When we think of balancing in yoga, Tree Pose (Vrksasana) is often the first pose that comes to mind. Of course, there are lots of other poses that can challenge, and therefore cultivate, good balance. But how do we train our bodies to practice these poses? A while back, I posted a blog on the 6 Elements of Good Balance. All the elements of balance are of equal importance, but today’s post will focus on yoga for core strength as a way to stabilize our balance.

When most of us think of the core, we think of the abdominal muscles. But the core is a whole system. It includes the abdomen, sides and back; and even the abdominal organs. Wait … the organs? Yes, how the contents of the abdomen seat inside the structure can determine whether our core actually engages—or doesn’t.

In this post, I’ll suggest a short sequence that can help you stabilize your core, in order to support your body’s ability to stay in balance. But first, a lesson on a small bone that can make a big difference.

The Hyoid Bone and the Core

The hyoid bone is a small, u-shaped bone in the front of your neck that sits just below your chin and above your thyroid cartilage. Place your right thumb on the right side of your neck just below your chin and your index finger on the left side. You can feel the ridges on its surface if you palpate the area. Because it is the only bone in the body that is not attached to another bone it is quite mobile. If you press on it from the right, you will feel the left side pushing out against your index finger and vice versa. Its primary functions are to help move the tongue and to facilitate swallowing.

The position of this little bone powerfully affects your posture. If your chin and hyoid bone are jutting forward or your head is tilting back, your entire core—internal structures such as your organs—will push forward into your abdominal wall. When you draw your hyoid back, lengthening the back of your neck and lifting the base of your skull, your organs and abdominal wall draw back giving frontal support to your spine.

Core Stability in All Your Poses

So what does this have to do with core stability? If you are jutting your chin out and throwing your head back in Plank Pose (Phalakasana), Bird Dog Pose (Parsva Balasana), Four-Limbed Staff Pose (Chaturanga Dandasana), your organs and abdomen will sag toward the ground, making the pose even more difficult as your arms fight the weight of your core. Drawing your hyoid back allows your core to lift up into your back body, stabilizing your pose. You can apply this principle to literally every pose we practice in yoga. Yoga for core strength starts with keeping your head in a neutral position relative to your spine and drawing your hyoid bone back.

Yoga for Core Strength: A Short Sequence

I’ve designed this sequence to address all the different aspects of the core.Keep your hyoid bone in mind as you practice this sequence.

Bird Dog (Parsva Balasana) Flow

The Bird Dog Flow challenges balance while it stabilizes both the front and back sides of the core. Because our head position is horizontal, the flow stimulates the vestibular system. Here’s an explanation of the series.

Baby Backbends (Salabhasana Variations)

Baby backbends are often given short shrift in yoga classes. Because their movements are more subtle than, say, Upward Bow Pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana), they’re often relegated to “beginning” classes. While Upward Bow requires more shoulder, spine and hip joint mobility than Locust Pose, it doesn’t require as much strength. In the so-called “baby” backbends, your back muscles are totally on their own, with no help from your limbs. Baby backbends are an essential tool in your yoga for core strength toolbox. Read this blog on a sequence for practicing baby backbends.

Downward Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana)

Dog Pose is good for whatever ails you. It strengthens the core as it stretches the torso. The pose also stretches the shoulders and hamstrings, while it strengthens the upper body. Feel free to sprinkle Dog Pose in between poses throughout this series. Practice with bent knees so that you can focus on lengthening your torso.

Plank Pose (Phalakasana)

Plank Pose has replaced sit-ups as the mainstream ab-strengthening pose of choice. Even the U.S. military has replaced crunches and sit-ups with Plank Pose. Like Bird Dog Pose, Phalakasana strengthens both the front and back sides of the torso as it strengthens the upper body overall. Since we don’t yet have a post on the how-to on this blog, I’ll describe it here. You can practice with hands on the floor, or if you prefer to bypass the potential pressure on your hands and wrists, you can practice on your forearms.

How to Practice Plank Pose on Your Hands

1. Begin in Downward Facing Dog Pose on a Yoga Mat.
2. With your toes turned under, shift your body forward so that your shoulders are directly over your wrists.
3. Activate your legs by stretching your heels back, and make sure your hyoid bone is drawing back.
4. Your body should be in a straight line. If your pelvis is either too high or too low, your core will not engage. Raise and lower your pelvis until you feel your abs engage.
5. Stay for 3 to 5 deep breaths, or longer if you like.
6. Release your knees down to the floor and rest in Child’s Pose (Balasana).

How to Practice Plank Pose on Your Forearms

1. Begin in Tabletop Pose (Bharmanasana) on a Yoga Mat.
2. Place your elbows on the floor directly under your shoulders, and interlace your fingers.
3. Step your feet back. Activate your legs by stretching your heels back, and make sure your hyoid bone is drawing back.
4. Your body should be in a straight line. If your pelvis is either too high or too low, your core will not engage. Raise and lower your pelvis until you feel your abs engage.
5. Stay for 3 to 5 deep breaths, or longer if you like. In my classes, we practice the forearm version of the pose and stay for 60 seconds.
6. Release your knees down to the floor and rest in Child’s Pose.

