standing yoga, standing poses, standing asanas

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Standing yoga poses: your source to build strong balance and core strength.

Standing yoga poses allow one to experience a sense of balance and calmness while building core strength. For all intensive purposes, we will break the standing postures in two groups:

Standing without an enormous amount of balance needed.

Standing with an enormous amount of balance needed.

We will begin with the first group that are gentle, and almost anyone can do them.

Tadasana the mountain pose is a foundational posture that we spend way too much time passing by, and not enough time really enjoying it's benefits.

Begin by centering your attention to the bottoms of your feet. Roll around from side to side and from front to back. Spread the toes. Press firmly and evenly into the mat.

Spread the calves out a bit by activating the peroneals muscles that are on the sides of the calves.

Press the hips back and wide, spreading the pelvis and tuck the tailbone slightly forward.

Draw the shoulders back and down and spread the palms to the front of the room.

Just linger here, feel how the belly draws in and how "hollow" you feel.

Samasthiti, with arms raised is a common transition that we use to flow from one posture to another.

From the strong mountain pose, on the next inhalation raise your arms up in a big round about fashion so the shoulders spread.

Notice how your arms belong to your shoulders.

Keep the palms reaching toward each other and exhale feel the breath begin to escape and the belly draws down.

Take a few more breaths and enjoy how liberated your shoulder blades feel.

Utkatasana the fierce pose is also known as the chair. These can be used when we really want to build quadriceps strength. There are a few important tricks to remember to make sure you get the most out of this pose.

From a tadasana, on your next inhale raise the arms as described above and exhale bend the knees.

Press them back over the heels and hover the hips back as if you were "hovering over a porta potty at the apple orchard." Yea you can relate to that scene!

The trick here is to tuck the tailbone slightly to take the aggressive bend out of the lower back. It looks and feels better as you hover in mid-air.

Find your sweet spot by playing with the posture, bending down further and pressing the hips slightly back more.

Settle in and enjoy as the quads "fire" is ignited.

Follow up with a good uttanasana, forward fold to help the muscles relax.

Yes this posture really comes in handy when you do encounter those scary toilet facilities!

We use the lunge to step back or forward in many series. Pay attention to alignment of the knee and ankle. Roll the shoulders back and extend the heart forward slightly. Gaze forward past the end of your nose.

Settle in if you are staying here for five breaths. Elongate your back leg strongly and feel the hip flexor warming as you draw the back leg's hip back and gently press the front leg's knee forward. Ahh, the union of opposite directions...Yoga!

Uttanasana or the forward fold has duel purposes: it is a transition and a great stretch. We use it in class so many times and fail to pay attention to the knees.

We pay special attention to the back of the legs as we need to respect the knees and not take the pose too far. Gently press the knees back until they feel firm but never lock them. Draw the kneecaps up and hold them firmly. If you can't reach the floor, use a block!

From tadasana, take the swan dive arms down to the floor and press the fingers in the mat or on a block. Keep the knees soft and gently begin to stretch them back toward the back of the room.

Take the tailbone up and back. Enjoy the stretch.

Sun Salutations a, and Sun salutation b.

are active vinyasa flows that utilize these poses well. Click to follow along as the slide show takes you from one pose to the next.

This "flat back" is also known as uttanasana. It is a transition posture as well as a nice stretch for the rhomboids (the muscles that "knit" the shoulder blades together). Roll the shoulders back and draw the arms toward the torso to deepen the stretch in your back and allow the legs to gently press back. Pay attention to the knees here as well. Gentle and soft, never lock them.

Virabhadrasana a (warrior a) has a lot of benefits including: building quadriceps strength and opening the hip flexors.

Pay special attention to foot placement as you want your back foot at a 45 degree angle for the warrior a, or you can come up on the ball of your back foot for the crescent warrior.

Raise your arms of if you are tired, place them to heart center.

Square off your hips and shoulders to the front of your mat.

Settle in deeply allowing the hips to draw down and the arms to reach up. We use many of these standing yoga postures to gently build strength, to provide weight bearing to increase bone density and to improve balance.

Now onto the standing poses that take a lot of balance. They range from simple to very difficult. Take your time learning them as not every pose is good for every body.

Click here to learn standing balance poses

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SBI!