The jet lag is real, lol. So when I come back to consistency, I don’t try to do everything at once. I return to small, repeatable practices. Things that don’t require motivation—just presence.

Mudras have been one of those practices for me.

Acquire it here

There’s something about them that strips everything down. No performance. No intensity. Just a simple gesture that shifts attention, breath, and my internal state.

I wrote an ebook a while ago on mudras as a practice for focus, nervous system support, and subtle energetic awareness. It’s on Kindle this week for a limited Countdown price if you want to explore it more deeply.

But more than the book, what I really want to offer here is this idea:

If you’re feeling like you need a reset. You only need one small return point.

One breath. One gesture. One moment of attention.

That’s usually enough.

— Denise

“Take the shoulders up and away.”

“Take the shoulders down and back.”

“Externally rotate the upper arms.”

“Relax the neck.”

“Get your shoulders out of your ears.”

“Protract the scapula.”

“Externally rotate the deltoids.”

“Depress and upwardly rotate the scapula.”

Sometimes you might hear all of these. Nothing like being totally confused!

The idea behind these cues is that one particular alignment is “safe” for the shoulders and will prevent shoulder impingement. Commonly, anything outside these cues is considered potentially dangerous; however, the alignment they enforce suits only a small number of yoga practitioners. Not only that, but it creates fear around this pose. Yogis begin to believe that if they do something a particular way, they will be injured.

The first approach for teachers is to trust that a student has had their shoulders for a lot longer than a teacher has been instructing them in down dog. Second is to ask questions. The third and easiest is to cue in a way that allows students the freedom to choose.

If we were all made the same, and our bony structure were that of a plastic skeleton, these cues and theories might hold up, maybe. But the reality is that we are all incredibly different. What might cause an impingement in one person can go completely unnoticed in another. Our soft tissue gets pushed on or squeezed with any movement we make. And it is generally designed to handle it.

TEST - Wherever you’re sitting right now, bring your arms out in front of you and protract. This causes you to pull the front body in, as you would in Bakasana. Now keep that same position and bring the arms up overhead. Notice how the shoulders are up around the ears.

This is an example of the draining of the ocean of yoga knowledge. One person, relatively new to yoga, gets certified and turns around and offers their own YTT. The people in that YTT then began their own YTT’s. All the while, the scope of yoga narrows and becomes more rigid.

Time to open your mind, loosen the alignment rules, and invite a more supple approach to your yoga practice.

Below, I’ll give 3 examples of shoulder alignment, why someone would practice that way, how it will benefit other poses, and the limitations it can create. What it’s all about is finding the similarities between poses so we can expand and move effortlessly.

Downward Facing Dog #1

This is the current trend in shoulder alignment in Down Dog. This is when you will hear the majority of the cues that ask you to get your shoulders out of your ears. The thought being that this will keep the shoulders ‘safe’ and free from impingements. Shoulder impingement is quite complicated, yet over-simplified in yoga. Soft tissue is designed to come into contact with the bony structure. This happens in other yoga poses where we reach our arms overhead, such as Warrior 1 and child pose. This is also incongruent with poses such as Bakasana, where we are asking for a lot of scapular protraction (moving the shoulder blades away from each other).

Downward Facing Dog with current popular alignment

I’m not suggesting that this alignment trend is wrong. I’m suggesting it is fear-based, rooted in limited experience and a lack of foresight. Practice this way if it’s comfortable for you, not because you’ve been told it’s preventing an injury.

Downward Facing Dog #2

This is typically when you’ll be adjusted by a teacher. Someone might come over and guide your shoulders up and away from your ears, without knowing that the shoulder girdle is designed to do this, and without checking with the individual student. Another typical adjustment is to lift your ribs to create a straight line. Inevitably, that same teacher will ask you to execute this alignment with the shoulders in the image when you’re working on a handstand later on in class. Which is also the current popular trend in yoga. Those adjustments are realistic, as long as they are followed up with what’s happening with bandhas. An effective cue to follow up with is ‘reach through the sit bones’. This will give the desired outcome you’re aiming for.

