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Easy Seated Side Bend: A Gentle Start from One of the Best Yoga Classes in Medford, New Jersey
- flowforwardyoga
- Jul 29
- 4 min read
If you're searching for the best yoga classes in Medford, New Jersey, I'd love to show you what my practice actually feels like, starting with one of my favorite gentle poses: the Easy Seated Side Bend.
This pose is a beautiful place to begin because it asks your body one simple question: can my spine bend gently to the side today? That's it. No pretzels, no gymnastics. Just you, your breath, and a little lateral movement that wakes up the whole side body.
Let me walk you through it exactly the way I teach it in class at Studio 67 at the Feed Mill here in Medford.
Why This Pose Matters
All of yoga is built on spinal mobility from forward bends, back bends, twists, and side bends. The Easy Seated Side Bend introduces lateral movement, gently stretching the muscles along your ribs and waist while teaching you to stay grounded and tall at the same time. It's a wonderful pose for anyone who spends the day sitting at a desk or behind a wheel, because it creates space in areas that tend to compress and tighten.
How to Practice Easy Seated Side Bend, Step by Step
We build this pose from the ground up, just like we do in class:
Ground your sitz bones. Sitting comfortably, bring your attention to your sitz bones. Make sure they're pointing downward and grounded evenly, with no tipping of the pelvis forward or backward.
Find your spine. In your mind's eye, travel up the spine — from the coccyx bone or tailbone, to the sacrum, that flat bone at the base of the spine; up through the lumbar spine, home to the largest vertebrae in the body; then move to the thoracic spine, which is attached to the rib cage; then finally the cervical spine, in your neck.
Reach through the crown of your head. Grow tall without straining, as if a gentle thread were lifting you from above.
Inhale, and reach up. As you exhale, bend to one side. Press down into the palm of your grounded hand and imagine drawing the mat toward your hip — this keeps you anchored as you bend.
Reach out through the fingertips of your opposite hand, extending the arm overhead so you feel length all along that side of your body.
Check your shoulder. If you feel the top shoulder rolling forward, bring your fingertips to that shoulder, externally rotate it, and then reach the arm back overhead — still pressing down through the palm and drawing the grounded hand toward your hip.
Inhale back up to center, then exhale over to the opposite side and repeat the same steps.
The Breath Is the Pose
In our classes, the breath always leads the movement. Before you bend at all, settle into a steady rhythm: inhale to a count of four, exhale to a count of four. Then let that rhythm carry you — inhale to lengthen up, exhale to side bend, and while you're in the side bend, stay for a full four-count inhale and four-count exhale before rising.
If your breath ever becomes short or strained, that's your body's honest signal that you've gone past your edge. Ease back until the breath is smooth again. In yoga, the breath is never sacrificed for the yoga pose.
Modifications: Meeting Your Body Where It Is Today
Everybody arrives with their own story, and this pose welcomes all of them:
Tight hips or knees that sit high: Sit on a folded blanket or towel to lift the hips. This lets the pelvis settle level so the spine can align comfortably.
Shoulders that don't love overhead reaching: Keep the top hand on your shoulder after that external rotation, or simply rest it at your ribs. The side bend still works beautifully with the arm lower.
Limited range of motion: Bend just an inch or two. Your body naturally sets the edge of the pose, and honoring that edge is the practice.
Wrist sensitivity: Instead of pressing through a flat palm, come down to your forearm on a yoga block for a softer, supported base.
None of these are shortcuts — they're the pose, tailored to you. That's the heart of how we teach every class at Flowforward Wellness.
Modification for Knees, Hips & Neck
Modification using a Chair
What Beginners Can Expect in Class
If you're brand new, here's a little reassurance: nobody walks into a yoga class perfectly healthy, and nobody is expected to. Before your first session with us, you'll complete a short pre-class health questionnaire, so I know what your body is working with — and can have the right modifications ready before you ever unroll your mat.
You can also preview this pose at home. Our full Easy Seated Side Bend video tutorial, including the modified variations, lives in the Free Yoga Resources section of our website, right alongside Easy Seated Pose from last month.
Come Bend with Us in Medford
I like to think of our classes as a community blanket — every student brings their own square, their own texture, their own story, and together it becomes something warm and whole. Whether you're 35 and chasing kids, 55 and navigating change, or 65 and keeping your body moving, there's a square here for you.
If you've been looking for the best yoga classes for beginners in Medford, New Jersey, come see us at Studio 67 at the Feed Mill, 67 Main Street. We'll start right here — grounded, breathing, and bending gently, one side at a time.
Christine,
FlowForward Wellness
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