Few instructions in yoga generate more confusion than “engage your bandhas.” Students nod, tense something in the general vicinity of the pelvis, and move on. Many teachers, if pressed, would struggle to say exactly what is contracting, where, or how to verify a student is actually doing it rather than performing a vague squeeze. This isn’t a failure of individual teachers, it’s a gap in how these two bandhas are usually transmitted: as energetic instructions borrowed from a tradition that described them in language never intended to map directly onto Western anatomical terms.
This note tries to hold both sides honestly: what the classical texts describe, and what we can actually locate and verify in the body.
What the Texts Say, Briefly
Mula Bandha and Uddiyana Bandha appear in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and other classical hatha texts as two of several bandhas (“locks”) used to direct and contain prana (vital energy) within the body during pranayama and advanced practice. The classical framework describes them in energetic terms, sealing energy at the root, drawing it upward, rather than in terms of specific muscles. That framework is coherent within its own system, and worth respecting on its own terms rather than being reduced to “it’s really just your pelvic floor.” It is also, on its own, not enough for a modern student trying to physically locate and engage something in their body for the first time. Both things can be true at once: the energetic model is real within its tradition, and a physical, anatomical entry point is genuinely useful for building the capacity to feel it.
Mula Bandha: Locating It Physically
The physical correlate most commonly associated with Mula Bandha is the pelvic floor, specifically the region around the perineum, activated through the muscles that make up the pelvic diaphragm.
What’s frequently missed in teaching this is that the pelvic floor is not a single muscle that contracts uniformly. It’s a muscular sling with distinct sections, and most students, when first cued to “engage the pelvic floor,” recruit far more than intended, commonly the gluteal muscles, the inner thighs, or the abdominal wall, because these are easier to feel and control than the deeper, less consciously accessed pelvic floor musculature itself.
A more precise entry point: for a student who menstruates, the cue often used is the sensation of drawing up as if stopping the flow of urine midstream, not clenching the buttocks, not gripping the inner thighs. For a subtler, more sustainable engagement, some teachers cue drawing the perineum up and slightly forward, toward the pubic bone, which tends to isolate the action more precisely than a general “lift” instruction.
The honest teaching point here: most students significantly overengage when first attempting this, mistaking a much larger, grosser contraction for the subtle lift the bandha actually describes. Part of teaching it well is helping students find less, a smaller, more precise engagement than their first instinct produces.
Uddiyana Bandha: Locating It Physically
Uddiyana Bandha is most closely associated with a drawing-in and upward lift of the abdominal contents, engaging the transverse abdominis and creating a hollowing effect beneath the ribcage. The classical instruction, performed fully, as in traditional pranayama practice, involves a complete exhale followed by a dramatic upward and inward pull of the abdomen, only sustainable while the breath is held out.
This full version is meaningfully different from what’s usually cued during asana practice, where a much softer, sustained engagement of the same general region is intended to support the spine and stabilize the torso throughout continuous breathing. Conflating the two, teaching the deep pranayama-specific action as though it should be held throughout a vinyasa flow while breathing normally, is one of the more common technical errors in mixed-level classes, and can create unnecessary tension or breath restriction for students attempting to hold a contraction that was only ever designed to coexist with breath retention.
For asana practice specifically, a more accurate physical target is a gentle drawing of the lower abdomen toward the spine, engaged enough to support the lumbar spine and assist in actions like jump-throughs or arm balances, without collapsing the ribcage or restricting the breath.
Where Confusion Tends to Come From
Three patterns show up repeatedly in how these bandhas get taught and misunderstood:
- Treating the full pranayama-version of Uddiyana Bandha as identical to the asana-practice version, leading students to either overexert or hold their breath unintentionally during flow
- Overengaging Mula Bandha by recruiting the glutes and inner thighs, mistaking gross muscular effort for the intended subtle action
- Describing both bandhas purely in energetic terms without ever offering a physical entry point, leaving students with no way to verify whether they’re doing anything at all
None of these patterns come from a lack of dedication. They come from an instruction that was never made concrete enough to be checked against.
A Both/And Approach to Teaching Them
The most useful teaching approach doesn’t discard the energetic tradition in favor of pure anatomy, nor does it stay so abstract that students have nothing to physically locate. Offering the physical entry point first, pelvic floor for Mula Bandha, deep abdominal engagement for Uddiyana Bandha, gives students something concrete to practice and refine. The subtler, energetic quality the classical texts describe tends to become accessible only after the physical action has been repeated enough to become reliable, not before.
Bandhas are one of the places where yoga’s physical and energetic dimensions meet most directly, and also where the gap between classical language and a modern student’s body shows up most clearly. Teaching them well means being willing to say “here’s what we can locate physically” and “here’s what the tradition describes beyond that” as two separate, honest statements, rather than blending them into a single instruction that satisfies neither.
Refining this kind of precision, where anatomy and tradition inform each other rather than compete, is central to how we practice inside Mauna Ashtanga Yoga.