WELCOME TO MONTHLY THROUGH LINES

Hey all – it’s Simon here from Chromatic Yoga.

Welcome to the February Chromatic Blog of 2026! With the solid foundations we laid in January still fresh under our feet (and hands, breath, and midline), it’s time to get things moving. This month’s through line is TRANSITIONS, zeroing in on the art of weight shifting – that subtle, sneaky skill that turns static poses into fluid flows and keeps us from face-planting in the process. Whether you’re gliding through vinyasas like a pro or still figuring out how not to topple in Tree Pose, we’ll unpack how weight shifting powers our movement, balance, and those “aha” moments on the mat.

Inspired by January’s grounding energy, where we tuned into the bedrock of our practice – feet rooting, hands connecting, breath flowing, and midline centering – February invites us to build on that stability by exploring how to shift it dynamically.

We’ll break it down week by week, dedicating each to a key aspect of weight shifting: Week 1 The Feet as our mobile foundation, Week 2 The Hands as our shifting anchors, Week 3 Lateral Shift as our side-to-side intelligence, and finally Week 4 Arm Balances where weight shifting becomes an art form of suspension and grace.. Expect practical tips, cheeky challenges, and insights to weave into your sequences as we and the community share. Let’s transition into a smoother, more adaptive practice for the month ahead!

Cue the CHROMATIC MONTHLY THROUGH LINES!

In Chromatic Yoga, we keep things straightforward. That’s why we’ve launched this “Monthly Through Line” community initiative. It’s designed to help you – our Chromatic Teachers – focus and intelligently design your classes to best support your students. If you’re not a Chromatic Teacher yet, and are simply here to practice, that’s great too. You’ll be able to apply these through-lines to gain more insight in to body biomechanics and potentially access the poses you’ve always wanted to do but perhaps haven’t fully gotten yet. 

How it Works:

1. On the first of every month, we announce the Chromatic Monthly Through-Line. We zoom in on one body part and explore all the ways it affects our yoga practice throughout the month.
2. We highlight a Physical Through Line (PTL) you can incorporate into your classes each week, along with pose suggestions and cueing techniques.

• WHAT IS A PHYSICAL THROUGH LINE? 

• A Physical Through Line is a term we use in Chromatic Yoga that is defined by the muscle engagement, or joint action that we focus on through the duration of the yoga class. Certified Chromatic Teachers construct their classes around a PTL (Physical Through Line) in order to create a more effective learning environments for students. As a student you can expect that each Chromatic class will include a PTL. Of course, you will do other postures and other muscle engagements within a Chromatic class, however there is a strong emphasis on the PTL.

3. Share how you’ve used the PTL by tagging us on IG and in our Global WhatsApp Group! 

For February, the Chromatic Monthly Through-Line will be based on….

transitions…

The dynamic bridge between stability and flow, powered by intelligent weight shifting. This month is about mastering the art of redistribution – how you release one foundation to claim another, and how that exchange builds resilience.

Week 1: THE FEET – Mobile Foundations in Motion

Building on January’s foot foundation work, this week we explore how our feet – PADA in Sanskrit – become intelligent weight-shifters in transitional moments. Your feet aren’t just static platforms – they’re dynamic sensors constantly adjusting, shifting, and responding to changes in your center of gravity.

Remember how we gripped and lifted in January? Now, let’s focus our attention on how weight rolls through the feet to initiate movement. How often do you notice that subtle transfer from heel to ball, or inner to outer edge? It’s the secret sauce for seamless transitions!

In transitions, the feet become your steering wheel and shock absorbers simultaneously. Whether shifting from Warrior II to Side Angle, or moving through a Sun Salutation, conscious foot-based weight shifting creates smooth, controlled movement that protects joints and creates grace.

For example: In Sun Salutation, the feet don’t just step; they propel. Weight shifts from back heel to front ball, awakening the chain from calves to core.

Week 2: THE hands – the shifting anchors of support

Your hands – HASTA in Sanskrit – those masterful tools of connection from January, now become intelligent weight-shifters in arm-supported transitions. This week focuses on how conscious hand-based weight shifting through the palms, knuckles and fingers facilitate fluid movement between poses while building strength and protecting wrists. 

Ever felt your wrists protest during a Chaturanga? It’s often a weight distribution fail. Hand transitions require both stability and mobility – your palms and fingers learn to grip, release, pivot, and adjust as your body moves through space.

We’ll cultivate hand sensitivity for smoother push-pulls, better load management, and healthier upper body mechanics – on the mat and in everyday grips like opening a stubborn jar.

For example: In Downward Dog to Plank, hands become fulcrums. Load shifts from palms to fingers, engaging shoulders without dumping into wrists.

