31/08/2026
Adjust your practice without having to leave the flow!
There’s a lot happening in a vinyasa class. Having a basic understanding of how you can scale a shape in real time can be incredibly empowering — because once you understand the principle in one pose, that awareness starts transferring to others.
Warrior III is a great example because there are some very obvious physics at play.
You can change the demand by manipulating:
→ hinge — how far you tip forward
→ lever length — where you place your arms
→ support — how many points of contact you have with the ground
And there’s another piece of Warrior III that I think gets underestimated: shoulder flexion.
Like handstand and Urdhva Dhanurasana, Warrior III asks for a significant amount of shoulder flexion. You may not be upside down, but you’re trying to hold your body in a roughly 90° relationship to the ground while keeping the shoulders in a clean position.
When that shoulder position isn’t available yet, something else has to compensate — often through the spine, the back leg, or the standing leg.
This is one reason I love the block-supported “bird dog” variation.
It reduces the overall load and balance demand, while giving you space to actually work on the shoulder flexion component.
And that’s really the point:
Scaling isn’t about making a pose less valuable. It’s about changing the variables so you can meet the actual demand of the pose today.
The more of these tools you have, the less you have to rely on an instructor telling you which version you “should” be doing.
You can start making those decisions yourself.
If you want to explore this same empowering way of looking at strength, stability and scaling — where modifications don’t make a pose less, but help you get more out of it — head to the link in my bio for my free Chaturanga Stability Secrets mini-course.