There’s a moment that happens in class that I never get tired of watching.

Someone is standing there while we talk about alignment. Nothing dramatic is happening. No heavy weights. No complicated yoga pose. Just standing.

And then we make a small adjustment. Maybe the rib cage softens a little. Maybe the pelvis comes back underneath the body. Maybe the shoulders stop trying so hard to hold everything together.

Suddenly the person pauses.

Their eyebrows go up a little.

“Wait… that feels completely different.”

Not harder. Not stronger. Just different.

Usually the next thing they say is something like, “I had no idea I was standing like that.” Meaning in their standard go to position or their idea of what standing up straight looks like.

And that moment right there is where body awareness begins.

For many people, that moment is the first time they realize posture isn’t about looking upright. It’s about how the body is stacking and supporting itself.

The Problem With “Stand Up Straight”

Most of us learned about posture in a very simple way. At some point someone told us to stand up straight.

If you ask someone to do that right now, they'll almost always respond the same way. The chest lifts, the shoulders pull back, and the lower back arches slightly.

Suddenly you look like you’re preparing for a marching band audition.

You can hold it for a few seconds before everything starts to feel tight. Then the body slowly drifts back into its usual position.

That’s not a lack of discipline. It’s because forcing posture isn’t the same thing as finding balance.

The body was never meant to hold itself rigidly upright all day. It was designed to stack its parts in a way that allows muscles to share the work.

When that stacking happens well, posture feels surprisingly effortless.

Why Alignment Matters More Than It Seems

Your body is constantly negotiating gravity. Every second you’re standing, sitting, or walking, muscles are making tiny adjustments to keep you balanced.

One of the most important relationships in that balancing act is between the rib cage and the pelvis.

These two structures form the centre of your body. When they're reasonably stacked over one another, the muscles of the core can coordinate much more easily.

And when I say “core,” I’m not just talking about abs.

Your core's actually a system. It includes the diaphragm, the abdominal muscles, the muscles along the back of the spine, and the pelvic floor. These muscles work together to stabilize the body and support movement.

When the rib cage drifts forward or the pelvis tips too far in one direction, that system becomes less efficient. The muscles are still trying to do their job, but they’re working from a less-than-ideal starting point.

It’s a bit like trying to push a shopping cart with one wheel turned sideways. You can still move forward, but it takes more effort than it should.

Over time that extra effort often shows up as tension in the neck, stiffness in the back, or the feeling that your core exercises never quite hit the right muscles.

Awareness Is Usually the Missing Piece

One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed over the years is that people are rarely lazy about movement. Most people are trying quite hard.

They’ve done the workouts. They’ve followed the instructions. They’ve done the planks and the stretches and the strengthening exercises.

What they often haven’t been taught is how to feel what their body’s doing.

When we start exploring alignment and breathing in class, people frequently discover patterns they never noticed before. Maybe their ribs have been flaring forward for years. Maybe their shoulders have been doing most of the work during core exercises. Maybe their breathing has been happening almost entirely in the chest.

None of this means they’ve been doing anything wrong. It simply means nobody pointed it out before.

The body is incredibly adaptable. It finds ways to keep you moving even when things aren’t perfectly balanced. But once you become aware of those patterns, you have the opportunity to change them.

And that’s when movement starts to feel very different.

Why Small Adjustments Can Feel So Big

The shifts we make in class are usually subtle. We’re not trying to force the body into some idealized posture.

Instead, we’re looking for a position where the rib cage and pelvis feel balanced, the spine feels supported, and breathing can move more freely through the body.

When those pieces come together, people often notice a few things immediately. Their breathing feels easier. Their shoulders relax without effort. Their core feels more responsive during simple movements.

It’s rarely dramatic, but it’s often enough to make someone say, “Oh… I get it now.”

Those moments are my favourite part of teaching because they remind people that their body isn’t broken or uncooperative. It simply needed clearer instructions.

A Different Approach to Movement

This kind of awareness is a big part of what we explore in my 12-week Personalized Small Group Yoga Classes.

Rather than focusing only on poses or exercises, we spend time understanding how the body works. What muscles should you feel during a movement? How should breathing move through the rib cage? What small adjustments help the body feel more supported?

These conversations often lead to the biggest breakthroughs. When people understand what their body is doing, movement stops feeling like guesswork.

It starts to feel empowering.

Watch the Alignment Demonstration

If you’d like to see a simple alignment check and a few demonstrations of how this works in the body, I walk through it step by step in the video below.

Sometimes seeing the movement makes everything click.