Week 3: LATERAL SHIFT – SIDE TO SIDE INTELLIGENCE  

The often-neglected lateral plane comes alive this week as we explore side-to-side weight shifting. Most yoga happens in the forward-backward plane, but intelligent lateral movement creates three-dimensional awareness and unlocks a whole new vocabulary of transition.

Lateral shifts challenge our balance differently, engaging obliques, hips, and other stabilizing muscles. This isn’t just for fancy side planks; it’s key for balanced gait, injury prevention, and accessing deeper twists or balances. How does a subtle hip sway change everything? We’ll tune into this often-overlooked plane for more integrated, three-dimensional movement.

For example: In Triangle Pose, lateral shift is queen. Hips sway sideways, stacking the torso over a stable base for that sweet, spacious stretch.

Week 4: ARM BALANCES – THE ULTIMATE INTEGRATION

Arm balances are essentially controlled weight shifts that happen to defy gravity. And this final week ties it all together requiring the foot intelligence from week one, the hand sensitivity from week two, and the three-dimensional awareness from week three, all converging to lift us off the ground. From Crow to Handstand, it’s not brute strength but savvy redistribution that makes the magic happen.

Here, weight shifting isn’t just about transition – it’s about finding the sweet spot where gravity and effort dance together in perfect suspension.   We’ll emphasize core engagement and precise transfers to build confidence, avoid overload, and turn “impossible” into “I’ve got this.”

For example: In Side Crow, everything converges. Feet ground briefly, hands pivot, lateral core fires – and suddenly, you’re twisting in mid-air.

 Check out Patrick’s video post below and here: https://youtu.be/piL57oForIw

Simon’s RECAP AND TIPS

TRANSITIONs – The INTELLIGEnt finesse OF shifting weight 

It’s tempting to view transitions as mere connectors: get from A to B, don’t fall over. Or to not even pay attention to the subtle ebb and flow of weight being distributed in your feet, hands, hips and so on during a practice. We are so focused on the “bigger picture” of getting to the pose, that we hardly even pay attention to how we got there, what we did to get there, and how we move from one to another.

But true transitions, like true grace in yoga and life, are alive with intention – a clever negotiation between holding on and letting go. It’s not chaos; it’s choreography. Whether it’s the ball of your foot rolling forward in a lunge, your knuckles redistributing as you lower through plank to chaturanga and the in to an upward facing dog, a hip dip initiating a side bend, or the full-body recalibration in an arm balance… each shift demands presence.

Intelligent weight shifting reveals transitions as the very essence of practice. 

When weight shifting is mindful, transitions become opportunities rather than obstacles. Your body learns to move as one integrated unit, joints are protected, flows becomes natural rather than forced, balances like floating, and effort like empowerment rather than exhaustion. Weight shifting is the intelligence that makes the impossible possible. When it’s ignored, the body rebels: jerky movements, strained joints, breath that hitches or holds.

It’s where breath meets movement, where intention meets execution, where your January foundations come alive in motion. The spaces between poses – those moments when you’re neither here nor there – are where the real yoga unfolds.

POSTURES TO CONSIDER THIS MONTH:

Week 1 Feet:  

• Yoga Poses to Explore:

  • Tadasana to Forward Fold (Uttanasana) – Start in Mountain; shift weight subtly forward onto balls of feet before hinging at hips, noticing how this eases the fold without strain.

  • High Lunge (Ashta Chandrasana)  to (Virabhadrasana II) to Warrior II – pay attention to the outside edge of the front foot as you pivot on the pad of the back foot to then place the heel and press through the outside edge of the back foot, creating a smooth rotation without losing grounding, or risking the front knee caving in.

  • Eagle Pose (Garudasana) – Use the standing foot’s weight shifts to wrap and balance, micro-adjusting from inner to outer edge for stability.

  • Tree Pose (Vrksasana) – Continuous micro-adjustments in standing foot

 Week 2: Hands: 

• Yoga Poses to Explore:

  • High Plank-Chaturanga Dandasana-Upward Dog (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana)  – Explore each of these individually, then as you transition from one to the other. Notice the distribution of weight in the hands in Plank, then as you lower, shift weight forward through knuckles and finger tips (grip!) to protect wrists, feeling the subtle push that engages triceps and core. Then roll weight through hands to lift the chest, noticing how finger pads stabilize the upward arc and the heel of the hands presses to reach the heart up (forward first!)

  • Wheel Pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana) – Press evenly through palms and shift weight toward fingers and slightly to the outside edge of the palm to open the chest, and retract the shoulders.

  • Side Plank (Vasisthasana) – explore “all corners” of the bottom hand in a side plank prep, in order to gain a real feeling for how and where you individually need to stack and distribute the shift weight to feel stable to hold the pose. Then practice the transition from High Plank to Side Plank. 

