Arm balances are without a doubt some of my favorite asanas. I can think of nothing more exciting than the delicate balance between finding both the strength to lift up into an arm balance, and the grace to stay there. They are, however, too often reserved at as only advanced postures, and many beginning yoga students don’t get enough exposure or opportunity to discover the beauty of these poses in a level one or mixed levels class.

As a teacher, it can definitely be daunting to teach an arm balance to beginners. Risk of injury is always a concern, but if you know your students well, you should be able to determine their readiness for learning new poses. They are difficult asanas, that is certain, but in variation they can definitely be accessible to new students. There are many poses that help build up the strength needed to start flying in arm balances.

The focus for this blog entry is Bakasana – Crow Pose (sometimes called “Crane Pose”). This is one of the most beautiful, and most fun arm balances. It combines strength, core lift, and lightness to achieve a delicate, graceful posture that will eventually feel effortless. Beginners can work on building their arm and wrist strength by practicing L-stands at the wall. This is a half-hand stand in which your feet walk up the wall and your hands are flat on the floor, directly beneath your shoulders. Your body forms a 90-degree angle, hence the name “L-stand”. To get into the posture, sit with your back to the wall, tall spine, legs straight out in front of you. Take not of the distance at which your feet end, come away from the wall, and place your hands where your feet were. The hands should be shoulder width apart, but not wider, and fingers spread wide. Coming into a down-dog position, slowly begin to walk the feet up the wall until they are hip-height. It can be a little awkward to assess the height of your feet yourself, and it is common to raise the feet much higher than 90-degrees at first. The key to keeping your feet at hip-level is to press the feet firmly into the wall and shift the weight and the hips over the wrists. There should be one long, straight line from your wrists, head, shoulders, and tailbone, with a slight, natural curve in the lower back. Press the hands intensely into the mat or the floor and try and create space between your shoulders and neck.

Another fantastic strengthening pose to tone the shoulders and neck is Dolphin pose.  In dolphin the forearms are flat on the mat, shoulder-width apart. You can measure this distance by taking hold of your elbows with your hands and planting them on the mat before opening the forearms back out. You can either place the palms facing down on the mat, forearms parallel to each other, or you can interlace the fingers together forming a fist that you can lay flat on the mat. Once you’ve placed your arms in position (the knees are down on the mat during this), tuck the back toes under and lift the hips up into a down-dog position, straightening the backs of the legs. Press the forearms firmly into the mat, again lifting the shoulders away from the ears, creating a lot of space for your neck. Let your head hang completely, releasing any holding or tension in the neck. This pose can be varied by shifting the weight forward into a forearm plank with the heels, hips, and shoulders all in one straight line, and back up again into the full dolphin pose, using the breath to move: inhaling forward to plank, exhaling back to dolphin. (Often called “dolphin push-ups”)

Lastly, I would work on hip opening and squatting. Students can work on their squats at the wall with their sacrum pressed flat against the wall, allowing their hips to sink down towards the floor, or you can work at your mat. I particularly enjoy using the wall because it takes some of the work out of the pose and really allows you to release into the hips and keep the back straight without strain. Squatting is very important for coming into bakasana because the pose starts out extremely low and curled into the body. The big toes, heels, and ankle bones touch, and you are in a low squat with the knees spread wide. You will eventually move into lowering your torso as far down towards the floor as possible before planting the palms on the mat and squeezing the knees into the deltoids to prepare to take flight…But that’s something we’ll save for Part 2: moving into the pose!