Poses by Type

Stretch the back of your entire body, open your hips, and create a state of inner calm.

This gentle way of accessing the six bandhas (energetic locks) during your practice will help you experience more freedom in your body and bliss in your life.

Start to understand, lengthen, and strengthen your teres major—a little-known muscle that can be the key to protecting your shoulders when you go upside down.

Drum roll, please...

Release tension with this restorative sequence from Rodney Yee for encouraging the flow of breath and prana.

Learn how master teacher Rodney Yee discovered the power of pranayama to quiet the mind and why it's a focus of every asana class he teaches.

Using a chair as a launch pad to toggle between Kurmasana and Tittibhasana is a great way to build mobility and challenge your balance. Ready to give it a try?

Learn how to use a chair and a block in Revolved Head-to-Knee Pose to both ground and expand the posture all at once.

Check out Carrie Owerko's author page.

Senior Iyengar Yoga teacher Carrie Owerko offers an alternative approach to One-Legged Crane Pose II. Go ahead, take flight.

Every single body has its own unique skeletal structure, ranges of motion, and thus expression of a given pose. Here, discover how a bolster can help you make better sense of backbends in your own body.

Yoga and Pilates teacher Trina Altman shares why she practices and teaches a lot more than basic asana. Here, three big ways she’d love to see asana practice advance in the near future.

Flexible and strong, hamstrings are key to a healthy, happy yoga practice. Here's what you need to know in order to lengthen and strengthen these muscles.

Check out YJ Editor's author page.

Opens your shoulders and chest in Setu Bandha Sarvangasana.

Modify Setu Bandha Sarvangasana if needed to find safe alignment in your body.

Open your shoulders, chest, and upper back, and practice rooting down through your forearms and lifting your shoulders away from the floor with these prep poses for Eka Pada Viparita Dandasana.

Root your forearms, lift your shoulders, curl your chest open, and extend through your spine and legs as you move step by step into Eka Pada Viparita Dandasana.

How to do it, why you should, and the secrets to making inversions less scary, more stable, and a ton of fun

Your yoga practice is an excellent way to give your ankles the attention they deserve, helping to reverse past damage and keep you injury free for years to come.

Trust your gut. Follow your instincts. Do what your heart tells you. There are so many ways we talk about heeding our intuition, and yet for many of us it remains a challenge. Below, Los Angeles–based yoga teacher Caley Alyssa shares ways to boost self-confidence and tune in to the voice within—both on and off the mat.

This guided meditation is designed to help you feel that something has your back, so you can open your heart.

Do this short sequence 3–5 times on its own or as part of a longer practice to open your heart chakra and experience compassion.

Modify Bharadvajasana II to find safe alignment in your body.

Strengthen your arms and shoulders, fire up your core, and bring levity to your practice as you move step by step into Tolasana.

Move into backbends more safely, knowing you can consciously engage the muscles needed to protect the lumbar spine.

Want to unleash the true potential of your middle? 
Turns out crunches—yes, the exercise you’ve avoided for years in favor of holding Plank—are key to a stronger core and more stable yoga practice. Discover how they can serve you in every pose.

Use this mudra anytime you need to detach from daily life, anchor yourself, and plug in to your untamable feminine power.

Come into Kali Mudra, named after the fierce goddess Durga.

This mudra represents unshakeable self-confidence, inner strength, and faith in something greater.

Binds are a wonderful way to open the shoulders, create a safe, stable haven in a pose, and build prana in the body. Within these 5 binds, you’ll find some of the most elegant, graceful shapes that ask you to rise to the occasion.

The intensity of Virasana can feel as daunting as the hero’s journey in your favorite adventure story. Choose the variation on the pose, ranging from gentle to fiery, to fit the narrative of your personal story on the mat today.

Connect to higher consciousness and reach your full potential with this heart- and mind-opening asana and pranayama practice.

Maintaining flexibility and stability in the hip joints is crucial for lower-back health and cultivating overall freedom and ease in our bodies.

Soar like a bird as you move step by step with Tias Little 
into Parsva Bakasana.

Warm up your legs and spine in these prep poses from Tias Little for Parsva Bakasana.

Tias Little offers 3 ways to modify Jathara Parivartanasana if needed 
to find safe alignment in your body.

Learn how to create elasticity and strength in Revolved Abdomen Pose in preparation for Parsva Bakasana.

Often used in meditation, pranayama, and asana, this mudra helps lift dull energy, creates a more receptive state, calms the mind, and brightens the overall mood.

This mudra connects us to our higher Self, helps lift dull energy, creates a more receptive state, calms the mind, and brightens the overall mood. It is often used in meditation, pranayama, and asana.

