Dancer Pose: Alignment, Anatomy and Common Problems
Dancer pose, a gorgeous pose but one were we often push past our limits to achieve the “picture perfect” pose!
Dive into cueing, alignment, anatomy and common problems in this short video designed with Yoga Teachers in mind.
Exploring Dancer Pose: What Are You Really Chasing?
Dancer pose (Natarajasana) is one of those shapes many of us love—it’s expressive, strong, open, and it photographs beautifully.
But here’s the question I always want yoga teachers (and students) to ask:
Why are you doing dancer?
Where is it serving you… and where are you compromising other parts of your body just to get the shape?
Because dancer can be a gorgeous, embodied exploration or it can become a practice of twisting and pushing into joints just to “achieve” the pose.
This post breaks down what’s happening in dancer, the most common places yoga students compensation.
What Is Dancer Pose, Really?
At its simplest, dancer is this shape:
Standing on one leg
One hand catches the foot behind you
The leg extends back (sometimes up)
The opposite arm reaches to help with balance
The torso may tip forward slightly (which can allow the back leg to lift higher)
It has echoes of bow pose but upright, balancing, and requiring more integration through the standing leg and core.
When dancer is working well, you’ll often see:
a sense of lift through the spine
a pelvis that’s relatively neutral
a back leg extending with contained effort
shoulders that are organised rather than strained
the whole shape feeling alive, not forced
The First Teaching Lens: Ask “What’s the Cost?”
Dancer can be an incredible pose for:
building strength in the standing leg + ankle
creating length through the front of the thigh / hip flexors
opening the front body in a supported, active way
exploring balance, coordination, and focus
But the moment the goal becomes “get the foot higher,” the body often starts paying a price somewhere else.
Common places that “pay”:
shoulders (twisting or yanking back from a rolled-forward position)
pelvis (dumping into an anterior tilt to “fake” range)
lower back (hinging hard at L4/L5 instead of distributing extension)
ribcage (flaring / losing centre)
standing hip (rotating or collapsing to stay upright)
knees (especially the lifted leg knee drifting wide)
Dancer Breakdown: The Three Big Areas to Watch
1) The shoulders: don’t “reach back” from a forward shoulder
One of the most common dancer issues is this pattern:
the shoulder rolls forward
and then the arm reaches back anyway
creating a twisty, strained shoulder position
What we want instead:
Let the shoulder release back first — then let the arm go back from that place.
A simple way to teach this (easier to see in the video):
take the arm up and around a couple of times
then when it comes back, leave it back
then catch the foot
This is less about “forcing the arm” and more about creating a clean pathway in the shoulder girdle.
2) The pelvis: neutral gives you real work
When the back leg reaches behind, the pelvis often tips forward (anterior tilt). That can feel like you’ve “opened” the pose but in reality its often it’s just the pelvis changing position to create an illusion of range.
If you can keep the pelvis more neutral, the work goes where we actually want it:
into the front of the hip
into the quads
into the core support that holds you steady
A helpful teaching cue:
Place a hand on the lower belly and feel for the pelvis trying to tip.
Aim for steady pelvis, even if the leg doesn’t go as high.
3) The backbend: spread it out (don’t hinge)
Many people “hinge” dancer in the lower back. If the backbend happens mostly in one spot, it can feel dramatic—but it’s often not sustainable.
If you’re including a backbend, consider the intention:
a little bit of movement in a lot of places
instead of a lot of movement in one place (which can cause pinching)
A Big One: Watch the Lifted Knee
Another classic compensation:
To catch the foot, the lifted leg knee sprays out wide.
If there isn’t enough length in the front body/quad/hip, the knee will drift out as a workaround.
But when the knee comes more in-line and contained, the pose often becomes:
tighter, yes
but also more stable
more integrated
There isn’t one “perfect” alignment, and whenever I discuss alignment I am talking from a safety perspective, but there is a difference between:
a variation that supports your body
anda compensation pattern that destabilises you
The Balance Arm: There’s No One “Right” Position
A moment I loved in this video was the exploration of the free arm.
Sometimes we teach the free arm straight forward. But depending on someone’s balance system, that can actually knock them off.
So experiment:
arm forward
arm slightly out to the side
arm angled down or in
even hand to a wall
The question isn’t “what looks best?”
It’s: what helps your nervous system feel organised enough to balance?
“There Is No Perfect Pose” (Even If Instagram Says There Is)
This is worth saying clearly:
If you look online, you’ll see dancer performed by ex-gymnasts and dancers in extreme ranges. That’s their body, their training history, their nervous system, and often—years of conditioning.
For most humans, the goal isn’t to copy a shape.
The goal is a dancer pose that works for your body and gives you what you came for.
Dancer Pose | How to teach dancer pose | How to do dancer pose | Dancer pose tutorial | Embodied Somatic Yoga | Dancer pose in Embodied Yoga | Laura Wynne | Aruna Yoga