Feet Together for Savasana?

Hi Steve and Suzy

In the hot yoga class you generally do sit-ups to flow into other poses after these Savasana poses. It does give some economy of movement and becomes less distracting if you can simply draw your toes back up and you’re done.

Steve, if your heels come slightly apart as your legs relax into their external rotation, there is no issue with that. Often I will correct the misalignment and draw the whole body into line by starting with the feet (and legs) when the legs are at an angle to the body, but that is less about ensuring heel contact (although that is the direction that we always start with).

Suzy, if your question was about having the toes touching in Savasana, the answer is no, just let your legs totally relax and roll outward from the hips down pivoting around the heels. That is how the heels should theoretically come together and the toes fall apart!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Barky

Here are some thoughts that occurred to me on reading your comment.

There are people who do lie with a lot of tension in their bodies WHILE they are in Savasana. You can see tension through their hips and legs right down through their toes with their feet together. To give them the formula to find a good position in Savasana means they can learn a triggered state of relaxation. Feet together and toes fall out is one such formula.

I do think there other dimensions to Savasana and to discover them is part of one’s individual journey in yoga and self-discovery.

The ability to recognize that your body is in its relaxed (or tensed) state and the ability to let go of the tension in the body, all the while being patently aware of the sensations felt right throughout are actually important skills that one can learn and practice.

Meditation practices teach mastery of the mind among other things! There are ways to learn to meditate that result in shallow to very deep results. In this case a heightened awareness of the position of your body and feet (and the rest of your body) plus the awareness of your breath in and out of the body is a skill of meditation that is learned over time that allows you to deepen mind body connection. This is ultimately a major aim of one’s yoga practice.

It is possible to lie there and be oblivious to what your feet are doing. In doing so, I wonder whether that brings on a trance state which means an inability to truly tune into the body.

Wondering what might be in store for you if your awareness was more attuned to what is going on and to focus the mind rather than letting go – which was a not-so-subtle challenge for you! 😉 Letting go is something that I love to do at the end of class in final Savasana but during class I want to be more ‘mindful’. What do you think?

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