Garuda Mudra is named after the eagle that Vishnu—the lord of preservation—rides. It can help you cultivate the discipline you need to stick with your daily yoga practice when life gets busy.

Tattva Mudra reminds us that the true nature 
of the Self, or our fundamental essence, is transcendent, unchanging, pure, and whole.

Master teacher Sianna Sherman takes us step by step through Padma Mudra.

Prana Mudra is great if you need a quick pick-me-up, as it elicits the vitality that resides within our prana, or life force.

Bring your hands to the contemplative gesture of Dhyana Mudra by resting them, upturned, at your navel with the right hand on top.

Draw inspiration from this hand gesture representing the purity and perseverance of the lotus flower floating above the muddy waters of desire, fear, and attachment.

Representing a continuous flow of energy, use this mudra to calm and focus your mind and improve your attitude.

Master teacher Sianna Sherman takes us step by step through Abhaya Hrdaya (Fearless Heart) Mudra.

Ganesha Mudra is named after the Hindu deity who removes obstacles. Use it relieve stress and tension and lift your spirits.

Fire up your passion for a sacred life with Lingam Mudra.

Use this mudra to find the courage to keep your heart open and loving, especially during those difficult times in your life when fear, hate, or anger pull you away

When done properly, twists have the potential to help your low back feel great. Here are three poses to help you relieve low back pain.

Ray Long, MD, explains the anatomy of twists and how to support the action with proper muscular engagement to prevent low back pain.

If you're looking to get in shape, Kiersten Mooney proposes the need for speed. And her yoga research backs it up.

Once you know how to breathe mindfully, you can use the practice to help you through challenging times.

When yogis talk hips, it's generally about opening them. But your hips CAN be too open... Learn why balancing strength and flexibility in the hips is so important.

You probably know that your diet should change with the seasons, but according to Ayurveda, even your pranayama should be tweaked three times a year. Here's how to do it.

Annie Carpenter dove deep into the core at YJ LIVE! San Diego, offering accessible alignment cues and a creative sequence to help maximize core stability.

Every yogi can melt hip tension with this Monkey Pose sequence (with mods!) from the yoga teacher, body-positive advocate, and Instagram star.

Amy Ippoliti is masterful at breaking poses down into their individual components, making them accessible and beneficial for all levels and body types. Here, her creative and thorough new pathway to Urdhva Dhanurasana.

If you’ve mastered Bakasana and are ready to take your arm balance practice to the next level, try incorporating these Bakasana toe-taps into your routine.

Practicing this twisting sequence is beneficial for anyone who sits for a good portion of the day, suffers from chronic back pain, or loves activities like running, cycling, and hiking.

Move step by step with power and balance into Ganda Bherundasana.

Coral Brown, a licensed mental-health counselor and senior Prana Vinyasa Flow teacher, shares four great mudras for this time of year.

AcroYoga teacher Deven Sisler turned to restorative yoga after suffering from two miscarriages and a precancerous condition. Use her restorative sequence to find your own healing flow.

This week, Los Angeles-based yoga teacher Clio Manuelian offers an invigorating and grounding inversions-focused plan to prepare the body and mind to open to the insight of meditation.

This week, Los Angeles-based yoga teacher Clio Manuelian offers an invigorating and grounding inversions-focused plan to prepare the body and mind to open to the insight of meditation.

Balancing forces is particularly crucial when it comes to addressing the feeling of “tightness” many of us have in our hips.

To work on activating the muscles of the hips to find more balance, try this sequence.

Kathryn Budig shares her three favorite PMS remedies—after chocolate. Prepare to prop!

Readers share their favorite mudras (hand gestures).

The mudras and the Reiki hand positions can be used in tandem with the Yees’ asana sequence or separately to help you find calm.

This combination of restorative yoga, meditation, essential oils, and Reiki—
from dream team Colleen Saidman Yee and Rodney Yee—will help 
ease anxiety and insomnia to deliver your best night’s zzz’s.

This strong-core sequence will move you in every direction to work your middle from each possible angle, building strength and ease of movement, naturally.

Strengthen your core and shoulders and develop better balance as you move step by step into Eka Pada Vasisthasana.

How to move from Utthita Hasta
Padangusthasana to Eka Pada Vasisthasana.

The benefits of chair pose are endless. It strengthens the muscles in your thighs and feet, tones your core muscles, and increases ankle mobility.

Here are 4 yoga-inspired, belly-toning exercises that you can do in the comfort of your own home, on your own time.

You may spend serious time sweating, but it's the space between workouts that counts. Sage Rountree's yoga poses will help you get the most out of your recovery time.

Fly high with open hips and a strong core as you move step by step into Eka Pada Galavasana.