Side Plank Pose (Vasisthasana)

Side Plank Pose strengthens the sides of the body as it promotes balance. In the traditional version of the pose, we practice with straight arms. As with Phalakasana, some people may benefit from practicing on their forearms instead. Here are a few posts that explain Vasisthasana and several wrist-saving variations:

Vasisthasana: Balancing Outside Your Comfort Zone

Side Plank: Strengthen Your Core, Save Your Wrists

Side Plank Pose: Vasisthasana

Finishing Up: Yoga for Core Strength

Now that your core is heated up, there are several directions you can go. Here are some poses you might want to practice to stretch the core:

• Supported Fish Pose (Matsyasana)
• Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)
• Revolved Belly Pose (Jathara Parivrttanasana)
• Seated Angle Pose (Upavista Konasana)
• Seated Forward Bend Pose (Paschimottanasana)

And of course, don’t forget to practice a nice, long Savasana (Final Relaxation).

Many years ago, my mother fell and broke her hip. Or maybe her hip broke and she fell as a result. Sometimes it’s impossible to know which is the chicken and which is the egg. At any rate, the fall was almost the end of her.

Long story short, after a stint in the hospital, she was progressing well in rehab. A day before she was to go back home, she went into kidney failure. Apparently, the combination of multiple medications was too much. Her caregivers stopped her medication completely and she slowly recovered. But the incident made me understand why it’s often said that falls can be the beginning of the end for older people.

More than 800,000 people are hospitalized each year for injuries stemming from falls. One out of five falls causes a serious injury such as broken bones or traumatic head injury. In fact, falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injury. Here are some more stats on falls and their sometimes-catastrophic effects.

What is Balance and Why is it Important?

Put simply, balance is our ability to recognize our position relative to the objects around us, including the surface on which we’re standing or walking. A good sense of balance allows us to perform our daily tasks with a sense of stability and ease. For example, something as common as walking down the street and turning your head to talk to a friend requires a healthy sense of balance. Without balance, simple activities become not only challenging, but can even be dangerous.

As we age, some of the factors that contribute to good balance can begin to decrease. Eyesight can dim. Inner ear problems can disrupt the vestibular system. Neuropathy can decrease proprioception.

External causes such as slippery or uneven surfaces, intoxication or illness can cause falls. But they can also happen because of a lack of attention or underdeveloped proprioception. The good news is, yoga can help. Many asanas are specifically designed to improve balance. And the centering of our minds on our bodies sharpens mindfulness, so that we’re more apt to recognize subtler signs of imbalance in our bodies before we fall.

There are many yoga poses that support balance. All the standing poses—think Trikonasana (Triangle Pose), Virabhadrasana I and II (Warrior I and II), etc.—can help strengthen our legs and cultivate balance. And of course, the one-legged standing poses such as Vrksasana (Tree Pose) are balancing poses.

It’s important to challenge our balance in different ways. While we often think of standing balance poses when we’re hoping to cultivate proprioception, balancing in different orientations is also important. That’s why I’ve several types of balancing poses in the examples below.

Most important is to remember that balancing, like all asana, is a practice, not a performance. Meet your body where it is. For example, if you need to stand close to a wall in a standing balance pose, please do so. Even with that little bit of extra support, you’re still developing the skill of balancing.

5 Balancing Poses

1. Foot Massage: Giving attention to our feet, massaging them, exercising our toes, etc., keeps them healthy and responsive to whatever surface we’re negotiating. Start your practice with these simple exercises. But you needn’t limit it to your on-the-mat practice. You can also practice these while you’re sitting around watching TV or anytime you have a spare moment. One longtime student of mine who had never been able to balance on one leg practiced these daily for about nine months and was able to balance for the first time in her life! At the time she was in her 70s.
2. Vrksasana (Tree Pose): There are, of course, lots of standing poses you can practice to hone your balance. Follow the instructions in this post. It’s helpful to remember that even when you’re feeling shaky in your balance poses, you’re still learning the skill of balancing. When you’re flailing around trying not to fall in Tree Pose, you’re actually developing proprioception. So don’t feel discouraged. Remember, this is a practice, not a performance!
3. Parsva Balasana (Bird Dog Pose): As I explained above, it’s important to challenge our balance in different ways. Bird Dog Pose is a core strengthener and a balance pose. Because it strengthens the core—front, back and internal—it stabilizes us to increase balance. But the act of “standing” on one knee and one arm also develops proprioception. In addition, balancing with your head in a position other than upright helps stimulate your vestibular system. Read these instructions to help you refine your practice.
4. Ubhaya Padangusthasana (Both Hands and Big Toes Pose): This pose offers an opportunity to balance in yet another way—on your rear. Practicing this asana in its most common form, with the arms and legs straight, can be challenging if your hamstrings and calves are on the tighter side. Feel free to bend your knees and hold onto the backs of your thighs instead of holding your feet. This post can give you some pointers on practicing safely.
5. Savasana (Corpse Pose): Years ago I attended an early morning class that was only an hour long. The teachers reasoned that with such a short class, they didn’t need to include Savasana. While I enjoyed their teaching in the other asanas, the Savasana-free class always made me feel scattered and ungrounded. In retrospect, I can see that this is a recipe for moving through the rest of the day without a sense of balance. Savasana is, in fact one of yoga’s best balancing poses. It balances your body-mind at a deeper level than simply balancing on one leg. Give yourself 10 minutes if your practice is an hour or less, and 15 minutes or more if it’s longer.

