Category: Alignment

Dharma

8/9/2025

In yoga philosophy, Dharma is the first of the Four Aims of Life (Purusharthas) — the guiding principles that help us live with balance, purpose, and joy. The word Dharma comes from the Sanskrit root dhri, meaning to uphold or to sustain. It is often translated as “duty” or “righteousness,” but its meaning is far more personal and profound: Dharma is living in alignment with your highest truth.

Your Dharma is your soul’s unique path—the way you contribute to the world in a way only you can. It’s not just about your career or your roles in life; it’s about how you show up in each moment. Are your choices aligned with compassion? Integrity? Wisdom?

Dharma in Yoga Practice
Yoga is one of the most powerful tools we have for clarifying and living our Dharma. When we step onto the mat, we practice listening — to our breath, our body, and our inner wisdom. The focus, discipline, and awareness we cultivate in asana and meditation naturally begin to spill over into our daily lives.

A gentle forward fold might teach patience. A challenging balance pose might reveal where we’re holding unnecessary tension. The more we notice these patterns, the more we can live from a place of clarity and alignment.

Signs You’re in Alignment with Your Dharma

You feel a sense of flow and meaning in your life, work and relationships.
You act with integrity, even when it’s difficult (and nobody's watching).
You experience less inner conflict and more peace with your choices.
Your energy feels replenished rather than depleted by your commitments.

Living Your Dharma Off the Mat
While yoga gives us tools for self-awareness, Dharma is lived in the choices we make beyond the studio. It can look like:

Speaking up for what’s right, even when it’s not the easy option.
Caring for yourself so you can care for others.
Choosing actions that serve not just yourself, but the greater good.

“It is better to strive in one’s own Dharma than to succeed in the Dharma of another.” – Bhagavad Gita

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Downward-Facing Dog

7/10/2023

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Adho Mukha Svanasana, or Downward-Facing Dog Pose, is one of the most well known yoga postures. It’s one of the poses of Surya Namaskar or Sun Salutations, and it’s often used as a transition when moving from the floor into a standing posture. Although some practices, mainly vinyasa, use it as a resting pose, most practitioners will find it at least a bit challenging. It is a pose that strengthens and stretches the body. For some bodies, the stretch is more of a challenge, and for others, the strength needed to stabilize the body while holding the body inverted against gravity is more of an effort.

Sanskrit:
Adho = Downward; Mukha = Facing; Svana = Dog; Asana = pose
(Ah-doh MOO-kah shvah-NAH-sah-nah)

Benefits/Purpose:
Downward-Facing Dog, or “Down Dog,” strengthens the upper body, elongates and gently realigns the vertebrae, stretches the back of the legs, improves circulation, and relieves tension from the neck and back.

Precautions:
As always, check with your healthcare provider before beginning any physical practice. If you have weak back muscles, hamstrings, sciatica, or knee problems, keep knees bent and spine straight. For those with carpal tunnel syndrome, press into the base of the fingers. For those with recent or chronic injuries or inflammation in ankle, knee, leg, hip, back, shoulder, arm, or wrist or those with uncontrolled high blood pressure or diseases of the eyes or ears, the pose may be contraindicated.

How to Practice:

Begin in table position (on your hands and knees), with knees under the hips and wrists under the shoulders. Spread your fingers and curl your toes under.
Press into your hands and engage your arms, shoulders, and pectoral muscles to stabilize your body. Keep your knees bent as you raise your hips as high as you can.
Pull your shoulder blades down and draw them away from the spine. Engage and stabilize your shoulders as you lengthen your waist.
Ground through your index fingers and thumbs.
Press your heels toward the ground and straighten your legs as much as possible, comfortably, maintaining elongated spine.
Keep the neck in in line with the spine.
To release, bend your knees and lower back into table position.

Modifications/Variations:

Practice with your hands on a wall or the back of a chair.
Bend the knees to ease the pressure on the hamstrings and low back.
Use a wedge or the wall to support the heels.

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Mountain Pose/Tadasana

2/19/2023

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Tadasana, or Mountain Pose, is the foundational standing pose, and the principles of alignment you learn through its practice apply to many of the other standing postures. At a quick glance, you might think that someone in this posture is “just standing there,” but there’s more going on than meets the eye. In the properly aligned and executed posture, many muscles are activated, and the practitioner is balancing the engaged muscles with areas of ease.

