Understanding Yoga Poses Through Functional Movement Patterns

For a long time, I taught and practised yoga and yoga poses the way I’d been taught — as a sequence of postures with metaphysical meaning and form, long before I ever thought about functional movement in yoga poses or why our spines move the way they do.

My Scaravelli training changed something fundamental. I learned that forcing the body rarely helps; that listening matters more than achieving; that giving space and time to feel where you are is essential; and that gravity and breath often know more than ambition. Once on the Scaravelli-inspired yoga path, I stopped organising my classes—and the way I thought about yoga poses—around traditional posture or asana categories. Sun Salutations, standing poses, prone yoga poses, forward bends, backbends, twists. It worked. My students appreciated the Scaravelli emphasis on ease and tuning inward. Yet I kept feeling like something was missing, as if I were only seeing half the picture.

Then I met Pete Blackaby’s work on functional movement, and everything clicked into place. Not because his framework was “right” and everything else was wrong. It helped me put words to something I’d been sensing for years: yoga poses make more sense when you understand why our bodies move the way they do.

What Actually Changed in How I Understand Yoga Poses

When I first came across Pete’s ideas about human functional movement, which is organised around the spine’s primary patterns—sidebending, extension, flexion, rotation—I approached it like a yoga student. I could interpret asana or yoga postures within a framework rooted in evolutionary biology and developmental movement research, and it made sense intellectually, practically, and, notably, personally, on an embodied level.

However, the fundamental shift occurred when I began teaching it. My students seemed to embody the “spinal functional movement theory” with minimal effort. They started asking themselves different questions in practice. Not “Am I doing this right?” but “What’s this movement actually for?” They stopped trying to match some external ideal and got curious about how their own spines wanted to move.

When you remove the traditional focus of postural yoga—fulfilling a postural sequence in a particular bodily fashion—the journey, the somatic experience, becomes the practice; this is Yoga, and yoga poses become less goal-oriented. When we reframe forward bending as an exploration of how the spine flexes, something we do all the time in daily life, everything shifts. When we stop wrestling with “stretching” our hamstrings and start investigating how the entire spine participates in folding, we can stop fighting ourselves and treating our bodies like the enemy.

That’s what Pete’s functional approach gave me—not new rules, but a different way of looking.

Why Evolution Matters (Sort Of)

Something is humbling about realising our spines carry millions of years of evolutionary history. As Pete Blackaby describes in Intelligent Yoga[^1], drawing on Serge Gracovetsky’s work[^2], vertebrate movement evolves from fish undulating sideways through water, to early reptiles with a sprawling gait, and then to the more sophisticated patterns seen in mammals. Understanding how the spine moves in yoga poses begins with this same evolutionary story—how side-bending, rotation, and extension emerged as natural patterns of life.

I’m not a biomechanics expert, but this evolutionary story helps me understand why specific movements feel natural in practice and why others feel forced. What matters to me as a teacher isn’t memorising every detail of anatomical processes and musculature. It’s essential to understand that our bodies are designed for movement. These designs serve specific purposes, and working with our design rather than against it creates less suffering.

The evolutionary bit explains why specific movements feel natural and others don’t, why sidebending and rotation seem to go together. Why extreme ranges in yoga poses sometimes feel forced—because they are, pushing way beyond what our daily movement actually requires.

In Scaravelli-inspired Yoga, we already work with the idea that the body has its own wisdom and intelligence. Understanding functional patterns adds another layer to that trust: our bodies aren’t just intelligent, they’re brilliantly adapted for the movements that actually matter for being human.

This summary follows Pete Blackaby’s account in Intelligent Yoga and his use of Gracovetsky’s research.

The Four Movement Patterns: What I’ve Noticed

I learned to organise Yoga poses around these four patterns from Pete Blackaby’s teaching.

Sidebending—Where It Started

Fish move by bending sideways through water. This sidebending pattern is ancient and foundational. In humans, it remains closely linked to rotation. Following Pete Blackaby’s summary of early clinical observations by R.W. Lovett (1905)[^3] and later by White & Panjabi[^4], this relationship is often described as coupled motion: when the spine sidebends, some rotation tends to appear; with sufficient rotation, you’ll frequently see extension emerge too.

What does this mean when you’re practising yoga? I’ve noticed that when students explore sidebending poses—such as simple standing side stretches and lateral bends—they often find that forcing pure sideways movement creates strain. But when we allow the natural coupling between sidebending and rotation, when we let the body organise itself the way it’s designed to, movement gets more fluid.

A student once asked me, “Why does my body want to twist when I’m just trying to bend sideways?” Instead of correcting her, I told her to follow that impulse. She discovered her body’s innate wisdom about coupled motion. The twist wasn’t “wrong”—it was her spine doing precisely what it’s meant to do.

