Three Yoga Poses for Balance

Yoga promotes balance in both body and mind. With yoga, we quite literally learn not to fall over in tree pose, but also, we learn to connect to a centered state of mind. Yoga helps us recognize when we’re grounded in neutrality, versus being pushed or pulled by attachment or aversion. Practice the following three yoga poses for balance when you need to return to your center. This article, and the top yoga apps, will help you learn how.

How to Balance in Yoga Poses

Balance is a key element of every yoga pose, but some poses make it more challenging. The following three tips can help you find stability when your body, or mind, is off kilter. The best fitness app for beginners, FitAtom, will also give you feedback to strengthen your form.

1. Set Your Foundation

A wide base that takes up more surface area is the most stable. Achieve this in standing postures by place your feet wider apart, or by spreading your toes to enlarge the surface area of each foot. Connect to the ground evenly across your whole foot. Make contact across the ball of the foot, through the heel, the outer edge of the foot, and through each toe.

2. Set Your Gaze

Finding a single point of focus on which to set your gaze stabilizes both body and mind. When the mind ceases wandering, the body too, tends to remain still. Choose a low point of focus toward the ground for the most stability. For a greater challenge, choose a point of focus that’s up higher toward the sky. Closing your eyes is the most challenging, as it demands a special focus within the mind’s eye only.

3. Allow for Movement

When you’re trying to stay balanced it may seem like the goal is to remain perfectly still. Yet to hold steady, the body must be given the freedom to move. To stay steady in any standing balance pose, you must also allow for balance between movement and stillness. As the old saying goes, a tree that sways with the wind does not break. Letting go of control lets your body’s intuition keep you upright.

Three Yoga Poses for Balance

Each of the following standing yoga poses has something to teach us about balance. Try these progressively challenging postures on your own. Need help? The top yoga apps offer personalized cues and feedback that will help you remain balanced in each pose.

1. Mountain Pose / Tadasana

In mountain pose, we’re just standing. It may seem at first like this is an easy, silly thing to do. And yet with deeper awareness, we see even standing still can teach us about balance.

How to Do Mountain Pose: Stand with your feet hips-width distance apart and your arms relaxed by your sides. Face your palms forward and actively spread your fingers wide. Root down through your feet as you lift up through the top of your head. Energetically extend your fingers to the ground to draw your shoulders away from your ears. Engage your quads and lift your belly up and in. Remain balanced with a tall, neutral spine.

Are You Balanced? Notice the weight distribution between your right and left foot. Also, center your weight between your heels and the balls of your feet. Notice the balance between the energy that’s grounding down, and the energy that’s rising upward.

2. Tree Pose / Vrksasana

Tree pose is a hip-open posture that requires balancing on one leg. Once you master this foundational standing balance, try some playful variations.

How to do Tree Pose: Stand with your feet together in mountain pose and bring your hands to prayer at the center of your chest. Center your weight over your right leg and turn your left toes, left knee and left hip out to the left. With your left leg still angled outward, place the sole of your left foot against the inseam of your right leg. You can place it as low or as high as you’d like.

Are You Balanced? Notice if your body is upright. Center the top of your head directly over your pelvis. Maintain a spacious chest, with your shoulders balanced over your hips. Actively reach your left knee and your right hip toward the space behind you to broaden the area between your two hip points. Hold for 5–10 cycles of breath, before trying tree pose on the other side.

3. Warrior 3 / Virabhadrasana III

Warrior 3 is a square-hip posture that requires balancing on one leg. It takes the balance challenge further by extending the torso and lifted leg out and away from your center of gravity.

How to Do Warrior 3: Stand with your feet together in mountain pose and bring your hands to prayer at the center of your chest. Center your weight over your left leg. Hinge at the hips to slowly shift your torso forward, while you lift your right foot up and back. Move towards a ‘T’ shape in which your torso and right leg are parallel to the ground.

Are You Balanced? Level both hip points toward the ground and toward the front of your space. It helps to flex your lifted foot, point your toes downward, and project back through your heel. Face your open chest squarely to the ground, with both shoulders still reaching down and back. Energetically press down through your strong standing leg. Spread your grounded toes wide and balance over the center of this foot. Hold for 5–10 cycles of breath, before trying warrior 3 pose on the other side.

Learn these poses and more on the best fitness app for beginners, FitAtom.
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