Yes, your form does make a difference! Here are the basics you need to know.

Just two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times's Health and Fitness section featured a photo spread demonstrating the proper and improper alignments of some very basic asanas. Take a look at the link along the sidebar and see if you can identify the better alignments. How can you make sure that your own alignment is correct? First of all, know your body. You might not be capable of looking just like the models who pose for Yoga Journal (yet!). Those models are most likely--usually--professional yoga instructors with years and years, hours and hours of rigorous training. Most of us in the Group X room of 24 Hour Fitness are not professional yoga instructors. That isn't our goal. We practice because we want to get stronger, manage stress, build muscle mass, improve our skeletal structure, achieve more balance and poise, or stretch out after a vigorous workout. Slavishly copying a photo isn't the best way to perfect alignment. In fact, adhering to a photo guide might be downright painful and cause injuries. Here are some of the most basic alignment guides that work for everyone's body--beginner or yogi. Breathe. Connect with your breath; it's your power source. Keep your lower abdominals engaged, just a bit. Holding your breath blocks your energy and makes any asana difficult.  Start from the ground up. When standing, distribute your weight evenly across the entire foot or both feet (depending on the pose). When seated, get both "sit bones" firmly in contact with the ground. When doing hand balances (as we did today in Crane), get the entire surface of each palm on the ground. When in standing poses, keep your feet parallel and hip distance apart. Attention to this will align your ankles and knees correctly. Not only will your knees thank you, so will your lower back. The entire foot works in many asanas, particularly standing poses. Keeping your feet supple and flexible, as well as grounded will improve your practice and your balance. Tadasana or Mountain Pose is fundamental to proper alignment in your practice. Keep your awareness of your body's alignment in Tadasana every time. Keep a micro-bend in your knees. Locking your knees into hyper-extension not only strains the knee joint, but is also a strain on the hamstrings. In standing poses, slightly engage the quadriceps muscle to lift the kneecaps. Keep your bent knees pointing straight ahead, toward the toes of the leg that is bending. Knee joints are marvels of engineering, but they can't take years of abuse. Align knees toward the toes, keeping the bend no more than a 90-degree angle, never extending past the ankle. Not only will you keep your knees for years and years, you will build your quadriceps and get stronger. Pamper those knees, please! Mom was right, keep your shoulders back. And Lois is right as well, "Shoulders aren't meant to be earrings." Keeping your scapulae (shoulder blades) solidly grounded and down will help life your chest, empowering you to rise up from the center of your core. You'll be stable, sturdier, and more powerful in your poses. And, you won't tire as easily during your practice, as it takes lots and lots of energy to hold up those shoulders. While holding your body in Warrior One or Warrior Two, check your alignment and make minor adjustments. Awareness of alignment is part of your practice. When bending forward or backward, rotate the thighs slightly inward. This applies to all bends, whether standing (forward fold) or sitting (seated forward bend). Moving the thighs inward just the teeniest bit opens up the sacroiliac and prevents compression in the lower back. Twist from the center up. The spine increases in flexibility from the bottom upwards. The lumbar spine doesn't twist AT ALL. The center (around the navel) can twist a bit. The upper spine (around the shoulders) is pretty flexible. The cervical spine (the neck) can move easily. When twisting, start at the bottom of the flexibility scale. Twist from the navel, then the ribs, then the shoulders, then the neck. When untwisting, reverse the order. As you inhale, strive for more length up through the spine; during the exhale, move through the twist. Take your time. Twists are beneficial, but only when done correctly. Use the mirror. We are lucky enough to have lots of visual reinforcement in the Group X room. Use the mirrors to check your own alignment. Adjust yourself. Trust your instincts; if a pose doesn't look or feel correct, ask questions. We want you to be safe. As a rule, I stay after class for 20 minutes or so to answer questions on an individual basis. If you feel shy, or can't stay after class because of time constraints, we can communicate through an e-mail via the comments section of this blog.  At 24 Hour Fitness, we want you to experience the best that yoga can offer--good alignment, safety, well-being, and confidence. The benefits of regular practice are many. I want to thank every one of you who have shared the difference that your practice has made in your life, your health, and your sense of progress. I can't say it often enough, "It's my privilege to be your teacher." Namaste, Nancy