This doesn’t mean that every side bend has to involve rotation. When we approach our yoga practice with curiosity and a desire to explore—core principles inspired by Scaravelli Yoga—rather than relying on rigid rules about what a pose “should” look like, we open ourselves up to greater possibilities.

Extension—Opening Without Breaking

I’ve become cautious about how backbends get taught in yoga. The emphasis on depth, extreme ranges, pushing further—it rarely serves the functional movement our bodies actually need.

In daily life, we often extend our spines to reach overhead, look up, and open our chests after hunching over computers for too long. These are moderate movements, purposeful, grounded in function. Those extreme backbends you see in some yoga classes? Impressive, sure. But useful? I’m not convinced.

The Scaravelli approach to backbends emphasises length over depth, space over compression. Combined with understanding extension as a functional pattern, this becomes even more powerful. We’re not chasing a shape. We’re exploring how our spines can extend whilst staying integrated and easy. The key term here is a confluent spine, moving tip to tail together.

What does “confluent” mean? Merriam-Webster defines it as “flowing or coming together”—Dictionary.com describes it as “flowing or running together; blending into one.”

When I describe the spine responding confluently, I mean the spine moves as a unified, integrated whole—like streams flowing together into a single river. Rather than individual vertebrae moving in isolation or creating segmented, disconnected movement, a confluent spine shows movement that flows smoothly through the entire spinal column, with each segment contributing to and blending with the movement of its neighbours.

Think of it like this: when you extend your spine in a backbend, you’re not creating separate movements at L3, then T8, then T2. Instead, the extension flows through the spine as one continuous, integrated pattern—the movement is confluent, merging rather than remaining discrete or compartmentalised. This confluent quality is what creates the sense of length and ease in the Scaravelli approach. We’re not forcing individual segments into position; we’re allowing the whole spine to participate in the movement pattern, responding as an integrated structure.

I often work with students who are recovering from back injuries. Almost all of them have been advised to avoid backbends altogether. However, gentle and functional spinal extension—achieving length in the spine and opening the front of the body without using force—can often be more beneficial than simply avoiding these movements. The key is to treat extension as a form of exploration rather than a goal to achieve. By observing movement patterns without experiencing pain, we can effectively rewire the central nervous system, resulting in lasting change.

Flexion—The Messy Debate

Forward bending in yoga carries a lot of baggage. Should you keep the spine straight? Let it round? Tighten the ‘core’, protect the discs? The debates go on and on. Honestly, there are no universal answers.

What I’ve observed: our bodies flex forward constantly. We bend to lift things, tie our shoes, and reach towards the ground. Throughout human history, we’ve spent considerable time in flexion—gathering, lifting, caring for children. Our spines are designed for this.

The question isn’t whether to flex, but how. What creates confluent spinal flexion—the spine folding as one integrated structure from head to tail—isn’t muscular effort or conscious positioning. According to Gracovetsky’s spinal engine theory, forward bending occurs due to changes in intra-abdominal pressure and the thoracolumbar fascia wrapping around the spine, causing the lumbar discs to fold. The spine responds as a whole to these pressure differentials, creating confluent movement when the system is working well.

However, this natural confluent response depends on each person’s movement mapping—how their nervous system has organised this folding pattern over time. Some bodies fold easily with a relatively straight spine. Others naturally round more. Some students have tight hamstrings. Others have sensitive backs. The functional approach asks: What serves this body, in this moment, for this person’s actual life?

I’ve stopped giving blanket instructions about forward bends. Instead, I invite students to notice what their bodies need. Can you breathe? Does this feel sustainable? Does the movement serve how you actually fold in daily life?

Sometimes that means bending knees. Sometimes it means letting the spine round. Sometimes it means not folding as deeply. The pose serves the person, not the other way round.

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Rotation—The Sophisticated Dance

Rotation fascinates me because it’s so clearly functional. Watch someone walk—really watch. As one leg reaches back, the opposite side of the ribcage naturally turns forward. Most of that turning happens through the mid-back. This counter-rotation, generated in the thoracic spine, is crucial to efficient human movement.

Gracovetsky’s “spinal engine” theory[^2] helps explain why the spine isn’t a passive passenger in gait; Pete integrates this insight to show how the trunk drives efficient movement. In simple terms: introduce rotation to a side-bending spine and extension often follows—another face of coupled motion first noted by Lovett[^3] and expanded by White & Panjabi[^4]. For yoga, this reminds me that trying to isolate a “pure” twist often means fighting how the spine naturally organises movement.

