Balance & Invert – Part 3: Low Balancing

Welcome to Part 3 of the Balance & Invert Series!

This series explores four categories of balancing in yoga:

1. ✅hand balancing 🖐✅
2. ✅forearm balancing 💪✅
3. ✅low balancing (like crow 🦅)✅
4. and standing balancing 🌲

Part 3 will focus on Low balancing most important mechanics and techniques to get you flying high on the mat!

Top 3 Low-Balancing Poses

The top 3 forearm-balancing poses in yoga are:

• crow. Finally!
• low crow. Basically crow on your forearms.
• firefly.🪳

General Low-balancing Mechanics

The top 3 forearm-balancing techniques you can put to use today are:

1. Keep your chin up. At first, we may think: “oh this is an inversion! I should put my head down”. However, we should keep our head up for low balancing so that we have our scope of balance more accessible to the plane of balance we know best: upright.
2. Don’t jump into crow or other low balancing postures. Instead, stack the knees in the center of your tricep and bring one foot off the ground then the other to let your body adjust to the weight transfer. ☺️
3. Keep the weight in your palms while actively pressing into fingertips. The fingers are the only thing holding you from falling onto your face, really press them down until you fall back into malasana!

Low Crow

Okay, you have been doing crow regularly, now you’re ready for low crow! Here we go

1. start in dolphin pose (downdog on elbows)
2. gaze between your two forearms, lock in that focus
3. bring one knee to the top of your outer tricep
4. round the middle spine A LOT to bring the knees higher up the arm
5. press into the palms to lift up away from the earth
6. lift one foot off the ground, then the other

Firefly

Next up…firefly! Here are some postures to work on beforehand:

1. Wide leg forward fold. Once you can touch your head on the ground, this will be a great start for the proper position in firefly.
2. Rabbit and malasana. This involved a lot of upper back mobility. From malasana, can you walk your arms under you, bend at the elbows like chaturanga and sit on your elbows? if not, try rabbit pose and work there until you can get your head between your knees.
3. Start with a foot hook. Instead of trying to straighten the legs, allow the arms to adjust to the weight and pressure of the legs on the upper arms but keeping the knees bent for the first 10-20 sessions.

Takeaway: Low balancing – crow, low crow, and firefly!

What’s will next Monday’s blog be about? Stay tuned.