Down Dog with the shoulders up around the ears. Coupled with reaching through the sit bones, this is perfect.

If this alignment in down dog works for you, do it. If it is uncomfortable or inaccessible, take ‘em up and away. And check in with the other times you find yourself in this shape.

Downward Facing Dog #3

This version gets a bad rap. However, depending on how a student is built, their flexion or extension capabilities, etc, this is a completely viable down dog. The teachers who tell you this is dangerous are the same teachers who will ask you to perform Puppy pose (aka Melting Heart), either on the floor or at the wall, as well as Natarajasana with both arms up over head.

Big ol back bendy version of Down Dog. Perfect if you’re built this way. It will be asked of you in other poses. :)

This old school version (check out B.K.S. Iyengar and Dharma Mittra) is also fun and can be a great frame of reference for poses such as Natarajasana, Urdhva Dhanurasana, Padanghusta Dhanurasana, or even Gomukasana.

My teaching method, and what we examine thoroughly in my classes, is an approach to asana that is always focused on students’ unique abilities and comprehension. Yoga is a conversation with the body. Sometimes that conversation is free-flowing, sometimes it’s an uncomfortable or confronting conversation that always leads to a better relationship between the present and future self.

In conclusion, cultivate a sense of ownership and curiosity about your shoulders. Experiment with your personal range of motion, listen to your shoulders, question the rules, and have fun!

A bonus layer of perception;

There’s also another layer here that doesn’t get discussed very often, but it shows up clearly in the body.

The shoulder girdle sits right between the heart center and the throat center. Energetically, this area reflects our capacity for openness and connection (fourth chakra) and truth and self-expression (fifth chakra). When students are over-corrected in Down Dog—told to “pull the shoulders down,” “externally rotate,” etc., what I often see isn’t improved alignment, but a subtle withdrawal. The breath becomes constrained. The chest dulls. The student stops listening inwardly and starts performing outwardly.

When the shoulders are allowed to organize organically—when students are encouraged to feel rather than fix—the posture becomes an expression of relationship: between breath and body, effort and receptivity, support and freedom. This is where alignment stops being mechanical and starts becoming intelligent.

Perhaps the question isn’t “Is this alignment correct?” but rather, “Does this alignment allow me to stay open, expressive, and connected to myself?”

In conclusion, cultivate a sense of ownership and curiosity about your shoulders. Experiment with your personal range of motion, listen to your shoulders, question the rules, and have fun!

Be Receptive,

Denise

Yoga doesn’t work in straight lines. The idea of graduating from one pose to another—like in a Mysore-style practice—creates not only a pose hierarchy but a subtle caste system between teacher and student. Every asana, every breath, every moment on the mat has infinite depth and possibility. There’s always a beginner’s version within even the most advanced shape, and always a deeper layer inside the simplest one—like Child’s Pose. That’s the brilliance of the practice.

And who’s to say what “beginner” even means?
If someone can slide into the splits on their first day, does that make them advanced? Or does it just mean their body has been conditioned in a way that makes Hanumanasana accessible? Now what?
Or what about the dedicated student who’s been limited to the first half of Primary Series for twenty years because their entry to Boat Pose isn’t perfect?

The Myth of Progression

To divide students into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced isn’t teaching yoga—it’s managing levels. Too often, it means managing people’s egos, expectations, or insecurities, rather than guiding them into their own embodied awareness. That approach teaches from the outside in, not from the inside out.

This tiered system makes sense in the world of fitness or performance, where progress is measured by external achievement. But yoga is different. A gymnast might pop into a handstand yet struggle with stability in Ardha Chandrasana. A less experienced practitioner might arrive tight and nervous, but leave transformed by a simple, breath-led twist.

So who belongs in what class?
You can’t answer that honestly. Physical ability does not equal embodied experience. Emotional readiness, spiritual depth, capacity for stillness—none of these can be measured by how easily someone puts a foot behind their head.

