Bernie Clark

So, alignment rigidity is not Eastern or Western or universal, it is a consequence of TT programs trying to make it simpler to mass-produce teachers.

It is not our intention to duplicate such work, so we will not spend much time describing which muscles articulate which limbs and which muscles resist movement; we will cover these in a generalized, overview fashion. For the reader who wants to learn more about the muscles, one highly recommended resource is Leslie Kaminoff’s Yoga Anatomy. We will spend even less time describing the pervasive effects of our fascia and its contribution to tensile resistance. This is not to imply that fascia is unimportant—it is very important. Fascial restrictions can contribute far more to restrictions in our range of movements than short, tight muscles ever will. This topic is simply beyond our scope of investigation and requires a detailed book all on its own.

When we apply this overriding intention to the investigation of yoga, we quickly come to a question that will be repeated numerous times in this volume: “What stops me?” Sometimes we will simply abbreviate it to “WSM?”.

We can paraphrase this in relation to yoga as: “It is more important to know what sort of student can do a pose, than to know what sort of pose is doing the student.”

The Buddha advises them to take as truth only what they can verify for themselves.

We all think that we are the only ones who cannot do a particular pose. And when we can’t, we believe that there is, indeed, “something wrong” with ourselves. Understanding the reality of human variation, of your uniqueness, helps to sweep away these delusions.

Our ability to abduct in Triangle Pose is determined in part by the femoral neck angle. The student on the left has a femoral neck-shaft angle of only 110°, while the student on the right has an angle of 150°.

This is not a critique of your abilities or a reflection of your personality or some flaw that needs to be fixed—this is simply the reality of your existence

Please do not focus on a particular statistic or measurement, or even on a particular range of values. The key is that ranges exist. We will use the reality of ranges to guide us when we look at the implications of human variation for our yoga practice.

There is no pose in yoga that everybody can do, and no one can do every pose.