Sanskrit:
Tadasana (tah-DAHS-ah-na)
Tada = mountain
Asana = commonly translated as pose; but more literally means seat (as in “take the seat/energy of a mountain”)

You may also hear this pose referred to as Samastithi (suh-muh-sthi-ti)

Sama = Equal, same
Stithi = Standing

Benefits of Tadasana:
This pose improves posture and muscle tone by bringing the body into correct alignment. It helps you develop concentration, coordination, stability, strength, poise, and balance. When you are standing in Tadasana, you are taking on the energy of a mountain—majestic, tall, and stable.

How to practice:

Stand with your feet parallel and hip-width apart.
Press down through the soles of your feet, at the “four corners.” Distribute your weight evenly side to side, between the inner and outer edges, and between the ball and heel of each foot.
Lightly engage your quadriceps. Press the top of the thigh back to reduce hyperextension at the knee.
Extend your tailbone down to elongate your lumbar spine and lengthen your waist. You’ll feel your belly firm as you do this.
Roll your shoulders up, back, and down. Reach down through your fingertips, and press up through the crown, lengthening the neck.
Reach out through your fingertips as you raise your arms into a V position overhead. Keep your arms extended just outside the ears.
Lengthen the body from hip to armpit, pulling up out of the waist.
To release, reach out through your fingertips, and lower your arms to your sides. Relax your torso and legs.

Possible Modifications or Variations:

Keep your arms down or hands in prayer position (anjali mudra) at heart center.
Hands on the waist, pulling your elbows back to open the chest.
Bring big toes together, with a slight space between the heels.

Precautions
With heart conditions or high blood pressure, keep arms below the head, using one of the modifications above.

As always, if a posture causes pain, come out of it immediately. Ask a qualified yoga teacher for assistance.

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Benefits of Yoga

1/15/2023

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I love having beginners in class. I try to always get a moment to chat with them afterwards to ask how it was for them. Almost always, they look at me with wide eyes and a content expression. "I had no idea I could feel this relaxed." Or "I didn't realize how much tension I was holding until I released it." Those sometimes hard-to-express feelings are what keep most of us coming back for more. And realizing how content I could feel is what prompted me to become a teacher. I wanted to feel this way ALL THE TIME!

Scientific research is confirming those emotional, mental, and physical benefits of yoga. In fact, more and more health care providers are now recommending yoga to patients as a first line of defense. Listed here, in no particular order, are the top ten benefits, in my opinion.

STRESS RELIEF: The various practices of yoga (stretching, breathing, meditation, relaxation) reduce the physical effects of stress on the body by encouraging the relaxation response and lowering the levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. Related benefits include lowering blood pressure and heart rate, improving digestion and boosting the immune system, as well as easing symptoms of conditions such as anxiety, depression, fatigue, asthma and insomnia.

PAIN RELIEF: Yoga can ease our physical aches and pains. Studies have demonstrated that practicing Yoga postures, meditation, or a combination of the two, reduced pain for people with conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases and hypertension as well as arthritis, back and neck pain and other chronic conditions.

BETTER BREATHING: Pranayama, the breathing practices of yoga, teach us to take slower, deeper breaths. This helps to improve lung function and elicits the body’s relaxation response.

FLEXIBILITY: The physical practice of yoga improves flexibility and mobility, increasing range of movement and reducing aches and pains.

INCREASED STRENGTH: Yoga postures use every muscle in the body, helping to increase strength from head to toe.

WEIGHT MANAGEMENT: All forms of yoga can aid weight control efforts by reducing our stress, and therefore, our cortisol levels. Yoga also encourages healthy eating habits and provides a heightened sense of awareness, well being, and self-esteem.

IMPROVED CIRCULATION: When we restrict blood flow while holding yoga poses, the release of the poses helps to move oxygenated blood to the body’s cells.

CARDIOVASCULAR CONDITIONING: Even a gentle yoga practice can provide cardiovascular benefits. Yoga lowers resting heart rate, increases endurance, and improves our oxygen uptake.

BETTER BODY ALIGNMENT: Yoga helps to improve body awareness and alignment, resulting in better posture and relief of back, neck, joint and muscle pain and stiffness.

FOCUS ON THE PRESENT: Yoga teaches us to focus on the present moment and become more self-aware. This can lead to improved coordination, reaction time and memory.

This is not a comprehensive list. Do you have something to add? A benefit that your practice has provided that is not on this list? Please add it in the comments!

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Dharma

Downward-Facing Dog

Mountain Pose/Tadasana

Benefits of Yoga

Dena D. Beratta

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