Posture of the Month: Five Pointed Star

Five Pointed Star, like Goddess Pose, is a power posture. How much space can you take up? How easeful can you be in this expansive posture?

Allow your feet to plug down into the ground. Feel the gravitational pull from the waist down. At the same time, feel the elongation through the top of your head to elongate your spine. Reaching out through your fingertips helps you open your chest and lengthen out thru the shoulders.

Create the physical shape of Five Pointed Star

All postures have a physical shape and an energetic feel. Here are instructions on how to achieve the physical shape of Five Pointed Star:

Stand with your legs in a wide base of support, much wider than Mountain Pose.
Look down at your feet and see if it feels good to turn your heels out, so that your heels, outer border of the feet, and pinky toe are all in the same line. This will give you a nice lengthening on the outside of the lower leg.
Bring your arms out to the side and lengthen out through your fingertips.
Lengthen up through your head, allowing your spine to elongate.

Make Five Pointed Star work for you

The beauty of a yoga practice is it’s flexibility (no pun intended!). That is, you can make adjustments to the positioning and use props. Try some of the variations below and make it work for you!

Positioning your hands and feet

Play around with how wide your feet are. Sometimes a wider base of support will offer a nice inner thigh stretch. Sometimes it’s more supportive to have a shorter base of support for balance or musculoskeletal reasons.
See if you prefer having your legs straight or if you like a slight knee bend. This might be the case if you have sacroiliac joint (SIJ) discomfort.
Do you have shoulder discomfort preventing you from keeping your arms out to the side? Having your hands on your hips is a perfect modification.

Working with balance challenges

If you have balance challenges after an injury, cancer treatment, or for neurological reasons, you may want to try this posture with your back close to a wall. You could also choose to practice this posture seated!

Why choose Five Pointed Star?

Flexibility

Who couldn’t benefit from opening their chest and shoulder girdle? This posture counteracts the forward pull of typing and texting.

Breathing here offers space at the muscles that are between each rib, the intercostal muscles.

Grounding

Five Pointed Star offers a moment of quiet grounding. Taking a pause in this posture, especially when paired with paced breathing or the Letting Go Breath, calms the sympathetic nervous system.

Transitions

Five Pointed Star is often a transition pose between postures.

Try this mini-flow:

Start in Five Pointed Star.
Transition to Warrior 2 with the right knee bent.
Flow into Extended Side Angle for 1–3 breaths. To create this pose you will bring your right forearm to your right leg and extend your left arm overhead and long.
Flow into Reverse Warrior for 1–3 breaths.
Repeat on the left.
End in Goddess Pose. For an additional option, try Goddess Pose with a Twist to the right and left.

Enjoy and move easefully!