Asana Lab: Dancing Warrior Flow

One stance, three poses

The Dancing Warrior Flow is Warrior II into Reverse Warrior into Side Angle, then back and forth between those last two a few times before you step back and take a vinyasa. You have almost certainly done this flow before as it shows up in nearly every Vinyasa Flow class there is. But usually teachers move through the flow at a speed that gives you no chance to notice what is happening. So today we’ll slow things down.

What makes it a flow rather than three poses in a row is that the legs don’t move. Virabhadrasana II sets the stance, and then Viparita Virabhadrasana and Utthita Parsvakonasana rearrange the upper body on top of it. Same feet, same front knee, same hips, all the way through. The dancing part is the lateral flexion, leaning back and then coming forward and down, opening one side of the waistline and then the other, which is one of the few moments in a class where you meet the same shape three times and get to feel it change.

Leg positioning and alignment

Stance and feet. Your feet should be roughly one leg’s distance apart. I say “roughly,” because the choice is yours: a wider stance gives you openness and ease, a narrow stance gives you stability and strength. The front foot points at the front edge of the mat, back foot parallel to the back edge or turned in slightly. Find pada bandha in both feet: spread the toes, press down through the big toe mound, the pinky toe mound, and the heel, then release the toes back down. Open the pelvis toward the long edge of the mat as far as it goes and no further. If your hip bones end up pointing somewhat forward, that is fine.

The front knee. The traditional cue is knee over ankle, tracking in line with the second toe. I used to give this cue all the time, but not anymore because it doesn’t respect the fact that we’re all built a bit differently. Instead, here’s how to approach the alignment of your front knee: stand in Tadasana in your normal relaxed posture and look at your legs. If your knees touch and your feet don’t, your front knee in Warrior II will sit slightly inward, and that is your bone structure, not weakness. If your ankles touch and your knees don’t, like mine, your knee will want to be further out. So start with the knee over the ankle and adjust to where your legs naturally go. What does apply to everyone is the foot placement: keep pressing into the outer edge of your front foot so the inner arch doesn’t collapse.

The back foot. Heel-to-arch alignment is a starting point, not a requirement. If your hips are tight, or you feel a hard bony compression at the back of your back hip socket, step the back foot forward about an inch. That one adjustment gives the pelvis room to breathe. I use it in my own practice, because otherwise I feel like I have gone to my maximum and locked everything in place.

Upper body changes

Warrior II. Shoulders stacked directly over the hips, arms reaching out into a T. Gently draw the shoulder blades in toward each other while you stretch out through the fingertips. Pulling in toward the midline and expanding away from it at the same time is what gives the chest its lift.

Reverse Warrior. Before you go anywhere, lift your rib cage up and away from your hips, and you can feel your organs get some room back. Keep that length from the hip points up to the armpits, then flip the front palm up, lean up and back, and slide the back hand down the back leg. How far back you come depends on how bent the front knee stays and on the length of your arms, so there is no target here.

Side Angle. Come forward and down, front elbow resting lightly on the front thigh, top arm overhead in line with the top ear. Two things to watch. The bottom shoulder creeps up toward the bottom ear, so lift the head away from it and find space in the neck. And once the arm is above shoulder height, let the shoulder blade travel up with it rather than pressing it down the back. Gaze out, down, or up, whichever your neck likes. The traditional cue of looking at the top hand is fine for some people and horrible for others.

The breath

The general rule is that every time you open up, that’s an inhale, and every time you close in, that’s an exhale. Here that gives you an inhale to lift and lean back into Reverse Warrior, because of how much the top lung and top ribs expand, and an exhale to come forward and down into Side Angle. Going in, the leg lifts on an inhale in Three-Legged Dog and the knee bends on an exhale, which helps, since it is easier to make yourself small enough to step through when your chest isn’t full of air.

That is what feels intuitive to me and what I teach. It is not a hard rule. I have been to plenty of classes that cue Reverse Warrior on an exhale, and I get my own breath cues wrong often enough.

The transitions

Getting in: from Down Dog, float one leg up, bend the knee and open the hip, look forward, and step the foot between the hands. That bent-knee version is a Vinyasa convention rather than part of the pose, so if it cramps your hamstring or just doesn’t feel good, keep the hips square and the leg straight and step through. Then spin the back heel down and windmill the arms up one at a time, and check the front knee once you arrive.

Getting out: spin the chest down toward the floor, lift the back heel, plant both hands, and step the front foot back to Plank. Then take a vinyasa of choice, whether that is Chaturanga, knees down, or lowering all the way to the belly for Cobra.

What goes wrong once you’re moving

The hips rise every round. I always tell students to keep the hips low because we tend to take some of the bend out of the front leg with every round. The front leg is doing real work, and lifting out of it is easier than staying in it, so each pass through Reverse Warrior straightens the knee a little more. Check the depth of the knee at the top of every lift and try to maintain it throughout the flow and the entire practice.

The booty pops back and the head goes forward. We tend to move the hips back, the belly forward, and the chin out as if we’re surfing on the yoga mat. Instead, lift the low belly as you draw the tailbone down, pull the rib cage back toward the spine, and press the back of the head toward an imaginary wall behind you.

The chest rolls forward in Side Angle. You may end up looking like you are about to fold into a standing split. So press down strongly through both feet, then curl the chest up toward the sky, roll the top shoulder back, and spin the top lung around behind you.

The breath disappears. This usually happens in Side Angle, where the bottom ribs are compressed and the legs are burning. Resting the elbow on the thigh takes enough intensity out that you can breathe into both lungs again.

Your low back doesn’t like the side bend. A lateral bend combined with a backbend or a twist is exactly the combination that stresses the lumbar spine. There is very little load here compared to picking up a heavy box, so most people are fine. But if you have a disc issue and your low back is the thing you want to protect, this may not be your flow for the moment, and sitting it out is a reasonable decision.

If you’re the one teaching it

Teach it in layers. You can start one round and only give movement cues, then movement plus breath in round two, then movement and breath plus activation cues. You don’t have to teach three rounds in one go, and instead come back to the flow three times during class. Give the shapes on the first side, add the breath on the second, and save the finer detail for the repetitions, when nobody has to think about where their feet go anymore.

Stop giving the second-toe cue to the whole room. It still works for the students whose legs sit neutral, but you only know who those are if you look. Watch everyone standing in Tadasana at the start of class, notice who has knees together with feet apart and who has feet together with knees apart, then help those students individually. Offer the back foot stepped forward as a real option, and say what it fixes so the people who need it know who they are.

The bottom half of Warrior II is stable enough that you can change almost anything above it and keep the pose working: bent elbows with the palms up for shoulder injuries, hands on the hips to rest the arms, cactus arms, Eagle arms, a block under the front foot to fire up the outer front hip. Variations on a standard pose are how a sequence everyone has done a hundred times stays interesting.