Three is the magic number
With the raising trend of “social media yoga” full of yoga challenges and asana that resemble more a contorsionist performance than anything else, the asana known as trikonasana (triangle pose) is a little bit like the yogic equivalent of the “girl-next-door”: too simple uh? Not at all, trikonasana is indeed a beautiful asana, full of benefits both physical and emotional: it lengthens the muscles, improves your posture, it’s visually elegant, with all those axis and lines going through the body and sculpt it. Trikonasana is also a “polar” asana as it blends feminine and masculine characteristics, (yin and yang) in perfect balance.
When executing trikonasana, one should not worry about reaching the floor with the hand, what matters is the stretching and opening in the pose, finding the breath and work with it to increase flexibility and body awareness.
It’s a basic pose which can prepare the body for more complex ones by centring it.
Those who are competitive by nature and lack the patience to listen to their own body, may be able to execute a rather good scalene triangle, quite likely all wrapped and bent on one side, just to reach the floor with that bloody hand!
In the end, it’s always the same stuff, yoga is the discipline of contemplation and thinking too much at what others are doing, it’s pretty useless, while finding our own unique way is the only way to live yoga and our own life.