Empowerment Over Management

A skilled teacher can teach one class and speak to everyone in the room. That’s not just possible—it’s necessary. Because the moment we categorize people, we risk freezing their growth.

When we teach all levels, we begin with the truth that every pose has a doorway and a destination. Some students linger at the threshold. Others explore the hallway. A few will open another door entirely. Our job as teachers is to illuminate the whole house—not assign people to one room.

This isn’t about throwing students into the deep end—it’s about trusting them, and yourself as a teacher. It’s about offering progressions instead of prescriptions. It’s about creating space where someone can back off or rise up, without being told they’re in the “wrong” class.

When you remove false boundaries, you create a classroom alive with choice, awareness, and actual growth. That’s what yoga should be.

So instead of dividing your students, rise to the occasion. Offer the pose and the pathway. Teach people how to listen, how to explore, and how to move from effort into intelligence. Then watch what happens.

When a teacher calls a pose “advanced,” they’re not just labeling difficulty—they’re subtly asserting authority. It says, I’ve arrived. You haven’t. And when a pose is called “beginner,” it can sound dismissive—like it’s only a stepping stone to something better. But yoga isn’t a staircase. It’s a spiral. It loops, deepens, pauses, and reopens—regardless of how long you’ve been practicing.

Classifying poses this way makes teachers lazy. Instead of learning how to guide a student into their version of the shape, we stamp a level on it and move on. It keeps the teacher as the expert with access to “the full pose,” rather than the one holding space for discovery. That dynamic doesn’t liberate anyone—it reinforces hierarchy, not wisdom.

If you’re still calling poses “advanced,” ask yourself why. Is it to protect your students—or to protect your authority? Because when we label postures this way, we’re not helping. We’re managing.

And yoga isn’t something to manage.
It’s something to meet.

Here’s to depth over difficulty,

Denise

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In the complex inner workings of the feet and ankles lies an intricate network of bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Your feet contain 52 bones, 33 joints, 107 ligaments, and nine muscles and tendons holding them together. Each part has its own purpose, and when combined, they enable us to stand, walk, run, and dance. Feet give us our connection to Mother Earth as we walk through life. Any practices that lead to a feeling of centeredness come from this connection. It is vital in our daily lives that we maintain the feet’s connection to the earth in a way that keeps us grounded and supple.

In a yang-style asana practice, this connection begins where the feet meet the mat. In Tadasana, we initiate this experience both by pushing down physically and drawing up energetically. Here, we develop the downward and upward currents that carry us throughout our asana sessions. The arch of the foot is the origin of Mulabandha (the energetic support at the pelvic floor). Our feet in Tadasana performing these physical and energetic exchanges reflect the relationship with the diaphragm and the breath.

Proper positioning of the feet in yoga is as important as in any other physical practice. For example, ballet training places a strong emphasis on foot positions. Foot shape and placement are emphasized equally as much in circus arts, diving, cycling, running, weightlifting, and other sports. Foot placement and alignment are not only for preventing injury. The attention an athlete gives to maintaining correct foot posture also conserves their energy and helps them to move with less effort. Additionally, proper foot alignment makes everything more visually appealing.

In yoga classes, I regularly see an important foot alignment mistake: feet pulled awkwardly inward. This happens when a yoga student pulls the big toe and arch in toward the body. This inward pulling may make it easier for the student to reach the foot and straighten the leg, or get the belly closer to the leg. However, it is one of the least effective positions for the feet. The short and long-term effects of this are lengthening the outside of the ankle and calf muscle. This results in an unstable position of the ankle and an imbalance in the muscles and tendons. Ultimately, this instability makes its way up to the knee and hip.

To fix foot alignment and placement is to create stability and effortlessness in each pose. Some simple alignment reminders can easily resolve this issue. One of the most foundational is: keep the foot in the same position you would have it in if you were standing in Tadasana. By doing this, there is a slight internal rotation of the upper part of the leg. It creates an engagement in the muscles of the leg and an opportunity to push through all four corners of the feet. If you need to change these details, it will be more beneficial to back off until you are able to perform them in the most effective position. Give your body time to learn and consolidate, and eventually, it will begin to change. This might take a day, or maybe even a year or more. Emphasizing this correction will allow the body to fully integrate and experience the pose, even if you have backed off by 50 percent to find the right foot position.

