2.2 Required Foundational Poses

The May 2025 Standards for RYS Credentials do not publish a single official 200-hour asana syllabus that every school must teach pose-for-pose. They do something more precise. Under the Asana competency, schools must cover poses specific to the RYS's lineage, and that list must include Sukhasana and Savasana. The application language then asks what additional lineage poses you will cover and how. Complete sequencing to achieve a particular effect is a later TTP sub-competency. This section is the foundation those later families stand on: the two must-include poses, plus Tadasana (Mountain Pose) as the standing alignment template most 200-hour programs use even when Tadasana is not the pair Yoga Alliance names in the standards.

Why those two names and not, for example, Sirsasana (headstand) or Padmasana (lotus)? Sukhasana is the accessible meditation seat that still matches the classical job of asana—sitting with steadiness and ease. Savasana is the rest and integration pose that closes most modern classes and that many therapeutic and restorative streams treat as a skill, not a collapse. A school may add dozens of standing poses, backbends, or inversions. It may not treat Sukhasana and Savasana as optional extras it can skip because they look too simple on social media.

How the three templates relate

Think of the three shapes as the same assignment—organize the skeleton, breathe, and remain honest about effort—turned through three relationships to gravity.

Your school may cue the feet together or hip-width in Tadasana, may call equal standing Samasthiti, or may prefer a chair for every seated practice. Those are lineage maps. The shared teaching problem is the same: can the student find a base, a long spine, and a breath they can stay with?

Sukhasana: teaching the comfortable seat

Sukhasana (Easy Pose, comfortable seat) is a simple cross-legged sit. It is not a contest to look like Padmasana. Many bodies cannot and should not crank the knees into lotus in a 200-hour room.

Setup that protects knees and low back

Use this teaching sequence, then adapt it to your school's language:

1. Sit on the floor, a folded blanket, or a chair. The pelvis needs to be high enough that the knees can drop toward or below the level of the hip creases.
2. Bring one shin in front of the other rather than stacking the knees aggressively. Switch which shin is in front when you repeat the seat so both hips get similar time.
3. Find the sit bones (ischial tuberosities) and let them be the two-point base. If you roll onto the tailbone, the lumbar spine rounds and the head pokes forward.
4. Lengthen the spine: pelvis, rib cage, and skull stacked without puffing the front ribs.
5. Soften the shoulders away from the ears. Rest the hands on the knees, in the lap, or in a mudra your school uses (often Anjali at the heart for opening remarks).
6. Choose a gaze: a soft downward look, closed eyes, or eyes open. Never require closed eyes; some students need visual orientation to feel safe.

If the knees sit well above the hips, the pelvis usually tips backward. That is a prop problem, not a moral failure. Raise the seat. Slide a blanket under each thigh if the outer knees complain. Offer a chair: feet on the floor, spine long, same Sukhasana job without floor hip flexion. A chair seat still counts as teaching the comfortable seat. Forcing Padmasana does not.

What Sukhasana is for in class

You will use this seat to take attendance in the room, to teach breath awareness, to lecture briefly, and to start a short meditation. Because it is historically close to asana-as-seat, it is a good place to remind trainees that yoga did not begin as a standing workout. Watch for students who lock the knees of a crossed-leg sit by pulling the feet; invite less effort. Watch for students who sit on a dead-soft waist and cannot breathe into the back body; invite height under the pelvis, not a lecture on their character.

Teaching flag, not a diagnosis: a student who reports a recent knee surgery, a clinician's restriction on sitting cross-legged, or sharp knee pain should not be talked into a deeper lotus. Offer height, a wider sit, or a chair, and leave medical naming to a licensed clinician.

Savasana: teaching rest as a skill

Savasana (Corpse Pose, sometimes cued as Rest Pose) is a supine rest. Yoga Alliance's must-include language means your school has to teach it, not that you must force every body into a flat corpse shape for a fixed number of minutes. The skill is guided stillness with a supported skeleton and an option to opt out of corpse imagery.

