-- The Triangle Pose

About the Pose

The Triangle Pose is wonderfully deceptive; a simple pose that's subversive of linear thinking. Though it seems straightforward, with clean straight lines, you'll run into trouble the moment you approach the pose just on those terms. It's full of spiraling energies that crisscross one another to stretch your legs, strengthen your lower back, open your hips and shoulders, and stretch you in places you've never felt before. All this from bending to one side.

The pose is easy enough to learn that you can make it part of your practice from the start, but has enough nuances to keep you fascinated through a life of practice.

The Pose

Take the Basic Stance for Standing Poses.

Press the mound of the big toe and the inner heel of the right foot down and turn the top of the right thigh out, so the center of the kneecap lines up with the center of your right foot.

Firm the muscles of your thighs and draw that energy up through the legs.

With an exhalation, extend your torso to the right, folding at the hip.

Touch the floor, your shin, or a block placed behind your right leg, and extend your left arm straight up, palm facing forward. Balance your weight evenly on both feet.

Firm your thighs, draw your tailbone down and forward, and bring your upper body and shoulders back in line with your right leg, so that your whole body is roughly in one plane.

Keeping all sides of your neck evenly extended, and turn your head to look up toward your left hand.

To come up, extend through your left arm and left leg and inhale as you come up.

Refining the Pose

 Pain in the Knee

Come up out of the pose, keeping your feet in the proper stance. Bend your right knee halfway and turn the knee out toward the little toe. Feel how weight shifts toward the outer edge of the foot, and your right hip tucks in slightly, opening your hip so that it feels easier to bend to the right.

Keeping your kneecap facing toward the middle of your foot, straighten your leg, firming and lifting the thigh muscle. As the muscles of the leg firm and draw energy up toward the hip, extend straight down through the leg bones to the heel; avoid 'locking' the knee, which presses the knee joint down toward the floor.

Keeping this alignment and action in the leg, go into the pose. If pain returns to the knee, check the knee -- has it turned back inwards, placing more weight on the inner knee? Go less deeply into the pose as you work with the actions of firming the muscles and rotating the leg.

 Feeling 'Stuck' in the Hip

Lean your upper body to the inside of the right leg; you can place your hand on a block or some other support. Bend your right knee slightly and turn it out toward the little toe. Feel how the inner thigh releases and the hip clears of some of its 'stuckness' or congestion. Firm the thigh as you straighten the leg to keep this alignment.

Keeping the legs straight and firm, swing your right hand around to the floor on the outside of the leg, to the shin or to a block. Firming the tops of your buttocks, draw your tailbone down and forward as you swing your upper body back in line with the leg. Keep your legs firm and extending into the floor.

Pain in the Neck or Shoulder

Turn your head to look forward, so the neck is extended evenly on all sides. Take your left hand forward, then retract your left shoulder back, drawing the shoulderblade firmly into your back toward the spine; let that action open your chest and turn your heart upward.

Rotate the whole arm so that the palm of your left hand turns in the direction of your head; use that action to help draw the inner edge of  the shoulderblade down your back toward your waist. Feel how this opens a space between your neck and ear.

Keeping this action in your shoulder, draw your left arm back in line with your body and extend from your heart upward through your fingertips. Without allowing your shoulder to drift forward, turn your head to look up toward your left hand.

-- Doug Keller

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