Week 3: Lateral Shift

• Yoga Poses to Explore:

  • Triangle Pose (Trikonasana) – Initiate with a lateral hip shift away from the front leg, creating space before folding for a deeper, safer side stretch.

  • Extended Side Angle (Utthita Parsvakonasana) – From Warrior II, shift weight laterally to lower the forearm to thigh, feeling the oblique activation that supports the twist.

  • Gate Pose (Parighasana) – Kneeling, shift weight sideways over the extended leg (reverse Gate Pose), reaching overhead to emphasize the lateral line’s elongation. Then shift over the bottom bent leg as you find your way to a modified Side Plank. 

  • Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana) – Lift the back leg while shifting weight laterally through the standing foot and hand, balancing the stack for anti-gravity vibes. This pose actually brings in Weeks 1, 2 and 3! 😉 

  • Skandasana (Side Lunge) flow – Deep lateral weight shifts in standing poses

  • Revolved Triangle (Parivrtta Trikonasana) – Build on lateral shift by adding rotation, using the side glide to create torque without compressing the spine.

Week 4: Arm Balances

• Yoga Poses to Explore:

  • Crow Pose (Bakasana) – Shift weight forward from feet to hands, using lateral core to hug knees in, turning squat into flight.

  • Side Crow (Parivrtta Bakasana) – Weight shifting of the hands, lateral weight shift AND with rotational intelligence! 

  • Firefly Pose (Tittibhasana) – From a wide squat, shift weight through hands while extending legs, integrating internal rotation of the legs, foot “foint” and hand grip for lift-off.

  • Eight-Angle Pose (Astavakrasana) – Lateral weight shifting of the hands

  • Handstand (Adho Mukha Vrksasana) – Lift up, then fine-tune hand (heel-palm-knuckles-fingers-finger tips) shifts and midline to hold the inversion steady.

FOR TEACHER’S: VERBAL CUE’S

In Warrior II to Side Angle (Feet): “As you lean into side angle, feel your weight shift in to the outer edge of your front foot and press through your heel to fire up your gluteus muscle. Your back foot stays grounded and strong.”

In High Plank to Side Plank (Hands): “Placing the right hand in front of the left, as you shift the weight, actively grip then press in to the palm whilst rotating it outward as if you’re opening a jar of pasta sauce” 

In Seated Side Bend (Lateral Shift) – “Initiate from the ribs by lengthening up, then glide sideways; let the ribs follow, creating space rather than squeeze as you notice the weight shift in the sit bones and glutes.”

In Crow Pose (Arm Balances): “Shift weight forward, press down through the hand as you grip in to your mat by pulling your finger tips toward the heel of your hands until you find that balance point where your feet want to lift.”

FOR CHROMATIC STUDENTS:

As a practitioner of Chromatic Yoga you may hear these as well as many other PTL’s in Chromatic Classes around the world. You can also practice these yourselves within any yoga class without the guidance of a teacher.

CHROMATIC TEACHERS:

Let’s see what you come up with this month. What peak postures will you be using? After you teach your class, share in our Global WhatsApp Group which layering postures worked best for you, which did you find students struggled with? We look forward to our collective collaboration to offer top level yoga experiences world wide.

FINAL THOUGHTS 

As Chromatic students and teachers, we aren’t just stretching muscles – we’re intentionally aiming to refine our awareness of our practice, which leads to a transformational experience on (and then off) the mat.

Chromatic Yoga is a global community. No matter where you are in the world, we hope you’ll join us this October for a deep dive into the possibilities of articulating your forearm and elbow. Share and tag your poses on Instagram. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Instagram if you don’t already for all the updates! 

We often chase poses like destinations, forgetting the journey’s the juice. TRANSITIONS aren’t filler; they’re the forge. It’s the foot’s pivot that launches the warrior, the hand’s recalibration that saves the chaturanga, the lateral glide that unlocks the side body, the integrated shift that defies gravity in arm balances.

Think about this as we flow through February: Shift before you settle. Every transfer, pivot, and glide is only as graceful as your awareness. Move into change, not through it. Feet are fulcrums. They don’t just bear weight; they redirect it with purpose. Hands are hinges. Whether pushing or pulling, adaptation starts in the palm. Lateral shifts are liberators. They break the linear rut, inviting multidimensional freedom. Arm balances are alchemy. When shifts align, effort turns to elevation.

As we boldly navigate February’s shifts together, reflect on how these transitions mirror life’s changes – from grounded starts to fluid adaptations. With feet that pivot, hands that adapt, lateral glides that balance, and arm balances that integrate, we’re not just moving; we’re evolving. And now to our practice, not to conquer transitions, but to dance with them.

Wishing you an intentional and transformative practice, 

~Simon Darroch

Chromatic Blogs & Through-Lines