Of course there are many more balancing poses than the five examples I’ve given. Inversions are great, and as I wrote above, all the wide-stance standing poses are helpful. The most important factor is the attention you bring to your body as you practice. Keep your focus inside your body, on the sensations you feel. Remember that frantic, shallow breathing creates agitation—not a great recipe for balancing. Make sure your breathing is continuous, deep and calm.

One of yoga practice’s great gifts is its emphasis on balancing. Poses such as Vrksasana (Tree Pose) are an integral part of almost every form of practice. The ability to balance is a crucial part of healthy aging, and it can be helpful to develop balancing skills as early as possible. Conventional wisdom has it that a thinner Yoga Mat (⅛ inch or less, or 1.5mm to 3.5mm) is most conducive to staying on our feet during one-legged balancing poses. The thinner the mat, the less your standing foot is going to need to make adjustments. But is that optimal? After almost 40 years of yoga teaching, my unequivocal answer is: it depends. So what is the best yoga mat for balancing?

The Best Yoga Mat for Balancing Depends on Your Intention

Counterintuitive as it may sound, the mat I usually use for teaching yoga—even in classes where we practice lots of standing balancing poses—is the Ultimate Cushion Yoga Mat. At ⅜ inch, it’s the thickest mat Hugger Mugger offers. (I alternate between this mat and the Para Rubber Yoga Mat (3/16″)).

Why would I want to make it harder on myself? I practice balancing poses to cultivate and maintain my balancing skills. Sure, I can more easily perform balancing poses on a thinner mat, but I want to challenge my balance. That’s the way we build balancing skills—by balancing in challenging situations. So, to accomplish my objective in practicing balancing poses, the best yoga mats for balancing are the thicker, more challenging ones.

Because I have a longstanding relationship with Hugger Mugger Yoga Products, I’ve bought many mats from them over the years. I find that balancing on different types of surfaces—and mats of different thicknesses—is important for building balancing skills. So sometimes I practice on thick mats, and sometimes I practice on thin mats. I also place my mats on various surfaces. While wood and surfaces such as concrete are the most reliable, I think it’s helpful to practice balancing on soft, squishy surfaces, such as carpeting, as well.

It’s important to respect where you are. If your balance is generally unstable, practicing on a thinner Yoga Mat is a good place to start. Once you feel stable in balancing poses on a thin mat, then you can begin challenging your balance on a thicker mat.

Balancing On and Off the Yoga Mat

Practicing yoga on various mat types and floor types is not the only way to hone your balance. Here are some suggestions for taking your balancing practice off the mat:

• Practice balancing in different types of shoes—thick soles, cushy soles, thin soles, etc. Unless you regularly wear heels, I wouldn’t recommend practicing yoga in them. (For that matter I would recommend avoiding or minimizing wearing heels in general, because of the havoc they wreak on the integrity of your musculoskeletal system.)
• Practice outdoors. Hiking trails are rarely completely level. Walking, and practicing balancing poses, on uneven surfaces challenge your feet to balance in a different way. Next time you take a hike, stop for a minute or so and practice a one-legged balancing pose—Tree Pose seems appropriate when you’re in the woods—on an uneven surface.

If you’d like to learn more about the elements of developing stable balance, here’s a recent blog.

Why practice yoga? There is a multitude of different answers to this question. As with any longterm relationship, over time, our practice evolves; it ebbs and flows. Sometimes our practice feels fresh and vital; other times it may feel as if we’ve hit a plateau. At times we may drop the practice for a while, and at others we may look forward to stepping onto the mat or sitting on our meditation cushion. It can be helpful to remember why we decided to prioritize yoga practice in the first place. Reflecting on our initial motivation to practice can help us maintain not only consistency, but also inspiration.

3 Tips for Developing Motivation to Practice

When I look at my motivation to practice, I’ve found that it’s really simple. I practice because after 37 years of meditation and 43 years of yoga, I recognize the immeasurable value they bring to my life. I don’t practice because some awful harm would befall me if I don’t. It’s not simply something I’ve added to my daily to-do list. It’s not a should. I trust the practice. I have faith in the practice. And it’s not blind faith, but a faith that’s been verified through decades of experience.