Making space for the body to integrate is one of the biggest gifts you can give to yourself. Over time, you will discover a whole-body experience in each pose, which leads to a greater understanding of the overall practice of yoga. Rather than only being aware of our limitations, we begin to see ourselves in a new light of ease and spaciousness, letting go of expectations and an achievement-based mentality.

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana, Vasisthasana, and any seated poses where you are instructed to grab the big toes, such as Paschimottanasana and Upavistha Konasana, are the poses most commonly practiced in every level of yoga classes. We will focus on these today and how to have more effective foot alignment in each. Additionally, we will examine Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana. Here, the position of the front foot is often emphasized, with students being cued to flex the foot. However, if the foot is flexed and you are still rolling onto the top of it, you are putting it in the same position as if pulling on the big toe in the previously mentioned poses.

Below are the corrections for these poses. Once you make the changes, they will automatically shift your overall practice. You will experience a new sense of efficiency and effortlessness throughout your time on the mat and a refreshed feeling after your asana session.

Paschimottanasana

Mistake: You pull on the toes to get you closer to the thighs or floor. This results in tension on the big toes and joints, and a rolling in of the arches.

Correction: Keep the legs active with the feet in the same position as they would be in Tadasana. Use the belly muscles to pull you toward the feet. Once you’ve gone as far as you can, begin to reach for the toes through the heart’s center. Do all of this before touching the big toes or feet.

If you normally use a strap, use only the length that allows you to keep the arms straight. By doing this, you can continue to use the whole body instead of using only upper body strength, which will cause you to lose the integration.

If you practice with pointed toes, the alignment stays the same.

Upavistha Konasana

Mistake: You pull on the big toes, thus rolling the arches inward. In extreme cases, the big toes are pulled all the way to the floor. This causes misalignment of the ankle joint and unsupported length along the outer edge of the foot and leg.

Correction: Sometimes the answer is as simple as backing off from an extreme straddle. Bring the feet closer together. Keep your legs and belly engaged, and move your torso forward with intention. If you cannot hold onto the toes or outer edges of the feet and keep the legs and feet in correct engagement, bring the feet closer together, or release them for the time being. Bring awareness to energizing the front of the body more. Keep the feet inline and reach forward through the heart’s center.

Use the same guidelines for pointed feet. This prepares the feet nicely for Tittibhasana.

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana

Mistake: You pull the toe toward the inner line, whether the leg is in front or out to the side. This causes you to lose alignment along the spine (e.g., leaning forward or sideways).

Correction: Particularly in this pose, if the leg is unable to straighten, I have found that bending the knee and teaching the torso to remain upright while engaging the whole body is more effective in the long run. Keep the knee bent and the foot engaged. This creates a bond between the knee and hand. Keep the front of the body long. The same instructions apply when you take your foot out to the side.

Regardless of whether you are able to straighten the leg, keep a strong alignment in the leg and foot. This can be achieved by grasping the outer edge of the foot. (Holding the arch side creates imbalanced feng shui.)

I don’t recommend straps in this pose. Using one typically creates stress in the arm and shoulder, and does not teach the body what you are expecting of it.

Vasisthasana

Mistake: You relax the feet in the version with the feet together, or you pull in the toes of the top foot in the full expression of the pose.

Correction: For the version with feet together, I recommend the same foot alignment you had in Tadasana for this pose. Engage the legs and flex the feet. It’s easy to flex and have the same thing occur as in Pigeon. Flex them as if you are standing on them. Notice how this redistributes the responsibility of the arm from being your sole support to part of a support system of the whole side body.

In the fuller expression, take a look at the most effective shape you ended up in in Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana. This will be the best shape for you here. The toe or outer edge of the foot can remain in line, otherwise bend the knee. Create the bond between the knee and hand. Give the rest of the body time to learn and consolidate.

Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana

Mistake: Whether your foot is flexed or not, you roll onto the top of the foot (unless in the case of being on top of the shin).

The common cue in a class is: “Flex the foot in order to protect the knee.” There is typically no instruction regarding the orientation of the foot. It’s possible to flex the foot and still have the same imbalanced position described above. Notice the position when you flex it and how easily you can still keep the top of the foot. This can be a more extreme version of the imbalance since we are energizing.

Correction: If the foot is any distance at all away from the hip, the position would be flexed and the foot aligned on the outer edge. This needs to be done manually at first. Like any of the above poses, both legs should be active. We are still in a yang examination, not a yin one.

When your feet wake up, the rest of your body remembers. They are the first to touch the earth and the last to let go — the translators between gravity and grace. Treat them as sacred messengers, carrying wisdom from the ground to your crown. Align them, engage them, and let them lead you home to yourself. Because every practice, no matter how advanced, still begins exactly where you stand.

Now go give your feet a little love — they’ve been holding you up this whole time.

With both feet on the ground,
Denise 🦶

✨

Can these words be true;

the universe can be held

in your own two hands?

If that is the case,

every flower and raindrop

is yours to behold.

The sun and the moon,

Bespoke experiences

for you, only you.

Soft clouds drifting by

are pure edification;

Light and free as wind.

Just as you are now

full, unique, and observant

of vast surroundings.

Those are the forces

that live in each one of us;

sacred energy.

Cosmic consciousness,

the intelligent senses,

porousness, sparkle.

-denise payne

Dandelion puff

a sweet reflection of god

Poof! Dance on the wind.

-denise payne

A scoop of sunlight

shimmers just above my knee

sun through a window.

-denise payne

Icy on the skin

my breath is taken away;

the Wim Hof method!

-denise payne

no complications

haiku is 'way of life'

lean in to simple

-denise payne

Like a simple pie

Filled only with fresh whipped cream

Haiku in your face!

-Denise Payne

When you enter the realm of haiku, you'll find there is no easy subject. The simplest of ideas come from much more broad pictures in the mind. For example, you might think ok, I'll write about the sky, how hard can it be? LOL Have you seen it lately? So you might start out with something obvious about the sky;

The sky is above

I can see that it is blue

Sometimes there are clouds.

Okay, super simple.

Then you sit back and think, maybe there can be more to this? So you give it more thought and maybe it starts to take a different shape that feels more personal, such as;

My heart feels as vast

as the sky that surrounds me

warm open embrace

Now, let's consider the gap that brings a deeper element to this style of writing. The spaces that invoke the feelings and imaginations of the readers.

enveloping sky

holding me in warmth and light

then I awaken

​Writers will enjoy what I refer to as the haiku breakthrough. Which simply means they'll find that simplicity along with clarity will find its way into other aspects of their lives. It just does.

Why 'Haiku Mafia'? Well, we are sometimes criminals when it comes to tradition. Though the intention is to have the proper elements;

1. Kiru - two different related ideas,

2. Kigo - a seasonal reference (weather or the season of life) and the typical

3. Kireji - the cutting word

we've been know to stray and break rules for the sake of personal expression.

Please forgive us these crimes, and let us all love haiku for what it is;

The filtering of our cluttered consciousness and words into simple phrases that paint beautiful pictures in our hearts and minds.

Below are some helpful principles to get you on your haiku writing way.

“Take the shoulders up and away.”

“Take the shoulders down and back.”

“Externally rotate the upper arms.”

“Relax the neck.”

“Get your shoulders out of your ears.”

“Protract the scapula.”

“Externally rotate the deltoids.”

“Depress and upwardly rotate the scapula.”

The idea behind these cues is a belief that one particular alignment is “safe”’ for shoulders and will avoid any shoulder impingement. Commonly, anything outside of these cues is considered potentially dangerous, however, the alignment these cues enforce only suits a small number of yoga practitioners. Not only that, it creates fear around this pose. Yogis begin to believe that if they do something a particular way, they will be injured.

