A couple of times in yoga class this morning, the teacher told us to “floint” our toes. It took my groggy brain a second to realize she said neither flex nor point, but floint. She explained the hybrid term for basically standing on your toes while your feet are in the air.

I’ve heard this more commonly referred to as “Barbie feet,” because it’s just like her perma-high heel position (her poor achilles tendons). Another teacher once told me as I was flointing in shouldstand “this is how angels walk.” And I just found a Forrest yoga instructor who calls it “sunshine feet.” Sweet. Who knew?

Whatever you call it, my yoga teacher colleague at Beliefnet tells me that it’s an Anusara yoga term and that it helps balance the muscle energy, something-something, and it’s supposed to be good for your feet. Ok, I don’t really understand, but I do know it sounds cool: floint, floint, floint. It also feels nice. Especially when I think I might be imitating angels.

Here’s a biased, semi-official definition of floint (all I could find for you!).

[Image via: http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2009/03/20/me-and-barbie/]