Asana Questions

Yoga students often ask me how to do an asana. Rarely can I give a straight answer. Of course, we can talk about the fundamentals, bandhas, where to place the drishti, and so on. But yoga postures unfold (or I guess, fold, heh... ) in infinite different ways. Not every piece of general advice or alignment cue is right for every body.

One of the most valuable things a consistent practice can teach us is somatic intelligence. This is the body’s current capacity to sense, interpret, and respond to experience through physical awareness. It’s the intelligence of the nervous system, tissues, breath, posture, and movement working together to guide us toward regulation, safety, and authentic expression.

In yoga, somatic intelligence is the ability to listen to physical signals such as tension, fear, breath, muscular engagement, or even a subtle gut feeling before the thinking mind overrides them and pushes us toward an injury, fatigue, or feeling stuck.

Over time, practice becomes less about achieving the traditional shape and more about intuitively responding to these signals. The posture then becomes a slow ongoing dialogue with the body.