Over the last 12 years of teaching Sarasvati Integral Yoga, I have had quite a number of my students ask me why some yoga teachers constantly roam around their yoga classes adjusting their students into their yoga asana, into so-called correct alignment, while other yoga teachers, like myself, do not. A fair question! The following is an explanation of our yoga school’s philosophy on adjustment, in my own words and from personal experience. Firstly and fore mostly, forcibly adjusting yoga students into positions that their body may not be ready for can result in injury. This goes against a basic principle of yoga practice, that of Ahimsa, or non-injury. A yoga teacher may not be aware of each individual student’s medical, fitness and indeed even mental capacities. The yoga teacher is also not in the position to ‘feel’ the effects of moving a student’s body in a particular way – only the student themself can be in charge of this self-assessment. In a recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald, titled Don’t Bend Until You Break, a yoga teacher explains “Often teachers aren’t that well informed about the problems [a student may have]. You’ve got to be quite careful.” (p19, 1.3.12). In an ideal world, we as teachers, try to get to know each yoga student and find out any of their known medical and health conditions but in reality this doesn’t always happen, especially with drop-in and new students. And, in addition, sometimes the student themself is unaware of certain conditions they may have and yoga practice may result in bringing these to their awareness. The only proviso I would give for intervening and adjusting a yoga student is if they are working in a clearly dangerous or injurious way and the student proves incapable of following a safer method that you have described and demonstrated.