The Right Triangle

No two styles of yoga teach the same pose the same way, and nowhere is this more evident than with Trikonasana (Triangle Pose). So who's right? We asked five instructors to show us their approach to Triangle and compared their methods.

By Todd Jones

Ashtanga Yoga

The Trikonasana of Pattabhi Jois's Ashtanga-vinyasa Yoga is much like the Iyengar pose in its basic form and actions. At the same time, there are some dissimilarities between the two approaches that make each a unique experience and challenge.

"In the classic Ashtanga Trikonasana, you reach down and grab the big toe of your front foot," says John Berlinsky, an Ashtanga teacher at The Yoga Studio in Mill Valley, California. "The feet are closer together than in the Iyengar pose, with the front ankle almost directly below the shoulders, and the back foot at 90 degrees to the front foot, rather than slightly turned in."

"But I think of the 'final' form of the pose—the final form of any Ashtanga pose—as something to be evolved toward," Berlinsky continues. "So the way to approach the pose is open to interpretation. You can talk to five Ashtanga teachers and get five different answers. Some Ashtanga teachers will say, 'You always grab your toe and look up at the top thumb, and the pose will come from doing that.' That's a legitimate approach, and it works; the development of poses comes from practice, from trying to recognize and break patterns the body is trapped in, more than from having someone say, 'In Trikonasana you rotate the head of the femur bone and blah, blah, blah.'"

But Berlinsky's strategy is usually more gradual. With stiffer or more beginning students, he may suggest modifications that make the proper actions more accessible.

"It's important to understand any pose in Ashtanga as a part of the whole system," Berlinsky points out. "The classic Ashtanga narrow stance in Triangle doesn't work the inner front leg or stretch the hamstring as much as a longer stance, but the standing poses that follow immediately after Trikonasana in the series do provide that work. And the short stance gives a stronger opening at the front of the back hip." Berlinsky sees this hip rotation, necessary for seated meditation poses like Padmasana (Lotus Pose), as a theme that runs throughout Ashtanga's Primary Series.

Berlinsky also stresses the importance of the other components of Ashtanga vinyasa practice, including drishti (specific focus points for the eyes), the use of the bandhas (energetic locks), and ujjayi pranayama. "The bandhas help ground the body, extend the spine upward, direct the breath upward, and allow the backbend to occur in the upper back and not the lower ribs," he says, adding that he uses the ujjayi breath as a meter to gauge how well the body is opening. "If the breath is short and not circulating, you know your body is definitely not extending in the pose. And if you can really focus on the breath and move the breath, it will have a profound effect on the body. But," Berlinsky acknowledges, "the breath is probably our biggest habitual pattern, the hardest to recognize, and the hardest to change."

Well-known Ashtanga teacher Richard Freeman echoes Berlinsky's emphasis on mula bandha and uddiyana bandha as crucial elements of Trikonasana. Freeman points out that, in Trikonasana, the bandhas require actions—"lengthening the coccyx into the pelvic floor, and keeping the pubic bone back in the pelvic floor"—that themselves demand the proper actions from the legs and the hips.

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