Growing up in Chicagoland, I had the chance to visit the Sears Tower many times, and I can tell you one of the most impressive features of this mind-boggling skyscraper is that it takes a heck of a lot longer to walk around the base of the building than to ride the elevator up.  That’s because, if you’re looking for height, foundation is everything.  Not only is the foundation you can see important, but equally essential is that which lies below the foundation.

This principle is also true in yoga poses, where we are constantly employing Newtons 3rd Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  It is through stable grounding that we achieve full extension.  If the base is not strong and stable, the pose becomes unstable and we actually end up compressing the joints, tissues and organs to which we had intended to bring healing spaciousness.  Simply put, we need to ground down in order to extend up.  The foundation of many poses begins with the feet and/or hands (and that which lies below the feet or hands — cushy carpet yoga is not the best).  In both the hand and foot structures we can see Newtons Third Law at work.  If we ground down securely, the arches of the feet and hands can lift, creating a stable foundation.

The arch is preferred by many architects for its strength and stability.  The muscles that attach to the foot and hand arches then lift as well, affecting the muscles, tendons and joints just above it and the process continues on upward to the top of the pose.  The channels of energy (nadis or meridians) also begin in the hands and feet.  When we ground down fully in our poses, our sensitive energy system responds by drawing energy up these channels into the entire body, affecting the health and vitality of the spine and central nervous system; this translates into more spacious extension in the pose as well as greater healing for the entire body.  In asana practice, just as in skyscraper construction, were able to extend upward only as far as we have grounded downward.  Unlike the speed limit, this law is unbreakable.

Maren wrote this essay as part of her Master-level Teacher Advanced Studies program.  If you’d like to find out more about this program, click here.