Once you have loosened your spine, it makes sense to move to balance poses while your legs are still fresh. Balance poses will improve your core strength; strengthen your legs, particularly your lower legs and ankles; sharpen mental focus; and, obviously, improve your balance. Balance is especially important in offroad sports, where you must keep your body upright over uneven terrain.
Some principles apply in all balance poses. First, remember your alignment. Learn mountain pose well, and let it inform every other posture you take. Never hyperextend your knees in mountain or any pose. Next, breathe. It seems obvious, and at some point your body will insist you breathe, but you will find more control in balance poses by remaining aware of your breath and letting it stabilize you. Similarly, find a gazing point (drishti) to help you steady yourself; by keeping your eyes still, you encourage stillness in the body. Choose something that's not moving: the edge of your mat, a speck on the floor or wall, the corner of a window. Don’t attach your gaze to your own image in a mirror, and don’t focus on your instructor or a classmate. Physically this makes balance easier, and metaphorically it teaches you self reliance.
Many of these poses are asymmetrical, working the two sides of the body in different ways. For the asymmetrical poses, I describe the pose on one side and let you extrapolate the construction of the pose to the other side (simply swap right for left and vice versa). Be sure to spend equivalent time on each side. This can be measured quantitatively, say, by spending three or five or ten breaths in each pose or qualitatively, by holding the pose on each side until you get the impression of evenness. Taking some of each approach will allow you to notice which side is tighter and to work yourself toward balance by achieving equal release side to side.
Balance poses teach you to find the appropriate ratio of structural alignment, the position of your bones, to muscular strength. You may be able to power through a pose like the chair by relying on your muscles, but the pose will feel easier with appropriate skeletal alignment. In one legged standing poses, keep your supporting leg long but don’t lock out at the knee. You need structural support, but you want access to microadjustments from the muscles of the lower leg. On this issue, consider the importance of form and technique in your sport. Some folks can hammer up hills or shoulder their way through a swim, but they lose efficiency and endurance in the process. And repeatedly practicing with bad form can lead to injury, whether your sport is running, kayaking, or yoga.
MOUNTAIN
Mountain, side viewAll balance poses in fact, virtually all yoga poses are variations on mountain pose (tadasana), which is standing in neutral alignment. Mountain’s neutral alignment is also the base for your run stance, your bike position, or your streamlined body in the water. It's a pose you'll want to know inside out, or bottom to top.
Let's break it down from the ground up. Place your feet hip width apart. For our purposes, your 'hips' are the place where your femurs and pelvis meet, just below the anterior superior iliac spines (ASIS), or hip points. When your feet are in the right place, there's probably about a fist's width of space between your big toes. The toes of both feet should point straight forward. If one or both of your hips are very tight, you'll find that your toes point out to the side. Bring them as close to pointing forward as feels comfortable without tweaking your hips or knees. As you continue with yoga, it will become more comfortable to stand with your legs parallel.
Don't exaggerate curves in spineSpread your toes apart. Sometimes you need to do this manually, especially if your feet are gnarled from years of running. In time, you can get the toe spread by turning a foot to the side, then dragging it back to neutral while letting the stickiness of your mat hold the toes apart.
Your knees line up over your toes and below your hips. Engage your quadriceps a little to lift your kneecaps. Don't overtighten the thighs, though, and don't hyperextend or lock out your knees. Bring your pelvis to a neutral position between cat tilt and dog tilt. If your hips are unlevel, try to draw them on a line parallel to the floor. There may be a skeletal reason for this imbalance. If it is a muscular imbalance, the hips will become more level as you gain flexibility.
Exhale and tuck your lower ribs in toward the spine; this helps bring the belly in toward the midline of your body. While your chest should be broad and open, don’t puff it out military style. Let your shoulder blades relax down your back, without pinching them in toward the spine. Arms are relaxed and heavy.
Inhale and lift up from the crown of your head. This will lengthen the back of your neck, bringing your chin down toward your clavicle. Stand as though there were a string connected to the top of your head, with a puppeteer pulling you upright. The shoulder girdle and the pelvis balance around the midline of the imaginary string.
Return your awareness to your feet. Where is your weight borne? Slowly shift the weight around to find the four corners of your feet: big toe, little toe, inner heel, outer heel. Press down through all of them evenly. Feel stable, grounded, steady as a mountain.
MOUNTAIN BALANCE
While mountain may feel very easy, you can find ways to make it challenging, and in the process learn to find neutral alignment in motion, for example, while running. First, try lifting up to stand on the balls of your feet. Notice how your body weight shifts forward and back to find stability. Are you arching your back? Bending your knees? Can you both lengthen and straighten without making yourself rigid? Try to find the same sense of stability you had with your heels down. Return your heels to the ground and evaluate the difference.
Next, shift your center of gravity by raising your arms overhead and lowering your shoulders. Let your arms be parallel, palms facing each other, just as they were when they rested at your sides in mountain pose. Again, draw your edges in toward your center, so that you feel tall and steady.
If you feel unstable, this and every balance pose can be performed near or against the wall. Feeling the contact of your body with the wall gives you feedback about your alignment, while practicing just near the wall imparts confidence, since you can reach or lean to it if you get wobbly.
By Sage Rountree
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