Updated September 22, 2025 08:19AM
The One Cue I Always Ignore in Yoga
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(Photo: Yoga With Kassandra)
If you’ve ever come into High Lunge in yoga class, you’ve probably heard a teacher cue you to “straighten your back leg.” It sounds simple enough. But when I look at myself in the mirror after straightening my back leg, I notice that my body looks nothing like what the teacher says about “stacking your shoulders over your hips” and “reaching your tailbone toward the mat.”
Instead, I look like a banana. My hips are tilting forward and my belly is sticking out and rounding forward and I have this huge curve along my back body. It’s very clear to me that my hips are nowhere near under my shoulders! And my tailbone is aiming up at the ceiling because my back is curved so much.
If your body is anything like mine, which means you also experience anterior pelvic tilt, you probably notice something similar. My body won’t necessarily feel bad if I hold High Lunge for a few breaths, but some people immediately feel pain when they try to straighten the back leg in this pose and not understand why. I literally can’t make the shape of the pose if my back leg is straight.
That’s because I experience lordosis, which is a pronounced curvature of the lower back that causes my hips to tilt forward excessively. When I try to make my back leg straight, all I’m doing is exacerbating that anterior pelvic tilt, which creates tension and sometimes pain in my lower back.
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And when you can’t find the alignment that the teacher cueing or your body isn’t responding the way other students’ are or you experience pain, it’s easy to feel like there’s something wrong with you. But you’re not doing anything wrong and no pose should ever hurt you. The traditional yoga alignment for High Lunge simply doesn’t work for some of us.
So I always ignore that cue. Instead, I take as much of a bend in my back knee as I need to keep my hips more underneath my shoulders and alleviate any discomfort. And you can do the same.
This tendency toward anterior pelvic tilt can show up in other poses, although I’ve found being encouraged to have a straight back leg in High Lunge is especially problematic. So I no longer listen to that cue.
Although ignoring what the teacher says helps the immediate problem, anterior pelvic tilt could also be affecting the rest of your yoga practice and your life. It helps to learn how to be aware of when it’s showing up and understand ways to engage your body that can adapt your posture. I explain that in the following practice especially designed for anterior pelvic tilt.
