You know that feeling after a yoga class?

It really does not matter what kind of class you took. Maybe you practiced a strong, sweaty vinyasa, settled into yin, floated in the aerial silks, or simply spent an hour breathing and moving gently.

Somehow, you walk out feeling better than when you walked in.

Your body feels lighter. Your breath feels fuller. Your shoulders have dropped away from your ears, and your thoughts are no longer pulling you in quite so many directions. Whatever you carried through the studio door does not feel quite as heavy on the way out.

You are still you—but somehow, you feel like a whole new version of you.

It is a little bit of yoga magic.

Of course, there are physical reasons yoga makes us feel better. We move our bodies, breathe more deeply, quiet our minds, and give our nervous systems a chance to settle. But yoga also teaches us that we are more than muscles, bones, and joints. We are filled with prana, the vital life-force energy that moves within and around us.

This idea is woven throughout yoga’s long history.

The principal Upanishads, composed approximately 700–300 BCE, explored prana, breath, consciousness, and the connection between the individual self and something greater. They did not teach the seven-chakra system we commonly know today, but they introduced the idea that something subtle and powerful moves within us.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, compiled sometime between approximately 200 BCE and 400 CE, focused primarily on the mind and the path toward inner freedom. The more detailed teachings about chakras, kundalini, and the subtle body developed through later Yoga and Tantric traditions.

By the time the Hatha Yoga Pradipika was written in the early 1400s CE, we find much more instruction about pranayama, kundalini, energetic pathways, and practices used to direct prana through the body.

One of those practices is called bandha.

The Sanskrit word bandha is often translated as “lock,” “bond,” or “seal.” But the word lock can be misleading. It may make us imagine squeezing everything tightly and holding on for dear life—and that is definitely not the goal.

A bandha is a subtle internal engagement that helps us gather, support, and direct our energy. Instead of allowing our energy to scatter in every direction, the bandhas help draw it inward and invite it upward.

You may already experience this without realizing it.

Think about ujjayi breathing, the softly textured, ocean-like breath we often use during yoga. That steady breath draws our attention inward and connects our movement to something deeper. When the breath works together with the subtle support of the bandhas, the practice feels more organized and alive.

Breath, body, movement, and attention begin working together instead of wandering off in four different directions.

The first of the three principal bandhas is mula bandha, the root lock. Mula means root or foundation. It is a gentle sense of lifting through the base of the pelvis—not a hard clench, but a subtle feeling of gathering inward and upward.

Mula bandha teaches us how to be grounded without becoming heavy.

Next is uddiyana bandha, the upward-flying lock. Even its name is beautiful: uddiyana means to fly or rise upward. Traditionally, this is a specific breathing practice performed after an exhalation. In a yoga class, however, you may hear it described more simply as a gentle drawing inward and upward through the lower belly.

Uddiyana bandha reminds us that strength does not always have to feel hard. Sometimes strength feels like lift. Sometimes it feels like creating enough space inside ourselves to breathe again.

The third is jalandhara bandha, the throat or chin lock. It helps contain and guide energy through the upper body during certain breathing practices. Together, mula, uddiyana, and jalandhara bandha connect our foundation, our center, and our breath.

We also use the idea of bandha in our hands and feet.

Pada bandha, the foot lock, begins with our connection to the earth. When we spread our toes, root through the four corners of our feet, and gently lift the arches, the entire body responds. Our legs become active, our pelvis feels supported, and our spine begins to rise.

Hasta bandha, the hand lock, works in much the same way. When we spread our fingers, press intentionally through our hands, and lift out of our wrists instead of collapsing into them, that support travels upward through our arms and shoulders.

The simplest way to understand it is this:

We press down so that we can rise. That may be one of the secrets hidden inside our yoga practice.

We ground through our feet, and the spine grows taller. We press through our hands, and the heart lifts away from the floor. We soften into the breath, and something inside us becomes stronger.

Yoga continually teaches us that grounding and rising are not opposites. They need one another. A tree cannot stretch its branches toward the heavens without roots reaching deeply into the earth.

When our energy feels stagnant, scattered, or weighed down, we feel it. Our thoughts tangle. Our posture sinks. Our breath becomes shallow, and even simple things begin to feel heavy.

Then we come to our mats.

We breathe. We move. We root down. We create space. We gather the pieces of ourselves that have been pulled in a hundred different directions.

Little by little, breath by breath, we begin to untangle. We lift what has become heavy and allow what has felt stuck to move again.

And perhaps that is one of the reasons we walk out of the yoga studio feeling like a whole new version of ourselves. Yoga reminds us that we were never meant to carry everything downward.

We were also made to rise.

So, the next time you step onto your mat, notice the upward lift. Feel the earth beneath your hands and feet. Feel the support rising through your center. Let your breath create space where you have felt compressed, and let your practice loosen what has become tangled.

Then step back into the world a little lighter, a little brighter, and maybe even…

Walking on Sunshine!