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Once I show as much as teach yoga and the attendance is a little bit lower than usual, I selfishly get excited. There’s nothing I really like greater than having enough space for everybody to maneuver their mats and practice yoga on the wall, whether it’s a quiet, restorative class or a more fiery vinyasa class. Because what most individuals don’t understand is that the wall is usually our most neglected yoga prop.

I said what I said: the wall is a prop, identical to a block, strap, or bolster.

I feel there may be a robust misconception that using the wall is seen as a technique to make sure poses less difficult. That definitely may be the case, equivalent to in Legs Up The Wall (Viparita Karani), which is a relaxing and effortless restorative posture. However the wall will also be a tool to accentuate your experience of many poses.

Practicing yoga on the wall can provide support, stability, and a chance to boost your practice. Any blank wall may be used to amplify sensations, isolate specific muscles, and take your practice up a notch.

My perspective shifted once I began to think about the wall as a prop that could possibly be utilized to boost my practice, slightly than something that makes poses easier. When you’re practicing yoga at home or are a teacher trying to shake things up in school, the next postures may be enhanced by counting on the wall.

12 Ways to Intensify Your Yoga on the Wall

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

1. Reclined Figure 4

Even though it’s a standard restorative pose on the wall, Reclined Figure 4 will also be intensified on the wall. Scoot yourself closer to the wall to go deeper into the stretch. For extra intensity, lean the knee of your non-wall leg away from you. For  added core work, press through your foot that’s against the wall, engage your core, and lift your hips barely off the mat before lowering them back down.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

2. Plank

You could have heard a teacher cue “Press through your heels” during Plank Pose. This difficult wall variation ensures that you just engage your muscles in all of the intended ways. Sit along with your back on the wall and spot where your heels land. Place your hands there and press your feet flat on the wall as you come right into a Plank position. This engages your core muscles even greater than a daily plank, while also difficult your balance. From there, you’ll be able to try lifting one hand off the bottom after which the opposite, and even one foot away from the wall after which the opposite. Or you’ll be able to simply give attention to your Plank and remembering to breathe.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

3. Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose Variation (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana)

I wish to teach Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose on the wall to take a few of the balancing points out of it. Often students have trouble stretching their lifted leg all of the technique to the side because they lose their balance or just can’t reach their toes. By pressing your  lifted foot against the wall, you’ll be able to experience that very same stretch along the back of your leg. Concentrate on standing tall and pressing away from the wall to balance. From there, you’ll be able to reach on your big toe along with your hand…or not.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

4. Boat Pose (Navasana)

I really like bringing this posture to the wall. By pressing resistance into the wall along with your feet, you’ll feel that something extra in your core. Sit down and place your feet on the wall in front of you, then lean back. From here, you’ll be able to reach your arms alongside your legs or take them overhead. Depending on your required intensity in Boat Pose, you may as well play with keeping a bend in your knees,  straightening your legs, or bringing your feet further up the wall. This one is hard!

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

5 and 6. Triangle Pose (Trikonasana) and Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana)

While the wall may be used so as to add intensity to postures, it could possibly also assist you find alignment that’s, and I’m hesitant to say this, what is taken into account to be “more traditional” alignment.

I like to think about Triangle Pose and Half Moon Pose as sister poses and I teach them alongside one another when possible. If a student doesn’t feel like balancing, Triangle will give them much of the identical sensations and advantages as Half Moon.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

It’s quite common in each of those shapes for people to not lean back enough, meaning you could reach one arm overhead but keep a small round or hunch within the back. I wish to use the cue, “Create one long line out of your bottom hand to your top hand, opening through the chest.” When you’re going to lift your back leg for Half Moon, I like to think about the cue “Stack the hips one on top of the opposite.”

An awesome technique to bring all of this together is to truly practice each these postures along with your back against the wall. The primary time I did this, I couldn’t imagine just how far I needed to lean back to be able to achieve the alignment that the teacher was talking about. The wall permits you to experience this without toppling onto the person behind you in school.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

7 and eight. Warrior 3 (Virabhadrasana III) and Standing Splits

Warrior 3 and Standing Splits also work well together. By providing support in Warrior 3, the wall takes the balancing aspect out of the pose and lets you give attention to getting—and keeping—your leg higher than you normally would.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

For Standing Splits, you would possibly face away from the wall, place your hands on the bottom or blocks, and use the wall similarly to assist bring your leg higher than you’d without the support.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

9. Chair Pose (Utkatasana)

How often do you hear a yoga teacher cue, “Sit back in Chair Pose”? (For me, it’s rather a lot!) It might probably be really difficult to maintain your upper body upright on this pose. But by leaning your back against the wall and sliding yourself down into Chair Pose, you’ll be able to tap into that alignment that’s most difficult and useful.

You might find that this version, often called a “wall sit” in workout classes, intensifies the pose good enough for you, although you’ll be able to mess around with making it even tougher by bringing your arms overhead.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

10. Certain Angle Pose (Baddha Konasana)

This pose is usually practiced with the upper body relaxed and leaning forward, which brings the stretch into the low back, hamstrings, and hips. But by sitting tall along with your back against the wall and releasing your knees toward the ground in Certain Angle, you’ll be able to isolate the hip and inner thigh muscles to accentuate the stretch.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

11. Frog Pose

One other great hip opening pose that leverages the wall to amp up the intensity is Frog Pose. By placing your feet against the wall, you’ll be able to begin to scoot closer and closer to the wall for a deeper, more intense stretch within the hip flexor and abductor muscles.

(Photo: Ellie Sheppard)

12. Reclined Splits

A posture from my dance class days is Reclined Splits. It’s just like Legs up the Wall, but as an alternative of keeping your legs vertical, you allow them to slide apart into middle splits. Counting on the support of the wall and the subtle force of gravity in your legs lets you chill out deeper into the pose. You’ll be able to make this pose more intense by placing really gentle pressure along with your hands onto the tops of your thighs. Or, you’ll be able to make it less intense by placing blocks under your thighs to support them.

Perhaps the subsequent time you end up practicing in an area with a blank stretch of wall or teaching to fewer students than usual, you’ll give yoga on the wall a try.

About Our Contributor

Ellie Sheppard (she/her) is a yoga teacher based in Ottawa, Ontario, with a passion for creating secure, welcoming yoga classes for all bodies and experience levels. Coming from a background in dance, Ellie was first drawn to yoga as a technique to integrate movement and creativity back into her life with a combination of strength, stability, and mobility for injury prevention. Ellie is a firm believer that there isn’t any full expression of any yoga pose—there is just your expression of the pose. Her mission as a teacher is to encourage students to explore their very own expression of a pose so it feels good and welcome in each individual body. Outside of yoga, you would possibly find Ellie falling off her paddleboard, tap dancing, and spending time at local coffee shops, breweries, and vineyards.