Poses by Type

Do inversions make you anxious—and excited to try them? Work through those nagging fears and you’ll reap all the juicy benefits. Here, 8 top yoga teachers share their best tips for how to find the courage to go upside down, or to try a new inverted pose.

Modify Paschimottanasana as necessary to find safe alignment in your body.

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...

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.

Long day? Feeling sluggish? Try these poses from YJ Influencer Meredith Cameron to create space in your upper body to soften, flush, and balance your organ system.

In this excerpt from her new book Deep Listening, Jillian Pransky offers a practice for creating space to let yourself be just as you are.

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.

Build endurance as you move step by step into Mayurasana.

Whether you're new to restorative yoga or a seasoned pro, little tweaks can help you get more relaxation out of your practice.

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.

Learn how to listen with compassion to your body, breath, feelings, and thoughts. This deep listening helps you cultivate the kind of conscious relaxation that allows you to stay open, present, and curious in situations where you normally wouldn't.

One of the most powerful ways to feel more OK mentally and emotionally is to learn how to relax the body. Here, Jillian Pransky breaks down how to release one of the most chronically tense muscles: the psoas.

Curious how you might benefit from our Restorative Yoga 101 course with Jillian Pransky? Five students of Pransky's students share how her restorative classes transformed them.

Well-propped restorative poses can offer us the experience of being cradled and protected while releasing deep-held tension and providing the opportunity for true relaxation. Learn how to set yourself up for your most rejuvenating practice yet.

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.

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

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.

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.

You're going to like how this feels.

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.

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

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.

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

Use these prep poses to open your body for One-Legged King Pigeon Pose II.

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.

This basic technique has the power to transform life’s challenges.

Hip openers aren’t always the answer.

In part four of our series on teaching trauma-sensitive yoga, teacher Daniel Sernicola shares five practices to help your students get grounded and cultivate mindfulness.

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.

In honor of the Fall Equinox, yin yoga teacher Danielle March offers a sequence to help you gain some perspective and insight on your own summer growth.

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.

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.

Urban Zen helps sick patients and their caregivers overcome pain, 
anxiety, nausea, insomnia, constipation, and exhaustion through yoga.

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.

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.