How do we develop motivation to practice? Whether our core practice is yoga or meditation, we often need to be reminded why we’re doing it. Here are some tips for staying on the path:

• Think of your practice as part of your morning ritual, a way to maintain the health of your body/mind. We don’t think twice about eating a decent breakfast, brushing our teeth, showering, etc. Yoga and meditation practices are they ways we bring equilibrium to our bodies and minds.
• When you set aside the time to practice, give it your full attention. You’ve got plenty of time to go over your to-do list, or to reflect on that difficult conversation you had with someone yesterday. You’ve got time to formulate your reply to that person—later. Use your practice time to invest your full awareness into what you feel in your body and mind, here and now. Your practice time is precious. It deserves your attention and care.
• Reflect on the value of your practice in your daily life. According to the yoga sutras, the benefit of asana practice is the cultivation of equanimity in the face of the ups and downs of our lives. This can apply to minute daily annoyances, or it can apply to major challenges and losses. The benefits can be subtle or obvious. What benefits have you experienced? Reflecting on this can remind you why you practice and can help you stay motivated.

Trust Your Yoga and Meditation Practices

Reflecting on the value of practice in your life can be tricky. While there are benefits you can feel right away when you practice yoga and meditation, some of the deeper benefits are subtle. This is where reflecting on the millennia-long history of these practices can be helpful. Yoga and meditation have survived for thousands of years. They’ve survived because millions of people have reaped their benefits. So even if you’re just starting out, and the benefits you experience are on the subtler side, trust the process. Approach your practice with an open, curious mind. Reflect on why you love your practice. Then grab your meditation cushion or your yoga mat, open your mind and see where your practice takes you today.

I recently published a blog on the 6 Elements of Balancing. First on the list of the balancing essentials is healthy, stable and sensitive feet. In this post, I’ll introduce some foot yoga, to help you give your feet the TLC they deserve. 

I’ve been blessed with many longtime yoga students. Many have attended my classes for more than 10 years, some for more than 20. It’s a privilege to move through life’s inevitable ups and downs with such a solid core of wise and wonderful humans.

I met one of these students—I’ll call her Patricia—in the late ’80s. At that time she was in her 50s. She came to classes regularly for more than 20 years, participating fully into her late 70s. Balancing on one leg was her one nemesis. For decades she propped herself against the wall in order to practice such staples as Tree Pose.

Foot Yoga and Balancing

In the early 2000s, Washington DC-based teacher Jenny Otto taught a workshop in Salt Lake. She began each class with a five-minute foot massage that included spreading the toes; massaging the toes, balls, arches and heels; and rolling a tennis ball under each foot. She preached the importance of tending to our feet every day as we age—a process that is happening to all of us no matter when we were born.

The next week, I brought Jenny’s foot massage to my classes. My students loved it and we practiced it regularly. Six months later, Patricia was balancing on one leg—without the wall—for the first time in her 20-plus years of practice.

Foot Yoga and Healthy Aging

Not long after Jenny Otto introduced me to foot massage, an article in The New Yorker (“The Way We Age Now,” April 30, 2007) described how leading geriatrician Dr. Juergen Bludau spent most of a new patient’s initial exam looking at her feet. He claimed that the condition of a person’s feet tells an important story about her general health. According to the article, the greatest risk for most of us as we age is not what we might think. Our greatest overall risk is falling.

The article’s author, Atul Gawande, writes: “Each year, about three hundred and fifty thousand Americans fall and break a hip. Of those, forty per cent end up in a nursing home, and twenty per cent are never able to walk again. The three primary risk factors for falling are poor balance, taking more than four prescription medications, and muscle weakness. Elderly people without these risk factors have a twelve-per-cent chance of falling in a year. Those with all three risk factors have almost a hundred-per-cent chance.” I find these numbers staggering—so to speak.

Our Amazing Feet

In early June I reconnected with Mark Bouckoms, a yoga teacher from New Zealand who co-taught a teacher training here with Donna Farhi in 1996. In his workshop, he spoke about the importance of the feet in traditional yoga practice. Our feet are our most powerful energy source, he said. They contain a plethora of marma points, gateways to the connective tissue and the nadis, the subtle lines that channel energy to every cell in the body. The 72,000 nadis and their 108 marma points are Ayurveda’s answer to the Chinese meridian system.

In Mark’s workshop, we started each practice tending to our feet. In my classes, even if we don’t go through the full foot regimen, we always begin each class by rolling massage peanuts under our feet to stimulate the connective tissue via marma points. Most people feel marked differences in the two sides of their bodies after simply rolling a massage peanut under one foot for about 30 seconds.

Nice Things You Can Do for Your Feet

Walk barefoot. Direct contact, especially with uneven surfaces stimulates the connections between your feet’s 11 stretch-sensing muscles and your brain.

Avoid high heels. I’m well aware that heels are de rigueur for many special occasions. (I recently read about some women that were denied red carpet access at a swanky awards show because they wore flats!) And some people just enjoy wearing them. But there are many ways in which heels can cause major damage to your feet, knees, hips, back and everything above, but that’s another article. If you want to wear them, do so sparingly.

I hate to say this because they are a summer favorite for so many, but flip-flops are not great either. Your toes have to work very hard to keep them from falling off. This creates a whole lot of tension in your feet and toes. It’s fine to wear them for running errands and for short walks, but stick with more substantial sandals or shoes for extensive walking.

