[Marjory Jubitana]

Ideally, your hands don’t move position when flowing through vinyasa. You cue them once in HIGH PLANK (shoulders in line with wrists) So you would cue as followed (pick and choose):

roll over the toes
knees & hips lift off the mat; legs are engaged
straighten the arms –> Upward Facing Dog

additional cues:

keep lifting the chest to prevent pinching in the lower back.
gaze is fwd
shoulders away from ears

[Gabrielle Revlock]

Thanks. That makes sense. I suppose I’m thinking about for a very beginner class where they might not be flowing or might do another prone asana before going into updog.

[Marjory Jubitana]

As long as you cue the wrist in line with the shoulders you should be fine. Remember, it’s a very logical pose that is very hard to mess up as you’re doing the balancing mostly on your hands and the tops of your feet.

The lower rib cue makes more sense if you’re explaining it standing up, but it’s the elbows that are actually pinched into the lower ribs, not the hands. Those are directly underneath the shoulders,