The first approach for teachers is to trust that a student has had their shoulders for a lot longer than a teacher has been instructing them in down dog. Second is to ask questions. The third and easiest is to cue in a way that allows students the freedom to choose.

If we were all made the same, and our boney structure was that of a plastic skeleton, these cues and theories might hold up, maybe. But the reality is that we are all incredibly different. What might cause an impingement in one person can go completely unnoticed in another. Our soft tissue ends up being pushed on or squeezed with any movement that we do. And it is generally designed to handle it.

TEST - Wherever you’re sitting right now, bring the arms out in front of you and protract, this causes you to pull the front body in, as you would in Bakasana. Now keep that same position and bring the arms up overhead. Notice how the shoulders are up around the ears.

This is an example of the draining of the ocean of knowledge of yoga. One person relatively new to yoga gets certified and turns around and offers their own ytt. The people in that ytt then began their own ytt’s. All the while, the scope of yoga becomes more and more narrow and rigid.

Time to open your mind, free up the rules of alignment, and invite a more supple approach to a yoga practice.

Below I’ll give 3 examples of shoulder alignment, why someone would practice that way, and how it will benefit other poses, as well as the limitations that they can possibly create. What it’s all about is finding the similarities between poses so that we are able to expand and move effortlessly.

Downward Facing Dog #1

This is the current trend in shoulder alignment in Down Dog. This is when you will hear the majority of the cues that ask you to get your shoulders out of your ears. The thought being that this will keep the shoulders ‘safe’ and free from impingements. Shoulder impingement is quite complicated, yet over simplified in yoga. Soft tissue is designed to come into contact with the boney structure. This happens in other poses in yoga where we reach our arms up over head, such as Warrior 1 and child pose. This is also incongruent when it comes to poses such as Bakasana, where we are asking for a lot of scapula protraction (moving the shoulder blades away from each other).

I’m not suggesting that this alignment trend is wrong. I’m suggesting that it is fear based and coming from a place of limited experience and lack of foresight.. Practice this way if it’s comfortable for you, not because you’ve been told it’s preventing an injury.

Downward Facing Dog #2

This is typically when you’ll be adjusted by a teacher. Someone might come over and guide your shoulders to move up and away from the ears, without the knowledge that the shoulder girdle is designed to do this and without checking with the individual student. Another typical adjustment is to lift your ribs up in order to make a straight line. Inevitably, that same teacher will ask you to execute this alignment with the shoulders in the image when you’re working on a handstand later on in class. Which is also the current popular trend in yoga. Those adjustments are realistic, as long as they are followed up with what’s happening with bandhas. An effective cue to follow up with is ‘reach through the sit bones’. This will give the desired outcome you’re aiming towards.

If this alignment in down dog works for you, do it. If it is uncomfortable or inaccessible, take ‘em up and away. And check in with the other times you find yourself in this shape.

Downward Facing Dog #3

This version gets a bad rap. However, depending on how a student is built, their flexion or extension capabilities, etc, this is a completely viable down dog. The teachers that tell you this is dangerous are the same teachers that will ask you to perform Puppy pose (aka Melting Heart), either on the floor or at the wall, as well as Natarajasana with both arms up over head.

This old school version (check out B.K.S. Iyengar and Dharma Mittra) is also fun and can be a great frame of reference for poses such as Natarajasna, Urdvha Dhanurasana, Padanghusta Dhanurasana, or even Gomukasana.

My method for teaching, and what we examine thoroughly in my classes, is an approach to asana that is always focused on the students’ unique abilities and comprehension. Yoga is a conversation with the body. Sometimes that conversation is free flowing, sometimes it’s an uncomfortable or confronting conversation that always leads to a better relationship between the present and future self.

In conclusion, cultivate a concept of ownership and curiosity when it comes to your shoulders. Experiment with your personal range of motion, listen to your shoulders, question the rules, and have fun!

Bright blessings,

Denise Payne

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