This Week’s Pose: Prasarita Padottanasana

As a new yogi, Prasarita Padottanasana, didn’t seem like much of a pose to me. It felt more like a gym class stretch, or a preparation for other asanas. Perhaps this was because the shape is reminiscent of calisthenics. Padottanasana reveals its secrets slowly, in finding the difference between bending forward and bending down, in learning to ground the feet in the outer and inner edges, and in bending from the hips rather than from the waist.