22 Creative Yoga Cues That Will Transform Your Practice

You’ve likely had this experience in class: one moment you’re struggling to find peace in a pose, but then after a single phrase from your teacher, the shape suddenly makes complete sense. These resonant words and phrases allow something to click in your mind, which then creates more space, access, and stillness in your body.

We asked followers, friends, and YJ editors to share the yoga cues that changed the way they practice. Some are pose-specific shifts, while other are more general invitations that apply both on the mat and beyond. Take a skim—you may see your own yoga in some of these well-loved lines.

22 Yoga Cues to Help Guide Your Practice

Yoga is more than an embodied practice, although the right yoga cues can definitely help.

1. Start simple: unclench your jaw.

2. To sink into Cow Pose? Imagine you have udders as a reminder to arch your spine and let your belly hang low.

3. Just try and see. There’s no harm in exploring what’s possible for your body (so long as you listen when it tells you to stop).

4. To that end, play around and see how small shifts in the pose feel for you is a solid cue in any pose.

5. Press the ground away from you. Works in most poses that find you seeking stability through your flattened hands.

6. Looking to nail Crow Pose? Hug your knees into your arms and push your arms into your knees.

7. Take what you need.

8. When balancing in Tree Pose, picture roots slithering out of your supporting foot, anchoring you to the ground. 

9. Find a spot slightly in front of you and focus your gaze. Drishti, or a single-pointed gaze, is the key to balance.

10. In Downward and Upward-Facing Dog, turn your elbow creases toward the front of the room. This helps create space in your chest and length in your back.

11. Observe the quality of your breath.

12. Set up Warrior 2 arms like you’re holding a bow and arrow. This always hits. Not only with the arm placement but also with that laser focus that helps you feel like a badass.

13. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be. Especially relevant as you’re slipping into Savasana.

14. Allow it to be easy.

15. In any standing balancing pose, such as Warrior 3 or Extended Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose, push through your heel.

16. Walk it out. A Downward-Facing Dog essential.

18. Let yourself feel without judgement.

19. Massage your third eye in Child’s Pose, aka gently roll your forehead on the mat. See if it releases your thoughts as well as any lingering neck tension.

20. Another favorite gaze-oriented cue to help you hold your drishti: look to infinity and beyond. 

21. Push away from the mat in Plank Pose to feel like you’re actively rising away from the mat.

22. Let go.