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After I practice yoga, I try my best to be attentive, mindful, and comfortable. Nonetheless, as a rule, I get sidetracked: My brain veers to my schedule for the remaining of the day, or a conversation I had that I’m not blissful about, or an e-mail I forgot to reply. Before I understand it, I’m doing a pose half-heartedly and never truly benefiting from the physical practice or fully engaging in the valuable time I’ve put aside to attach with myself.

That’s where the talent of the perfect yoga teachers comes into play. It’s as in the event that they know that the tiniest shift or adjustment in our alignment can each bring you back to the current moment and right into a stronger, yet at the identical time more easeful, yoga practice.

Whether you’re searching for on-point cues for your personal practice or in your teaching, the next are essentially the most helpful cues a yoga teacher has ever given me.

See also The ten Most Life-Changing Things Yoga Teachers Have Ever Said to Me

1. Come onto your fingertips in Child’s Pose

Child’s Pose will be an attractive resting pose, one which I often come back to when the practice becomes difficult or if I simply need a break. But sometimes it could be helpful to listen to a reminder that Child’s Pose will be lively with only a minor adjustment. When a yoga teacher told me to stretch my arms out longer on my mat and “activate” my fingers by coming onto my fingertips, I used to be capable of achieve a deeper opening in my shoulders and upper back. It felt divine and jogged my memory that rest is meaningful and vital but at times it must be intentional and never only a time to zone out and let my mind wander.

What a pleasant reminder that the remaining I take outside the yoga studio must be intentional, too. Lately, quite than simply vegging out on the couch playing on my phone, I find myself doing more rejuvenating things, like reading, sleeping, playing guitar, or meditating.

See also Do Less With More Awareness: Child’s Pose

2. Keep your knee deeply bent during Humble Warrior and Reverse Warrior

Sometimes, I find myself going through the motions during class, and when that happens, it could be tempting to only flow through the postures and not using a keen awareness of alignment cues. This happens so much for me when moving from Warrior I into Humble Warrior or from Warrior II to Reverse Warrior. Then, a yoga teacher identified that a lot of us weren’t keeping our knees bent toward a 90-degree angle in these postures, and as a substitute, we were moving around without staying true to the integrity of those poses. It was a small, but powerful reminder that even while you begin to flow, it’s incredibly vital to remain focused.

See also: Can’t Focus? Try This 15-Minute Mindfulness Practice

(Photo: Getty Images)

3. Spread your arms and let yourself sway during Tree Pose

I used to think Tree Pose was a time once I should stand as rigidly as possible and check out to appear like on top of things. But when one among my yoga teachers mentioned that tree pose is admittedly about channeling a tree, suddenly the pose felt entirely different. Give it some thought this manner: Trees are so strong because they’re imperfect, and so they let their branches go this manner and that in order that they’ll move with the wind. Once I raised my arms up and allow them to sway, I felt so way more powerful and alive within the pose.

See also 3 Ways to Safely Modify Tree Pose

4. Smile during Completely happy Baby

This cue may appear silly, but it surely’s one of the transformative cues I’ve ever heard. Completely happy Baby is an inherently goofy-feeling pose. (I dare you to not feel a bit of silly together with your legs splayed, rolling around in your mat like an infant.) Yet on this so-serious world, it could be tempting to forget that it’s okay to be lighthearted—especially when practicing poses which can be intended to be such. When a teacher told me to smile, I couldn’t help but feel happiness throughout my body and it made the pose so a lot better.

See also A Yoga Sequence for Deep Hip Opening

5. Grip the mat together with your fingers during Handstand

For the longest time, I struggled with Handstand (and still do!), but once I took a category dedicated to inversions, I learned something I had never really known: My fingers have plenty of power with regards to gripping the ground. Learning to seek out support and strength within the muscles in my fingers while I exploit my core and feet to kick up into Handstand appears like a revelation. In any case, my fingers are one a part of my body I never considered by way of strength. Now, when I exploit them to grip the ground, they assist carry me right into a pose I’d at all times desired to get into.

See also Kino MacGregor’s 4-Step Get-Your-Handstand Plan

6. You may do anything for 10 seconds

I heard this cue when holding Warrior III, and never only did it help me quiet the mental chatter that threatened to lure me out of that pose way prior to I needed to, but it surely’s helped me once I practice many other difficult poses since then. Some days, I feel off-balance and discouraged. But once I keep in mind that I can do anything for 10 seconds, or at the very least give it my best shot, I find I can often stay longer.

As a rule, it seems that what was stopping me from entering into or holding a posture was never physical and was at all times in my head. I attempt to apply this as often as possible in as many situations as possible, and frequently, whatever I’m aiming to do is way easier to perform than I’ve built it as much as be in my head.

(Photo: Getty Images)

7. Calm down your facial muscles in Savasana

Sometimes once I lie down in Savasana (Corpse Pose), I immediately start eager about what I’m going to do the moment I walk out of the studio. What’s the following task on my to-do list? How soon can I hit the shower and get to the food market?

When a yoga teacher gently reminds the category to chill out their facial muscles after we settle into Savasana, I develop into aware that I’m unknowingly clenching my jaw or crinkling my brow or otherwise tightening my face in worry. Forcing me to listen to this also causes my mind to chill out and helps me derive the utmost good thing about this essential pose.

See also: The Subtle Struggle of Savasana

This text has been updated. Originally published July 10, 2018.