Foot placement in warrior 1
Olivia Marley
Warrior 1: traditional v updated foot alignment
We’ve shifted our focus to the warrior one family of postures in class this week. I’m also including other poses where the placement of your feet on the mat stays the same but you’re doing other stuff with your upper body, like pyramid and revolved triangle.
revolved triangle
There are two main things we’re looking at in relation to this group of postures: the placement of your feet and the amount of rotation in your upper body. Once I’ve found a comfortable placement for my feet in warrior 1 I normally keep them pretty much as they are for all the other postures in this family. But because my body’s different to everyone else’s, my foot placement will be different to everyone else in class. Conversely, the amount I rotate my upper body in these poses changes from posture to posture, as well as being different to how everyone else does it. Maybe a simpler way of saying that is:
feet placement
will be individual to each person
for any one person foot placement will likely be the same/ similar across the poses in this family
upper body rotation
will be individual to each person
will be different for each of these poses.
In some traditions they would consider that there’s a set way everyone should put their feet in warrior 1 (you might have been told in the past to line up your front and back heel, like in the first, left hand image above). In my experience, of my own body and of talking to my students, that alignment often doesn’t work for ankles/ hips/ knees or lower back. So this I’ve been suggesting that my students try out having their feet hip width apart (like in the first, right hand image above). We’re also experimenting with turning your chest towards your front knee (the more traditional way, as shown here) and then turning it a little away from your front knee, which some bodies much prefer.
Which foot placement and position of your upper body does your body prefer in warrior 1?