This posture is a part of the warm up and you are going to use lateral flexion or sideways flexing of your spine to create a half moon shape down either side of your body. Like all of the Bikram Hot yoga postures, form is more important than depth. You might not be able to bend all the way over yet (or ever) but that isn't the objective. You want your whole body stay aligned breathing calmly in and out through your nose. A slender, slight crescent moon is always better than a slumped, misaligned deep half moon.  

"Hips forward" tempts some of us to push all of our hips (the ones we tend to put our hands on when we get cross) forward toward the mirror. Instead, try squeezing your glutes, your backside, really tightly together - clench them! Lengthen your tailbone to keep your pelvis straight and pull your low abdominals, your core, in tightly. "Upper body back" isn't a cue to lean right back, instead lift your chest up and pull your shoulder blades together to lengthen your spine and grow even taller. Aim for a neutral long spine. 

"Sliding down between two panes of glass".

Think body weight on the heels and keep your palms squeezed together. "Feet together toes and heels touching" doesn't work for everyones anatomy. You might need to consider a small gap between your heels depending on your body. Read my blog post on bunions to get a greater understanding of the way your feet can impact your form. 

Move slowly into the posture, don't slam down into it. Setting up and moving into the posture is as important as the final expression of the posture. At home stand against a wall and set up the posture, now move slowly without letting your body lose contact with the wall. Hard isn't it! That is exactly what you are aiming for in class. Lastly, don't exhaust yourself in half moon pose. There are another twenty five postures to go and while you want to put in effort you don't want to be unable to keep going for the rest of the class.

As you stand on the centre circle align your feet. The centre line is a guide for the direction you want your spine to move in with the lateral or sideways flexion. Imagine your spine flexing aligned with it, visualise your hips staying level and your shoulders also staying level with that line. Your palms as they squeeze together are stretching on that same axis. You can buy your very own Archer yoga towel by clicking here.