I find Gracovetsky’s theory particularly relevant to Yoga because it challenges the idea that we can—or should—move in isolation. The spine operates as an integrated system: side-bending, rotation, and extension naturally arise together. When I watch students trying to create “pure” rotation in twisting poses—forcing the movement with their arms while keeping everything else still—I see them working against their own design.

Yet in yoga classes, rotation often becomes about how deeply you can twist, how tightly you can bind, or how much leverage you can create with your arms to push further. I’ve done this myself, both as a student and a teacher. But understanding the spinal-engine perspective makes me question whether extreme rotation serves any functional purpose at all.

When I teach twisting yoga poses now, I emphasise freedom over depth. Can you breathe freely? Does your spine feel spacious? Are you allowing the natural coupling between rotation and side-bending—or fighting it? Paying attention to where the subtle movement occurs in the thoracic area often reveals where the true rotation lives. Are you looking for a simpler, more integrated movement, or struggling to crank yourself into position with your arms? These questions matter far more than how far you rotate.

The Felt Sense

Pete writes about developing a “felt sense”—internal awareness, a type of attention required, that guides movement more reliably than external instructions. This resonates deeply with Scaravelli’s practice, where we’re always listening inward, always asking what the body needs rather than imposing what we think it should do.

I’ve noticed that students who rely entirely on external cues—watching the teacher, matching the shape, and following instructions—often struggle to develop their own movement intelligence. They become dependent on being told what to do. However, when we shift our focus towards cultivating the felt sense, something remarkable happens: students become their own best teachers.

This doesn’t happen overnight. At first, moving by felt sense can feel awkward and uncertain. Students might feel they’re doing things “wrong” because they can’t match the visual ideal. But over time, as they trust their internal feedback more, something more refined emerges.

One student put it beautifully: “I used to think I was bad at yoga because I couldn’t do the poses properly. Now I realise the poses are just invitations to explore how my body moves. Some invitations work for me. Others don’t. That’s not failure—that’s information.”

This shift—from external achievement to internal inquiry—transforms practice from something you endure into something genuinely nourishing.

Movement Lives in Your Nervous System

Here’s something that has fundamentally changed how I teach: movement isn’t primarily a matter of muscle. It’s neurological. Our motor cortex maps movement patterns, not individual muscles. When we move, we’re activating entire patterns that have been habituated through years of repetition.

This understanding largely stems from Pete’s work, although it also draws on broader research in neuroscience and developmental movement. The concept is both simple and profound: as children, we habituate the movements we do most often—running, walking, bending, lifting, reaching. How successful we are at habituating these movements depends partly on need.

Think about handwriting. Very few of us perfect our handwriting. We stop trying to improve it when it becomes easily readable and writable. This is true of almost any habituated movement—we perfect tasks well enough to accomplish what we need, then the pattern becomes automatic.

What Movement Mapping Actually Means

When researchers studied the motor cortex, they discovered something fascinating: Activity in the motor cortex typically recruits a networked movement pattern rather than a single muscle acting alone. What appears to be a small local contraction is often the beginning of a more comprehensive, coordinated movement.

Teaching yoga by focusing solely on stretching individual muscles or strengthening isolated body parts overlooks an important truth. We are not just working with separate parts of the body; instead, we are engaging with whole movement patterns that have been established in our nervous systems over years of experience living in our bodies.

How This Changes Teaching

When I understood this, my teaching shifted. I stopped cueing individual muscles (“engage your quads,” “activate your glutes”) and started working with movement patterns. I began asking different questions: How have you habituated this movement? What pattern is your nervous system expressing? Is this pattern serving you well, or has it developed as compensation for something else?

I have seen students over the years who display unique body maps, some with difficulties around yoga poses that were meant to address the ‘issues’. In the case of a student with chronic shoulder tension, instructions like “relax your shoulders”, ” drop them away from your ears” seemed to ring hollow when the issue did not change. It is only when we explore the habituated movement patterns that we can uncover the patterns they have developed over time. Telling her to relax her shoulders was fighting years of habituation.

Instead, we worked on developing new patterns through repeated, mindful movement, avoiding forcing her shoulders down, and instead exploring movements that allowed them to release naturally. Over time—months, not weeks—new patterns began emerging. Her nervous system slowly remapped what “normal” shoulder position felt like.

That’s the power and the challenge of working with habituation: patterns change through repetition and time, not willpower or force.

Why Everyone’s Different

Because each of us has habituated different movement patterns based on our unique life experiences, there’s no single “correct” way to do a yoga pose. What works for one person’s body map might not work for another’s.