Setup

• Lie on the back. Let the legs rest slightly apart so the thighs can soften; feet often fall open. Arms rest a little away from the torso, palms up or slightly in, so the chest is not clamped.
• Support the head with a thin blanket if the chin jams toward the chest or the throat feels compressed. The face should feel quiet, not tucked or over-arched.
• If the low back feels jammed, slide a bolster or rolled blanket under the knees so the lumbar spine can rest.
• Cover with a blanket in a cool room. Stillness drops body temperature.
• Reduce extra talking. Give students a way out: they may turn to the side, sit, or keep the eyes open.

Coming out is part of the pose. Cue a deeper breath, a bend of the knees, a pause, a roll to one side, another pause, then a slow press to sitting. Slamming from corpse to standing is how people get dizzy and how the integration you just taught is thrown away.

Inclusive language and pregnancy as a teaching flag

The Sanskrit names a corpse. Some students find that image grounding; others find it frightening. Many 200-hour teachers offer the English Rest Pose alongside Savasana and do not police who uses which word. That is cultural and trauma-informed courtesy, not a claim that you hold a mental-health license.

Second- and third-trimester pregnancy is commonly taught with side-lying rest (often with a bolster between the knees and support under the head) rather than long flat-on-the-back holds. Prenatal specialization is its own credential path. At 200-hour level, know that supine rest is not one-size-fits-all, offer a side-lying alternative, and do not invent obstetric rules. Invite the student to follow their healthcare provider's guidance.

Savasana is also where new teachers accidentally undo the pose: they keep giving alignment lectures, they skip it to fit in one more peak pose, or they treat it as nap time with no teaching. Hold the room. Keep the instruction sparse. Let rest be the technique.

Tadasana: the standing template other poses build from

Tadasana (Mountain Pose) is the standing cousin of Sukhasana's long spine. Many schools also use Samasthiti (equal standing) as the reset between movements. Yoga Alliance does not name Tadasana as the second must-include pose; your lineage might. Teach it anyway as geometry, because later standing poses, some inverted shapes, and even arm-supported planks reuse its stacking.

Setup

• Stand with the feet together or hip-width, according to your school. Hip-width is often more stable for beginners and for bodies that feel cramped with the inner legs zipped.
• Spread the weight through the four corners of each foot (inner and outer heel, ball of the big toe, ball of the little toe) without clawing the toes into cramp.
• Micro-bend or softly engage the knees so they do not slam backward into hyperextension. Lift the kneecaps by using the thighs rather than by grinding the joint.
• Stack ankles, knees, and hips. Settle the pelvis toward neutral: neither a hard tuck that flattens the lumbar curve nor a proud dump of the sitting bones that crunches the low back.
• Float the lower ribs in so the front body is not flared. Broaden the collarbones. Let the arms hang, or teach Urdhva Hastasana (upward hands) as Tadasana with the arms overhead so the same rib-and-shoulder organization shows up in Downward-Facing Dog later.
• Lengthen the sides of the neck. The gaze is typically forward and level, not chin-lifted.

A useful teaching sentence: if Tadasana is organized, Warrior I is Tadasana on a staggered stance; Downward-Facing Dog is an inverted V that still wants Tadasana-like arms and a long spine; Savasana is the same skeleton putting the effort down. Students who only memorize peak poses cannot see that sentence. Students who can teach these three templates can.

Lineage differences you should not turn into medical law

Some methods insist on the feet touching in Tadasana. Some prefer a slight external rotation of the thighs. Some cue a strong pelvic floor; others cue softness. Those are alignment maps your school is allowed to have. What they are not is a diagnosis of a student's pelvis. If a student cannot zip the feet together without pain, widen the stance. If they cannot tuck the tail to the degree your poster shows, reduce the cue. The next section develops that distinction for props and contraindications.

Putting the three poses in a class without sequencing the whole syllabus

A simple 200-hour teaching drill is: open in Sukhasana with breath, stand in Tadasana to feel the same spine against gravity, practice whatever standing or floor work your lesson requires, and close in Savasana. That is not yet complete sequencing for a particular effect—the later chapter on sequencing will add pranayama, meditation, peak poses, and counterposes. It is enough to prove you can teach the two required lineage poses and the standing template they sit beside.

Assessment traps: claiming Yoga Alliance requires Sirsasana of every school; skipping Savasana because the clock ran out; treating Sukhasana as a throwaway sit on a rounded low back; diagnosing a student's knees; and teaching Tadasana as a rigidity contest rather than a living stack you can breathe in.