soft.
  7. To exit the pose: Relax your arms and legs and stand with a neutral spine.

Watch For

  • Collapsed chest
  • Feet turned in or out
  • Hyperextension of knees
  • Position of the lower back
  • Soft ankles
  • Instability / difficulty balancing. Modification: Separate heels or separate feet.

INTERESTED IN ADVANCED STUDY, OR BECOMING A YOGA TEACHER?

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