Massage Your Feet

• Sit on the floor with legs extended. Bend your right knee and place your ankle across your left thigh. Thread the fingers of your left hand between your toes.
• With your fingers between your toes, circle your ankles about 8-10 times each direction. Then flex and extend the balls of your feet 8-10 times and twist them 8-10 times.
• Remove your fingers and massage the balls of your feet and toes for 15-30 seconds or more. Find your “bubbling spring” point (Kidney 1 in Chinese medicine), a pronounced depression located between the first and second metatarsals just below the ball of your foot. It’s easy to find. It’s a power point that, when stimulated, is said to send a spiral of power through your body. Spend some time—30-60 seconds—massaging it.
• Massage your arches. One of my students, a body worker who knows reflexology, says this stimulates and calms your “guts,” the vital organs.
• Straighten out your leg and let it settle. Repeat on your left foot.
• Stand up and roll a tennis ball under each foot for 30-60 seconds. After your first foot, take a moment to feel any differences between the two sides of your body, all the way up to your neck and shoulders.

We rely on our feet all day long, way more than we realize or appreciate. Take some time—five minutes—each day to give them some TLC. Your feet will return the favor by keeping you stable and upright.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), falls are the leading cause of injury or injury-related death in older adults in the United States. There are many reasons that older adults are more susceptible to falling, and to suffering serious injury after a fall. Bone and muscle loss are a natural part of aging, sapping our strength and stability. Hearing impairment can affect your vestibular system’s ability to keep you in balance. Some common prescription drugs can cause dizziness. The good news is that yoga can help. In future posts, I’ll make suggestions for yoga practices that can help us build balancing skills. In today’s post, I’ll describe six factors to consider when creating a practice for good balance.

Good Balance is More than Just Tree Pose

Practicing Tree Pose (Vrksasana) can definitely be a part of your balance-building regimen. But there’s more to it. Maintaining good balance over your lifetime requires considering the whole body/mind spectrum, and yoga can go a long way toward honing the skills that contribute to balance.

Here’s a list of what I know to be elements of steady balance. There may well be more that I haven’t learned about yet. This is an ongoing area of study for me, so I’d love to hear from readers who can share more information.

Element #1: Strong, Sensitive Feet

Our feet are our foundation. And yet, we tend not to give them the attention they deserve. Our feet can lose sensitivity over time, due to neuropathy, keeping them in tight or ill-fitting shoes, and due to general aging. In order to maintain good balance, our feet need to be strong, mobile and sensitive. Strength requires using them—walking, running, practicing yoga’s standing poses. Our toes are intimately involved in balance, so they need to be able to move freely. It’s also important to be able to feel how our feet are articulating with the ground, so we can detect when our feet are grounding unevenly.

Element #2: Bone and Muscle Strength

You may be surprised to learn that muscle mass begins to decrease in our 30s. It’s true, and the rate of decrease accelerates around age 60. Muscle strength and mass are crucial in maintaining bone health. Weight-bearing exercise like yoga and strength training can help us maintain overall muscle and bone health.

Element #3: Core Strength

A strong core—both abdominal muscles and back muscles—stabilizes the whole body, helping us maintain good balance. In turn, balancing exercises can help us maintain a strong core. Think poses like Boat Pose (Navasana), Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana) and the baby backbends like Locust Pose (Salabhasana).

Element #4: Flexibility

It’s inevitable that we will, at times, lose our balance. But when we do, it’s important that our bodies are able to recover, which can help prevent us from falling when we lose our balance. This means that we have to have movement options. A body with stiff joints simply will be less likely to stay upright when we trip, twist an ankle or falter while walking on uneven ground. Yoga, of course, is especially suited to promoting flexibility.

Element #5: Vestibular System

According to the Cleveland Clinic: “The vestibular system includes sensory organs in your inner ear that help you maintain your sense of balance. We’re constantly in motion, and so is the world around us. The vestibular system, when it’s working, helps your body understand how you’re moving and how things around you are moving to help maintain your balance or steadiness.” Yoga is unique among physical practices in that many of the poses require our heads to be in positions other than upright, which stimulates and strengthens our vestibular system.

Element #6: Concentration

Many falls happen when we’re simply not paying attention. We may be hiking on uneven terrain and thinking about something else entirely when we trip over a rock and fall. Or we may be practicing Tree Pose and lost in thought when our balance suddenly falters. In any case, paying attention to our movements, our environment, our posture, the relationship of our feet to the ground—all these things can help us balance. Mindfulness practice is key to helping us develop concentration skills.

In Conclusion: Build a Yoga Practice for Good Balance

In fashioning a yoga practice for good balance, we need to consider all these elements. Over the coming weeks, and perhaps, months, I’ll be sharing practices I know to be helpful. Yoga can be a wonderful ally in keeping us upright. In the meantime, practice poses you know to strengthen, stabilize, stretch and promote steady balance.

Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend Pose) is one of yoga’s more relaxing standing poses. Its symmetrical shape keeps your pelvis, sacroiliac joint and spine neutral, while the active rooting of your feet and legs allows your upper body to be soft and receptive. These benefits are available to pretty much everyone—with a little help from a Yoga Block.

Why Practice Prasarita Padottanasana?

Practicing Prasarita Padottanasana confers many benefits. It strengthens and stretches the inner legs, hamstrings and spine; tones the abdominal organs; and calms the brain. It’s said to relieve some headaches and reduce fatigue.

Prasarita can be contraindicated for people with tight hamstrings. When your hamstrings are taut, your pelvis can’t tilt forward along with the spine. This can put pressure on the discs in the lower back, which could lead to disc problems. Also, curling the torso forward in order to reach the floor contracts your abdominal muscles, restricting free breathing.

Using a Yoga Block in Prasarita Padottanasana can help people of all levels of flexibility practice safely and comfortably. Anyone can benefit from using a Yoga Block in this pose. My hips and hamstrings are quite flexible, but I still enjoy using a block in this pose for the feeling of continuity it creates in my torso. Several of my most bendy students enjoy using a block as well.

Yoga Blocks are available in cork, 3-inch or 4-inch foam, marbled foam, recycled foam or wood. Hugger Mugger’s Big Block is extra large for extra stability and comfort.

How to Practice Prasarita Padottanasana with a Yoga Block

1. Begin by standing on a nonskid Yoga Mat with your feet hips-width apart.
2. Jump or step your feet out to a wide stance, about a leg-length apart.
3. Plant your feet into the ground, feeling the footprint you are making on your mat. Are the inner and outer heels and balls of your feet planted evenly? If not, chances are you may feel the weight sagging into your inner feet. Allow the muscles and skin of your outer legs to stream down along your bones from your hips to your outer feet to help you root the feet more evenly.
4. Place your hands on your hips. Bending from your hip joints, let your torso come forward as far as it will go without losing contact with deep breathing.
5. Place your hands on the floor and take a few breaths. Now place your hands on a Yoga Block and check in to see how that changes your breathing. A Big Blue Block or two 4-inch Yoga Blocks work best, but you can also use a single 4-inch Yoga Block. Each block has three dimensions: tall, medium and flat. Try each one to see which feels best.
6. Stay for 5 or 10 deep breaths.
7. To come up, place your hands on your hips and lift back up to an upright position. Place your palms together in front of your heart, bend your knees slightly and allow the weight of your pelvis to release into your legs. Relax your abdomen and breathe deeply, resting.

In 2001, I co-taught a teacher training with Donna Farhi in Vancouver, BC. The 50 attendees were experienced yoga teachers and body workers from all over the world. During the training we encouraged trainees to question teaching methodologies that shoehorn students into a one-size-fits-all model.

One misconception we talked about was the perceived necessity of practicing what is probably yoga’s most emblematic pose: Padmasana (Lotus Pose). That day we spent two hours practicing the poses Donna practices to prep her body for Lotus. When we tried Padmasana toward the end of the class, I noticed that despite the depth and experience of attendees, only three out of 50 people could actually do it safely.

This was very surprising to me. Previously, I’d been under the impression that anyone who tried hard enough and practiced right could eventually do Lotus. This may be true for some people—Donna told us it took her 10 years of careful, patient practice to ease her hip joints into Padmasana.

But it’s not true that anyone can form their legs into Lotus position, no matter how committed their practice. Thanks to a workshop I took with Paul Grilley on anatomy for yoga, I found out that tightness in soft tissue is not the most common reason people can’t do Padmasana. According to Grilley, it’s all in the bones.

Why Lotus Pose Might Be Out of Reach

Some bodies will never be able to do full Lotus. This is not because the owners of these bodies are inferior yogis or that they’re not trying hard enough. It may be because their hip joints are formed in such a way that they do not allow the amount of external rotation required to sit in Lotus.

There are many factors—all within the realm of normal—that influence the amount of external rotation in your joints. The depth, placement and orientation of your hip sockets can influence whether your thighs tend to rotate inward or outward more easily. The shape and rotation of the heads and necks of the femurs also affect the rotation, as does the shape and rotation of your shaft of the femur bones. You can see some bone samples that demonstrate some of the possible variations that influence mobility on Grilley’s website.

Supta Ardha Padmasana—A Lotus Pose for Every Body

Fortunately, there’s no pose in yoga—including Padmasana—you need to do in order to be a “good” yogi. Yoga has never been about what your body can or can’t do.

All that said, I have found that most people are capable of and can benefit from practicing Supta Ardha Padmasana, Supine Half Lotus (SHL). Among other benefits, SHL stretches the piriformis muscles, external rotators that cross the sacroiliac (SI) joint. When the piriformis is tense, it can press on the sciatic nerve, possibly causing sciatica, and can also contribute to sacroiliac dysfunction. Practicing Supta Ardha Padmasana can sometimes alleviate sciatic pain and can relieve excessive torque on your SI joint.

