Kundalini Yoga Glossary
Form & Alignment
Posture built around the Navel Point, spinal elongation, balanced breath and the bandhas.
Meaning
What Form & Alignment Means
Form & Alignment describes how posture works in the practice: joining conscious breathing, the bandhas, focused concentration (drishti) and the body's physical geometry into a flow of energy that produces correct posture. With practice, that energy flow becomes more precise and posture evolves.
Four things are given attention in every posture and kriya: the Navel Point and anchoring, the elongation of the spine, a balanced breath, and firm but subtle application of the bandhas.
The Navel Point isn't the belly button, and it isn't the etheric Navel Chakra. It sits in the area of the transverse abdominal muscles, and is described as the starting point of the body's 72,000 subtle energy channels.
In Practice
How It’s Used
The Navel Point is where posture is anchored. As gravity pulls one part of the body down, another part reaches up and out; the Navel Point is the center both movements pass through, and the connecting point for every posture.
In standing posture, the spine stretches gently upward while the lower body relaxes into gravity. The heart centers over the pelvis, and the head lines up with the heart. Leading with the head instead compresses the Heart Center and tightens the whole body: the head is meant to follow the heart, not the other way around.
