In Triangle Pose turn your top hip away from the floor. Think of placing your body between two panes of glass. The shoulders and hips should be stacked.

If I could do one yoga shape for the rest of my life it would probably be Triangle Pose.

But I didn’t always feel that way. I used to hate the shape so much. It felt terrible in my body.

That was until I actually found an approach to the shape that felt sustainable for my body.

Turns out the whole two panes of glass thing was what was making the shape feel awful for me. My top hip did not want to turn away from the floor and my lower back got really cranky when I tried to do so.

After expanding my studies and training with folks who thought more critically about the practice, I found out that actually turning the top hip down a bit in Triangle Pose was the best approach for me. My lower back and sacrum were no longer angry and I could breathe well in the shape. This adjustment helped me fall in love with the shape.

I have no desire to offend anyone who does teach the rolling of the top hip away from the floor in Triangle Pose. As with all shapes, there’s many ways to approach alignment. In some styles of yoga the movement of the top hip is highlighted. In other styles of yoga the movement of the bottom hip might get more attention. Personally, I prefer the latter and it seems to land with a lot of the students I work with.

Next time you do Triangle pose, rather than obsessing over the angle and location of your top hip, play with drawing the bottom hip and sitting bone back toward your back heel. Notice if anything changes.

Regardless of how you approach Triangle Pose, I think we can all agree humans are three-dimensional creatures and we don’t need to be squeezing ourselves between two panes of glass.