Half Lotus is traditionally practiced in a seated position. However, I like to practice it lying down for several reasons. First, lying on your back removes the restriction of the floor under your legs. It allows your top leg to cross your bottom leg more easily. Second, lying on your back gives you feedback as to whether your back is in a healthy position. Many people round their spines when they try to form Half Lotus from a sitting position. It is much easier to maintain a neutral spine when you are lying down. Finally, having both sides of your SI joint on the floor keeps the joints in a neutral position.

How to Practice Ardha Padmasana

1. Begin by lying on the floor on a Yoga Mat or Blanket. Bend both knees and place the soles of your feet on the floor.
2. Cross your right ankle all the way across your left thigh so that your ankle, not your foot, is resting on the thigh. Many people prefer to place their right ankle a few inches from the knee, while others (like me) prefer to place the ankle closer to the left hip joint. Try it both ways, or at points in between, to see what feels best for you.
3. Thread your right arm through the opening behind your right knee and grab the back of your left leg. Wrap your left hand around the back of your left leg and interlace the fingers of both hands. If your hands don’t connect you can connect them with a belt or a yoga strap.
4. This is important: Flex your right ankle and keep it flexed the entire time. This keeps both your knee and ankle stable.
5. Draw both legs in toward your torso, relaxing your shoulders and arms. Take deep abdominal breaths, creating space on the inhalations, and settling into that space on your exhalations.
6. Take 5 to 10 deep breaths before releasing your legs and letting both feet rest on the floor. Take a few breaths simply lying on your back to feel what changed. How are the two sides of the pelvis resting on the floor? Does one side of your body feel longer than the other? When you feel ready, move to your second side.
7. If at any point during SHL you feel even the tiniest discomfort in either knee, please let go of the pose. There is no such thing as a “good” knee pain. Lotus can be hard on knees—less so when you are lying down and practicing only one leg at a time—but please do be cautious.

The Most Common Misalignment

Many people practice Padmasana with their feet, rather than their ankles, atop opposite thighs. If the soles of your feet are facing upward, you are practicing this misalignment. This is a recipe for overstretched ligaments in your ankles and possible knee destabilization. One person I know sat this way for an hour and ended up having bilateral knee surgeries as a result.

That is why so many experienced practitioners were unable to do Padmasana in Donna’s teacher training. We made sure that people were practicing healthy alignment principles when they finally placed their legs in Lotus. Practicing Padmasana with healthy alignment, with your ankles flexed and sitting on top of your thighs, is only possible for people whose hip joints externally rotate very easily. Many people can do the misaligned version of Lotus, but not that many people have the extreme range of motion required to do it with the ankles—not the feet—on top of their thighs.

There’s More than One Way to Practice Lotus Pose

While Instagram photos of people doing Lotus Pose in bikinis on sunset-lit beaches may conjure romantic ideas about its importance in the canon of yoga poses, please remember that it’s not for everyone. Whether or not your body can do Padmasana—or any other pose—is not a measure of either your character or worth as a yoga practitioner.

Supta Ardha Padmasana, though, can be a healthy staple in your repertoire of asanas. It confers many of the benefits of Padmasana, but few of its potential risks. What matters is not whether you were born with a skeleton that can move in a particular way. What matters is the care, respect and mindfulness you bring to whatever pose you are practicing in a given moment.

Vinyasa (aka flow yoga) has been the most popular form of asana practice for a while now. Based on concepts introduced through Ashtanga Yoga, vinyasa features a yoga “routine,” a flowing movement sequence. In most popular classes, students flow through the sequence at a pretty good clip. Moving quickly from one pose to the next raises the heart rate. In some classes, teachers turn up the heat, which induces sweat. This makes sense for Western practitioners.

In the West, exercise has almost always included these two factors, among others. So as yoga has integrated into Western culture, it looks like a combination of asana practice and Western exercise. Putting together a unique yoga flow gives teachers an opportunity to flex their creative muscles. Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation) has taken all kinds of fun and innovative flights of fancy in the advent of vinyasa’s popularity.

But some of us, old-school yogis and more meditative types, like to cool the temperature. I enjoy linking poses in a sequence, but I prefer to slow my flow. For me, yoga practice is a time to calm my nervous system through mindful movement. I prefer weight training and walking in nature to build muscle and raise my heart rate. What I love about yoga asana is its ability to foster mindfulness. Slowing my flow fosters the body-mind connection.

