Remember - poses look different in every body, and it's important to make your practice work for you!

Here are some tips to experiment with for Warrior 2: Check that the toes of your back foot point to the long side edge of the mat and the toes of your front foot point towards the short side edge of the mat. The back leg creates energy from the pinky toe all the way up to the top of the shoulder. Your front knee is stacking right over your ankle. Notice how much the glutes have to work to keep the hips parallel to the edge of the mat, right under the shoulders. For extra muscle engagement, try spreading the mat apart between the feet!

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Safety note: if you experience knee pain in lunges or warrior positions, check that your knee is going directly forward. You should be able to see your big toe on the inside of your knee at all times. Shorten your stance if you need!

I love to include balance poses in all my classes because balance is such an important skill to nurture, no matter your age! This particular pose requires a lot of attention to the core, not only for stability and balance, but also for spinal position. It's easy to have a back bend in this pose, so we use core strength to align the hips and shoulders, trying to imagine one diagonal line from the hips to the shouders - no hills or valleys!

It's important to maintain range of motion in your neck as you age, and in chair yoga classes, I make sure to include several neck stretches each class. Always be gentle with these stretches and do what feels good in your body.

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I love to feel the motion ease and the range of motion increase in these movements! Such a great way to decrease tension.

This is my favorite posture for meditation, and sometimes we'll start off a class this way. I'm sitting up on one block so that my knees can relax down toward the ground, while my spine lifts up tall. Feel free to take any comfortable seat that allows you to maintain a long spine when we are in this pose - using a chair with feet flat on the ground is one of my favorite variations!

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Tip: Feel your hips getting heavy into the ground or block with each exhale to feel centered and grounded. This allows me freedom to tune in to whatever I am experiencing physically, mentally, or emotionally without creating tension.

Depending on mobility and flexibility in the hips, hamstrings and low back, forward folds can be intimidating. Many people feel enough of a stretch sitting up or even leaning back slightly. This is a valid variation of the pose! The focus in forward folding (standing or sitting) needs to be on the length in the spine and the tilt of the hips, not so much on straight legs or the ability to touch our toes. It's very common for the low back to round under when moving into these types of postures (because of how much we sit every day), so it's best to have a block or cushion handy in order to prop yourself up so that when leaning forward, the hips stay neutral and there is no overly emphasized rounding in the spine. Think heart forward towards the toes and find a slight bend to the knees if necessary!

One of the most popular poses in yoga! Downward Facing Dog is a full body pose, engaging the core, decompressing the spine, opening the shoulders, and lengthening the posterior side of the legs. It's more important to lengthen the spine than to have the legs straight -as you lift your hips up towards the sky, have as much of a bend in your knees as you need and lift your heels up to lessen the intensity of the stretch on your calves. To find more space in the shoulders, try to wrap your arm pits towards your face by protracting the shoulders.

Deep squats like this are one of my favorites to do because they feel so good in my hips. (but I know I am in the minority with that opinion!) More intermediate poses such as this one require a good amount of hip, knee and ankle mobility. But don't worry -- there are variations you can do with a chair or many blocks at once and still feel the benefits. 

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In every class, we try poses like malasana to challenge and improve joint mobility, stability, and build awareness of alignment for safety in every day movements and tasks.

Did you know that our calf muscles are extremely important in pumping blood back up to the torso and heart? It's vital to keep moving the legs, strengthening the calves and improving circulation down to the toes. Especially as we age!

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This is one of my favorite moves because it strengthens the calves, works on stability in the ankles, challenges balance, and even is a sneaky core workout! If mobility is limited, or you don't feel comfortable yet with lifting the heels, you can do seated calf raises.