I’ve had students who fold forward easily because they’ve spent years gardening, bending from the hips hundreds of times. I’ve had students whose work required constant overhead reaching, and extension feels natural to them. Others have habituated protective patterns around old injuries, and their nervous systems resist movements that feel threatening.

When I teach now, I’m not trying to impose a universal ideal. I’m helping each student investigate their own habituated patterns, discover which ones serve them well, and gently explore possibilities for developing new patterns where the old ones create limitation or discomfort.

This requires patience. The nervous system doesn’t reorganise overnight. We need to practise movements repeatedly, mindfully, until new neural pathways develop and strengthen. But if a student intuitively understands this, in practice, when they realise that they don’t have to “get the yoga ” instead working with years of habituation, something shifts. They stop fighting their bodies and start working with them.

How This Changes How I Teach Yoga Poses

The more I integrate these perspectives, the more I see how naturally they complement each other. Scaravelli yoga teaches us to listen, work with gravity and breath, and find release rather than force effort. The functional movement perspective adds the “why”—it explains why listening matters, why working with our design rather than against it creates more ease, and why some movements feel natural while others require force.

Both approaches trust the body’s intelligence. Both question the achievement culture that pervades much of modern yoga. Both emphasise sustainable practice over impressive accomplishments.

Where they differ is in emphasis. Scaravelli-inspired Yoga comes from sensing and feeling, discovering freedom through release. The functional approach comes from understanding evolutionary design and developmental patterns. But these aren’t contradictions—they’re complementary lenses for the same inquiry.

In my teaching, I move fluidly between them. Sometimes, a student needs to understand why their body moves as it does—the functional framework helps here. At other times, a student needs to stop analysing and feel; the Scaravelli approach serves better. The art of teaching is knowing which perspective will benefit each student at any moment.

Staying Curious

I’m not suggesting this functional approach is the only valid way to understand yoga poses. There’s wisdom in traditional systems I haven’t mentioned here. There are anatomical perspectives that emphasise different elements. There are energetic frameworks that view poses in entirely different ways.

I also question whether we need to understand evolutionary movement patterns to practise yoga well. Many people develop profound relationships with their practice without ever considering biomechanics or evolutionary biology. The proof isn’t in the theory but in how we actually feel in our bodies.

What I value about the functional approach is that it helps me ask better questions. Not “Am I doing this pose correctly?” but “Does this movement serve my actual life?” Not “How far can I push?” but “What does my body need today?” Not “Why can’t I do what the teacher demonstrates?” but “What adaptation would honour my unique design?”

These feel like more useful questions for practice—and for teaching.

Still Learning

I don’t write this as someone who’s figured it all out. I’m still learning, still questioning, discovering new layers in poses I’ve practised for years. What I offer here isn’t definitive truth but rather a glimpse into how one teacher has woven together different streams of understanding.

Your journey with yoga poses will be unique to you. You might resonate with this functional framework or find it unnecessarily intellectual. You might prefer other ways of organising your practice. What matters isn’t whether you adopt this particular approach but whether you’re genuinely curious about your own movement, genuinely listening to your body’s wisdom, genuinely willing to question what you’ve been taught when your experience suggests something different.

The yoga poses themselves—Triangle, Warrior, Forward Bend, Twist—these are just invitations. Invitations to move, to explore, to discover what lives in your own body. Whether you understand them through functional movement patterns, traditional alignment principles, energetic frameworks, or simply through years of patient practice matters less than whether they serve you.

My students teach me constantly. They show me how different bodies respond to the same invitation, how what works brilliantly for one person creates struggle for another, how the theory must always bow to the lived experience of actual human beings in organic bodies, after all, we are organisms at our core.

Perhaps that’s the real wisdom here: not in any particular framework or theory, but in the willingness to stay curious, to keep questioning, to honour both what we’ve learnt and what we’ve yet to discover.

If there’s a destination in this practice, it’s not mastery but relationship — with movement, with gravity, and with the quiet intelligence of our own spine.

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Suppose you are interested in exploring how these principles could help you and your practice. In that case, I work with students in one-to-one sessions, where we can develop approaches tailored to your individual needs and circumstances.

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References

[^1]: Blackaby, P. Intelligent Yoga, second edition (2018).

[^2]: Gracovetsky, S. (1997). Linking the spinal engine with the legs in Movement, Stability & Low Back Pain (pp. 243–252). Churchill Livingstone.

[^3]: Lovett, R.W. (1905). The mechanism of the normal spine and its relation to scoliosis. Boston Medical & Surgical Journal, 13, 349–358.

[^4]: White, A.A., & Panjabi, M.M. (1990). Clinical Biomechanics of the Spine (2nd ed.). Lippincott.