Here’s Why You Should Try Slowing Your Flow Yoga

• Unfolding: When you spend time in each pose, your body has a chance to unwind soft tissue resistance. It takes time to move into stillness in a pose. Our bodies and minds need time to adjust to each new position, and it’s only when we can relax into the pose that yoga’s “magic” can unfold. That magic is the integration of body and mind, through letting go of effort. Remember that “mastery” of asana in the yoga sutras is defined like this (in Alistair Shearer’s translation): “It is mastered when all effort is relaxed and the mind is absorbed in the Infinite.” Taking your time in each pose, allows you to make adjustments so that you can relax effort.
• Mindfulness: One of the key elements of practicing mindfulness is slowing down. Practicing slow flow yoga gives us time to tune into the ever-changing process of every asana. Slowing down allows us to feel the process of breathing, how the breath moves our bodies, and the process of letting go of effort so that we can “be” the pose rather than “doing” the pose.
• Props: It’s quite challenging to incorporate yoga props into a fast flow. By the time you’ve set your props up, the rest of the class has often gone on to the next pose. Yoga props help us practice with structural integrity. That structural integrity allows us to let go of effort and be the asana.
• Transitions: This is probably my favorite way of slowing the flow. I think of each vinyasa as one long asana. Rather than seeing flow yoga as a succession of poses, I make the transitions between poses just as important as the formal asanas. Slowing down makes this easier. Try giving equal attention to the movements between the formal poses. This promotes mindfulness in motion.

Your Individual Flow Practice

If a fast-paced yoga flow is your favorite practice, by all means, continue. But sometimes, you might want to try slowing it down. Get to know each asana in a different way. Feel the transitions. Slowing your flow practice at times might enrich your fast flow practice.

I regularly offer hip workshops at various teacher trainings in the region where I live. As the recipient of bilateral hip replacements, I’ve learned a lot about which poses and ways of approaching asanas promote healthy yoga practice, and which do not. Being bone on bone in your hip joints provides an unmistakable signal as to when to proceed or when to back off.

In one training, a student who had been teaching in a fitness studio asked a very important question. She explained that one of her female students became unusually flexible prior to ovulation. This occurs in many women because of the presence of “relaxin,” a hormone that relaxes the ligaments that hold together the various joints in the pelvis—hip joints, sacroiliac joints and pubic symphisis. The teacher said that she encouraged the student to move further into poses at that period in her cycle since she was already more flexible. “Should I continue doing this?” she asked.

Thirty years ago I would have said yes. In fact, I did encourage women to take advantage of their relaxin-induced flexibility during pregnancy. No more.

Ligaments Are Not Supposed to be Floppy

Fortunately, the third(!) time I took anatomy, the importance of understanding the structures of ligaments and tendons finally sank in. (For clarification, ligaments connect bone to bone in our joints; tendons connect muscle to bone at the joints.) Ligaments and tendons are constructed of dense, collagenous, connective tissue. Ligaments are dense, fibrous tissues that are designed to limit the movement of our joints.

Please repeat this three times:  Ligaments’ main function is to limit the movement of our joints.

This is also very important:  Ligaments and tendons are avascular, i.e. containing no blood flow of their own. Oxygen and other nutrients diffuse into ligaments and tendons from cells outside the tissues. Because these structures need to be strong, they are largely mostly collagen fibers with some elastin to create a small amount of stretch.

Don’t Sprain Your Body!

Have you ever sprained an ankle? How long did it take to heal, and did it ever return to its former stability? When you sprain your ankle, you overstretch ligaments. Because the tissue is avascular, it does not heal as quickly as muscle does. Ligaments do not have the “memory” that muscle tissue has. When you overstretch ligaments, there’s a good chance they will not bounce back to their former length.

If ligaments are meant to protect joints by limiting their movement, continually over-stretching joints can lead to joint instability over time. I know a number of serious practitioners who are now in their 50s—including myself—who regret having overstretched our joints back in the day. All too many longtime practitioners now own artificial joints to replace the ones they overused. Those fancy poses way back when were not worth their consequences.

Flexible people have a much stronger tendency to overstretch joints than stiffer people do. Armed with the pervasive “no pain, no gain” philosophy, we flexies tend to keep stretching until we feel pain. Because we don’t feel much in normal range of motion, we collapse into our joints where there’s plenty of sensation. Not only does this overstretch our ligaments, it causes us to hang or push into our joint capsules, which can wear down the cartilage that protects our joints and keeps them articulating smoothly.

The Counterintuitive Answer for Healthy Yoga Practice

My advice to the student’s question was to encourage her student to protect her joints, to do less rather than more. Counterintuitive, I know, especially when many asana classes encourage people to push past their limits and rock those fancy poses. If a person’s ligaments are unstable because of an infusion of relaxin—or by excessive heat or any other outside factor—that creates a situation of imbalance in the joints.

You wouldn’t encourage a muscle-bound yoga student to try to stiffen up. Equally, a too-flexible student doesn’t benefit from becoming even more flexible. Too much flexibility is just as unhealthy is too much stiffness. Balance is what we’re going for in asana practice. Familiarize yourself with what normal range of motion looks like.

Stretch Gently for Healthy Yoga Practice

By all means, do practice to maintain flexibility in your muscles, and remember that it takes 30 seconds of continuous stretching for your muscle spindle neuron to actually allow your muscle to habituate to a new, longer length. So take your time, and be gentle. When you feel tissue stretching along the bones—as long as that stretch is not extreme—it’s probably healthy. When you feel discomfort in a joint, please stop doing what you’re doing. And please protect your students’ future joints by teaching them the difference.

If you’re interested in exploring this further, my book Hip-Healthy Asana provides anatomical information, practice tips and a list of hip-healthy poses.